The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Shape of Wonder by Alan Lightman and Martin Rees

A book like this shouldn't really be necessary. If we all had a shared understanding of why science matters, what it is and all the things scientists contribute to our society (and have for centuries in the past), then many of the arguments in this book would feel obvious and perhaps even repetitive. Unfortunately, our world isn't that way. Today trust in science itself is routinely undermined by non-scientist personalities who build cults around themselves and encourage the belief that only they can be trusted.

To counter this movement, two renowned physicists teamed up to write this book (just released last week) that offers the most basic of explanations about science, and then goes on to tell the stories of scientists to humanize them as real people with human motivations:

"It strikes us that the lack of understanding of the daily activities, thinking and motivations of scientists may be a factor in the mistrust of scientific information in some of the public today--and in the feeling that many scientists are out of touch with their societies ... The mistrust of scientists and their institutions, for whatever reasons, is an urgent problem."

The one missing element from the book that perhaps could have made the argument even stronger would have been an exploration of the many ethically compromised scientists from history such as Dr. D. Mark Hegsted (​paid by the sugar industry to shift public perception​) who popularized theories that were later proven to be biased or incorrect and therefore played a role in corrupting faith in science itself. Exploring their shortcomings and how we might uncover or discount such charlatans ourselves would have added a dimension to the arguments of the book.

Despite this small criticism, the biggest theory that The Shape of Wonder effectively proves is that there is a powerful link between how much people trust science and how much they trust the scientists themselves. And that's unlikely to change.

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About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I share a new “non-obvious” book selection. Titles featured here may be new or classic books, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great reads that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.