Real-life sci-fi episodes including a self-inflected deathly itch, transcendental meditation, torture victims and genetically engineered rice and 26 stories glorifying these motifs grace the pages of the ninth book in a yearly series called “The Best American Science Writing 2009.” It’s a collection of science-related stories, edited by New York Times science columnist/writer Natalie Angier, and it reaches bookstores this month. The stories originally appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, Texas Monthly and Search magazines.
Angier gathered these science journalism anthologies on various scientific subjects meant to engage the reader. “They address topics both timely and timeless, specific and universal,” Angier writes in the introduction. The Pulitzer Prize-winning editor provides informational stories along with interviews to give readers a direct point of view, which provides scientific information about everyday events in a conversational context.
The style of writing incorporates a cross-section of techniques, but even so, each writer’s voice uses a combination of character development and dialogue to benefit the reader. In this way, the editor succeeds in providing basic scientific information to a nontechnical audience. While the 2003 edition contained epistemological analogies written by science professionals involving causation and quantitative research, the 2009 edition is successfully steeped in contemporaneous accounts from nonscience freelance and staff feature writers.
This inclusive message resonates well in Atul Gawande’s story, “The Itch.” The background is the medical history of a former junkie infected with HIV/AIDS who has developed shingles. During the transition from addict to normalcy, the former professional develops an incurable scalp itch. Using a new technique, researchers were able to regress the pain crippling her daily activities but caused another patient to scratch himself to death.
While it is true that testimonials attract an audience, it does not necessarily mean that readers will have empathy. However, Annie Murphy Paul’s story, “The First Ache,” is a template for engaging female readers. It is a heart-wrenching story about how the fetus reacts to pain.
“A Tall, Cool Drink of ...Sewage?” by Elizabeth Royte also adds to the impulsive structure of the book. Tracing the path of contaminants in drinking water will generate interest from readers because of current issues regarding the quality of our nation’s most important nonrenewable resource.
That America is a nation where personal determination dictates quality health care is the thesis in “A Journey Inside the Brain.” The author, Oliver Sacks, describes to complicated barriers in receiving a correct diagnosis of a cerebral tumor that could have cost him his life as the surgical method for drilling into his skull is vividly relayed to readers.
Gary Wolf’s story, “Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn?” gives students hope during exam week. Still, Wolf writes that students have to “swim in the episteme” of a subject to memorize it. His interpretation of constantly engulfing a subject several times a day is descriptive of rote learning. Isn’t tallied studying what professors expect?
Alex Kotlowitz in “Blocking the Transmission of Violence” writes about a qualitative experiment challenging violent ex-cons to live a life of peace. Ex-criminals in violent neighborhoods elicit peace and harmony to a community enshrined in self-destruction. Neither Jesus Christ nor Buddha would take a suicidal walk into the middle of a gang fight and plead that participants forgive and forget. However, discussing violence as a contagious disease that could be isolated to single carriers of aggressive infection did help reduce neighborhood crime, according to Kotlowitz.
Consumers around the world discussing behavior between corporate farm strategies and biologically engineered food plants can find Martin Enserink dramatically presenting this ongoing debate in “Tough Lessons from Golden Rice.” His conversation about biotechnology is ammunition for sustainable farming. “Golden rice did not attack the underlying problem of poverty,” Enserink quotes a Greenpeace activist.
This brief synopsis of “The Best American Science Writing Stories 2009” does not encompass the entirety of the book, not even close. Some of the writing trophies Angier deemed admirable include topics on computer science, physics and evolution. They all play a role in capturing the tradition of populated features. Apparently she believed this style of writing would initiate reflective social discourses as opposed to monumental scientific thoughts. Nevertheless, some writers simplified science to its simplest common denominator. But some of the writers’ science qualifications, reputations and influences are subjective, which lessens the credibility of the message at times.
Writers with limited scientific knowledge cannot properly scrutinize the methodology of the sciences, as the transformations of science, technology and medicine cannot be condensed to generalizations of entertainment. Yet, overall, introducing science technology to a general audience is commendable; when any writer works to engage readers with stories about the social benefits of science, technology and medicine, everyone involved, from readers to researchers, appreciates it.
New writing collection simplifies science
Published: Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Updated: Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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