Freedom to Tinker

Below is my list of six must-read books on science and technology. I know: I asked you for five, and now I’ve allowed myself six. I just couldn’t narrow it down any more.

Naturally, I include only books that I have read; and I must admit that I haven’t read many of the books suggested by readers. You all have added considerably to my books-to-read list.

The hardest aspect of this task was that I read most of candidate books long ago, so I no longer remember clearly what I learned from which book. And I’m sure the forty-year-old me of today would disagree with the twenty-year-old me who read some of these books. With that caveat, here is my list, in alphabetical order:

Harold Abelson & Gerald Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. A serious computer science textbook, this imparts more computer science ideas than any other book I have seen. It will be a challenging book for many people, but heeding Dan Simon’s advice to respect my audience, I’m including it anyway. If this book goes over your head, try Hofstadter’s Goedel, Escher, Bach which is easier to read, but is longer, shallower, and less focused.

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything. This is a light and entertaining whirlwind tour of modern science. If you’re going to learn science and technology in only six books, you’ll need to have one general survey to fill in the gaps, and this is it.

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. Evolution may be the most important single idea in science, so we need a book about its mechanisms and implications. Darwin’s Origin of Species is very good, but it’s too far out of date. This is a good modern introduction to evolutionary thinking.

Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Another challenging book. (It’s probably not a coincidence that I chose serious, challenging books in the two fields I know best.) Feynman may be the best physics teacher who ever lived. This book is based on his legendary Physics 1 lectures at Caltech. I took the same course years later, and it still bore Feynman’s stamp.

Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things. I had a hard time with this one. I felt I needed a book on general engineering, but no book stood out from the crowd. This book examines how the design of everyday objects like forks and paperclips has evolved over time. Petroski uses this history to illustrate the interplay between form and function, and how engineers go about improving even the most mundane objects.

Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate. This is by far the best book I have seen on the nature vs. nurture debate. It points the way to a more civil and sensible discussion of the impact of biology on human nature and social policy.

Given only six books to introduce science and technology, I had to omit entire disciplines. The biggest absence on my list is mathematics, which is covered only partially and indirectly by Feynman. Probability and statistics are especially important, but I just couldn’t think of a good introductory book about them.

Last week, I asked readers to name five must-read books on science and technology. The results are below. I included nominations from my comments section, from the comments over at Crooked Timber, and from any other blogs I spotted. This represents the consensus of about thirty people.

The most-mentioned book was Hofstadter’s Goedel, Escher, Bach, which received eight votes. Interestingly, GEB was the only book that received negative votes (urging me not to include it). One of the negative voters called it a “show-off book”.

The results:

Six books received two votes: Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Feynman’s The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Medawar’s The Limits of Science, Pinker’s The Blank Slate, and Schneier’s Beyond Fear. Eighty-five books received a single mention.

As in the university presidents’ survey, the respondents to my query showed a notable lack of consensus.

I’ll post my list tomorrow.