Customer Reviews

The Best American Science Writing 2002 (Best American Science Writing)

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These essays are phenomenal- all intriguing and all lingering in our minds well after reading. Science writing is an art I particularly relish. The math is gone- and that's good- indeed all of the qualifiers for a scientific career or training are reduced to one- fascination- and there's plenty of that in this collection. My favorite author, in this category is Jerome Groopman, M.D. a feature writer for the New Yorker and a practicing oncologist. His topic is cell-speak, the astounding discovery that cells communicate between distances. The scientific term is `signal transduction.' Groopman's prose evokes molecular music receiving and answering and generating movement. Skeleton like structures are woven by these messages and the whole stunning revelation becomes political, economic and religious in its challenges and possibilities. The least of which is nothing less than universal design and grand scale unity of all matter. Microscopic matters, as equally valuable to the private sector laboratories as to the religious nature of being and infinity.
Athol Gwande, another New Yorker writer, writes about the painful ramifications of excessive blushing. The embarrassment is so defeating that people undergo surgery- and not minor surgery- just to control it. Post surgery, people report a quality of life surge that makes the risks and costs well worth it. Perhaps the most allegorical piece is a study of the plastic surgeon who dreams of giving people wings and other improvements as implanting rods and cones to make our vision more spectacular. These dreams are oddly absent when the same physician attends to remodeling a face eaten away by cancer. At odds most dramatically by the callow bedside manner and the narcisistic ego of this Leonardo of the dream. Condemned by colleagues and despised by the residents we try to ascertain if he is a visionary, Icarus or would he create another Frankenstein.
The strange and the miraculous are in turn celebrated and given to dark reservations and caution. All of the entries are nothing less than Magnificent!

This is a great series. Don't miss any of it. Back order old issues... it's worth it.

I have had an interesting experience with this 2002 volume of The Best American Science Writing. I picked it up in 2003 for the article on Joe Rosen, the plastic surgeon. I read that one, then forgot about the book. In the last year to year-and-a-half, I've been reading more about diet and exercise, including Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories. Just sifting through some old books now in late 2009, I noticed Taubes name on the cover of this book and flipped it open to discover that one of Taubes early articles on dietary fat was included. The editors made a good predictive decision in selecting Taubes' article for inclusion. Also, if I had read the Taubes article at the time maybe I would have had 5 years head start on my reading in diet and exercise. These are good endorsements of this volume of essays, and maybe of the series as a whole.

Reading further, I found the essays inconsistent for literary merit. Mary Rogan's article on Josef Penninger has interesting subject matter, but is written in an annoyingly self-conscious style and latches onto American/modern themes like the oppression of the genius by the system and the panacea cure for cancer. Good correctives are (1) learning that Penninger has since moved back from Toronto to Austria (where he could never live again--oh, the melodrama!) and (2) Jerome Groopman's article in this same volume on the futility of predicting an immanent cure for cancer.

Taubes' and Groopman's scientific cold water bathes are filled out by more skeptical articles like Satel's on race and medical conditions. Articles like Julian Dibbell's on early web security will take the later day reader nostalgically back.

As another reviewer says, these are good essays and excellent doctor's office and airplane material. Back issues are probably worthwhile as well.

These are exactly the type of articles I love to read on airplanes trips or in doctors' offices. Real science written for non-scientists.