Science and Survival [Hardcover]

Barry Commoner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Viking Adult (October 28, 1966)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670621471
• ISBN-13: 978-0670621477
• Product Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,878,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Science and Survival, October 29, 2001

By 

Steve Merkley (Delafield, WI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Science and Survival (Hardcover)

This book was a non-fiction book that was written in 1967 and was mostly based on the United States. However, Commoner did talk about worldwide effects too.
The characters or people he dealt with in his book were government officials and scientists who kept information secret, other privately funded scientists who found serious mistakes in government testing, and everyone else in society.
Science is advancing before consequences of nuclear tests and other tests are known. Commoner urges citizens for reform in government policies to protect us from the evils of nuclear fallout. The story is quite interesting, because he describes a valid point even with the limited knowledge he had over thirty years ago. He warns of the danger of fallout in this quote: "To understand the biological effects of fallout we must know what happens at each step of this complicated chain of events. There is now a fairly complete published record of this knowledge. This record reveals a number of important errors in our understanding of the problem, which remained uncorrected until the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere was in full swing and fallout had been massively disseminated into the environment."
This book was left open-ended. He called everyone to make changes in the system. This story still continues. As we continue to pollute our earth, the earth will eventually not be safe from mankind. Only scientists and society will decide how this drama will unfold.
The theme is that political power and moral judgment should be used to keep mankind and science from inevitably destroying our race. He says that society should protest against the evils of government testing.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in science or interested in the survival of the human race on this planet. I definitely discourage anyone with a short attention span or anyone with limited knowledge in science from reading this book. It gets very scientific and somewhat boring in some parts, but for the most part puts forth a good message.