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Natalie Angier

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science Hardcover – May 1, 2007

by Natalie Angier (Author)

4.1 333 ratings

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The Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and author of Woman draws on interviews with hundreds of the world's top scientists to offer an entertaining guide to scientific literacy, exploring the fundamental principles of the major scientific disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy and their link to the world around us. 75,000 first printing.

Print length

293 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date

May 1, 2007
Dimensions

6.5 x 1 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0618242953
ISBN-13

978-0618242955
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer-winning science writer Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography) distills everything you've forgotten from your high school science classes and more into one enjoyable book, a guide for the scientifically perplexed adult who wants to understand what those guys in lab coats on the news are babbling about, in the realms of physics, chemistry, biology, geology or astronomy. More important even than the brief rundowns of atomic theory or evolution—enlivened by interviews with scientists like Brian Greene—are the first three chapters on scientific thinking, probability and measurement. These constitute the basis of a scientific examination of the world. Understand these principles, Angier argues, and suddenly, words like "theory" and "statistically significant" have new meaning. Angier focuses on a handful of key concepts, allowing her to go into some depth on each; even so, her explanations can feel rushed, though never dry. Angier's writing can also be overadorned with extended metaphors that obscure rather than explain, but she eloquently asks us to attend to the universe: to really look at the stars, at the plants, at the stones around us. This is a pleasurable and nonthreatening guide for anyone baffled by science. (May 8)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography), a science journalist at the New York Times, was writing an article on whale genetics when her editor suggested that she define the term mammal for her readers and confirm that mammals are animals. That was the last straw for Angier, who nevertheless writes with respect for The Canon's intended audience. She incorporates imaginative metaphors, concise analogies, and jokes into her writing, which result in clear and accessible explanations of complex ideas. A few critics were annoyed by the scientific "sugarcoating" and the dizzying pace of the book, but most were impressed by Angier's lucid prose and clever word play.

From Booklist

Popular indifference toward science regularly motivates writers to attempt mass-market enlightenment. Travel writer Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) was a best-selling smash, and Angier, better credentialed in science writing and the author of the blockbuster Woman: An Intimate Geography (1999), now makes her bid. In contrast with Bryson's fact- and history-heavy approach, Angier's way of reaching the sciencephobic relies on love of language. Angier deploys extravagantly cascading metaphors, puns, and tangents to plant awareness of central scientific concepts for those who may be vague on what causes the seasons. Covering physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and evolutionary and cell biology, Angier induces from scientists in each discipline a zeal comparable to her own for figural explanations of science. Scientific thinking, though, radically differs from our subjective experience of the natural world in a way that Angier creatively illustrates in explaining theory, probability, and scale. Some readers may find Angier's wordplay excessively indulgent, but her core audience will delight in her ecstatic exuberance for all things scientific. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Every sentence sparkles with wit and charm. . . it all adds up to an intoxicating cocktail of fine science writing." --Richard Dawkins

"Natalie Angier provides a masterful, authoritative synthesis of the state of knowledge across the entire scientific landscape." --Howard Gardner, Harvard University, author of Five Minds for the Future and Frames of Mind

"An essential experience . . . How dare she write so artfully, explain so brilliantly, rendering us scientists simultaneously proud and inarticulate!" --Leon Lederman, Nobel laureate

"Every single sentence . . . sparkles with enough intelligence and wit to delight science-phobes and science-philes alike. I loved it!" --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bait and Switch and Nickel and Dimed

"Natalie Angier makes planets and particles sexy. . .She turns guys with lab coats and pocket protectors into Daniel Craig." --Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind

"Exuberant . . . She writes with such verve, humor, and warmth." Library Journal Starred

"This bestselling author's love of words is writ large here . . . the excitement and challenge of science [is] masterfully conveyed." Kirkus Reviews, Starred

"Angier is a nimble stylist with a playful sense of alliteration and consonance." --Ben Dickinson Elle

"An excellent introduction (or refresher) to the beautiful basics of science, and I hope it is widely read." --Steven Pinker The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

NATALIE ANGIER writes about biology for the New York Times, where she has won a Pulitzer Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science journalism award, and other honors. She is the author of The Beauty of the Beastly, Natural Obsessions, and Woman, named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, People, National Public Radio, Village Voice, and Publishers Weekly, among others.
A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, Woman is a text so necessary and abundant and true that all efforts of its kind, for decades before and after it, will be measured by it (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Angier lives with her husband and daughter outside of Washington, D.C.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition (May 1, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 293 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0618242953
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0618242955
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #802,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #279 in Scientific Reference

Customer Reviews:
4.1 333 ratings

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NATALIE ANGIER writes about biology for the New York Times, where she has won a Pulitzer Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science journalism award, and other honors. She is the author of The Beauty of the Beastly, Natural Obsessions, and Woman, named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, People, National Public Radio, Village Voice, and Publishers Weekly, among others. A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, Woman is “a text so necessary and abundant and true that all efforts of its kind, for decades before and after it, will be measured by it” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Angier lives with her husband and daughter outside of Washington, D.C.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

333 global ratings

5 star		53%
4 star		25%
3 star		11%
2 star		8%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from the United States

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DJG

The Beautiful Basics of Natural Science

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 1, 2023

Verified Purchase

In “The Canon,” Natalie Angier takes her readers along on a systematically referenced and indexed, rapid drive through the concepts, tools and data of the natural sciences, in an often irreverent and amusing, but always informative and provocative manner. The result is an inclusive work that is eminently worth the time and attention required.

Helpful

Priceless...with disclaimer

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 28, 2007

Verified Purchase

In the United States nowadays, a person can graduate from college having taken only a couple of token soft science classes, and these may have been adjusted (dumbed down) for humanities majors. A surprising percentage (well over half?) of our US population doesn't believe in evolution. In the industrialized world, we rank dead last for this statistic, except for Turkey, which is caught up in the Muslim version of intelligent design. The vast majority of our state and federal legislators are not educated in the sciences, but in the humanities. No wonder they are so easily misled when it comes to making informed decisions about, for example, climate change.

A decision to side with mainstream science is almost always the right decision, but it would be nice to know what mainstream science is saying (read "Discover" or other science magazines), why it is so valid, and how the scientific method works. Of course, it's not perfect - it's administered by people, with all their tendencies to delusion, misuse of data, and greed; but it's relentlessly self-correcting and it has consistently provided the most usable strategy to find out how things work.

Natalie Angier has written a book that will help us with our scientific literacy. The first three chapters cover basics about the scientific method. The human default method of decision-making, gut instinct, worked well for hunter-gatherers, but today we can do better. Read these chapters if you don't read anything else (one chapter inspired me to order a book on probabilities). The next six chapters are about the specific fields of physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, geology, or astronomy.

How much physics can you learn in 34 pages? Well, you get a feel for how and why electrons can be harnessed to power our homes - or perhaps you'd like to know how the Houdini-like maneuver, "quantum leap" got its name. The chapter on chemistry gives an overview of chemical bonds - why DNA has hydrogen bonds, a weaker type (so they can easily unzip for reading by messenger RNA) and stronger types of bonds are on nitrogen (and why that makes them useful as explosives). In the evolution chapter, you learn why "nothing in biology makes any sense outside of evolution," with a strong outline on the basics. Despite what you may have heard, "Natural selection is about as nonrandom a force as you can imagine." - Richard Dawkins.

In the chapter on molecular biology, you learn how a cell bristles with proteins, looking (if you could lift the lid and look inside) like a beehive or ant-bed of activity, but at fast-forward speed. This beautifully written chapter reminded me of Lewis Thomas's classic, "Lives of a Cell" from 1974. Geologists immediately descend onto the site when a new tunnel is blasted through a hillside. We live on a planet that records its own history and each stone is a potential Rosetta stone. Astronomy is among the most popular of sciences, "chaster than other sciences, purer of heart and freer of impurities, mutagens, teratogens, and animal testing." It answers the eternal questions: Who are we? Where do we come from?

Each chapter covers enough basics to be able to provide a strong finish. For the scientifically challenged, for the reader who needs a science booster, or for the confirmed science nut like me, don't let this book get away. It is even available in audio so you can buff up your education the easy way.

Now for the disclaimer: The 5 stars is for the subject matter. Her deliver is "too cute" to the point of distraction. The last book I recall of this type was Bill Bryson's - "A Short History of Nearly Everything." His book doesn't suffer from maladies of this sort and is superior.

36 people found this helpful

Helpful

Matthew Fields

Flowery Gossip Barely About Science

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 13, 2008

Verified Purchase

Natalie Angier can definitely write interestingly about science facts. I feel that if she turns her attention to biographies of living scientists, the results will be wonderful. But the hype for this book is undeserved.

The Canon is full of enthusiasm, bubbling prose, brilliant puns and autobiographic images--components that make a fashionable human-interest magazine article or work of fiction. What it makes up for in style and earnest good intentions, it lacks in content and clarity. The widely-praised opening chapters on the nature of scientific thinking, while giving lip service to the unexplained concept of "control", never actually clarify the nature of critical inquiry, the detective-story misdirection and pitfalls and reasons for proceeding systematically and questioning continuously. Angier attempts to use the board game of Mastermind as a metaphor for science, but leaves the overwhelming impression that she just doesn't get Mastermind, is driven to tears by it, and doesn't get how people do real science, either. Far better it would have been to tell a real story of scientists getting things wrong first, then getting them more nearly right later, in each chapter. The sparse sponge of facts amid its 264 pages of anecdote and imagery are largely out of context of each other, and completely out of context of the fascinating story of how they were discovered. For instance, even if you leave out the discovery of quantum dynamics, she has missed the opportunity to explain its connections with acoustics and spectroscopy.

I was going to give The Canon higher marks for giving information without disinformation, and then a whole paragraph of disinformation showed up, blaming the combustion of meteors on friction (air friction cools them--it's the shock wave of compressed air before them that heats them until some of them are slowed enough to reach the ground extremely cold) induced by the speed at which they zip around the solar system (the earth's gravity is the main accelerator of their falls).

I'm recommending that anybody who is thinking of buying The Canon instead get Asimov's New Guide to Science, or any similar book by Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan. Yes, those books are dated, but any book of science is dated, because science doesn't sit still. Even in the short months since The Canon's publication, evidence for successful photography of planets of other stars has emerged.

Natalie Angier's The Canon sets out to deliver a basic course in what all non-scientists should know about science. It delivers a catalog of facts wrapped in rhapsodic words. But it fails to deliver science itself, its pitfalls and corrupting influences, and, most of all, its painstaking, open, social methods for self-correction and purification. An understanding of these processes is critical to every citizen's informed judgment.

25 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Nick the Pedant

Entertaining and informative almost to the end

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 5, 2013

Verified Purchase

As other reviewers have said, this is a very American book, which has its drawbacks: the intellectually curious victim of British high-school specialisation, shunted to the Arts Side at an absurdly early age, has perhaps more to gain from the book than any other kind of human being, and it would be a pity if such readers were put off by unintelligible references to US popular culture. Other reviewers have also complained about the archness of the style (all those twee triples) but I found this less and less irritating as I read on, perhaps because there's less of it, perhaps because the chapters happen to be arranged in decreasing order of my previous knowledge. I thought this book was a cracking read and would recommend the first eight chapters to any other non-scientist, with special kudos for the two brilliant chapters on biology. Unfortunately the final chapter, on astronomy, is a serious let-down: the lengthy passage on evidence for the Big Bang didn't convince me one bit (doesn't the author know what the graph of the exponential function looks like to the left of the vertical axis?) and the pages on extra-terrestrial life seem entirely content-free (for which there is a good reason, but no excuse).

2 people found this helpful

W Hood

Thunderous

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

An inspiring expose of some fundamental science, written in an engaging style which exposes and reinforces the world of cosmology, evolution, physics, chemistry and molecular biology by setting them against routine day-to-day observations. The wonders of the cosmos are demystified but the explanations/ analyses are themselves wondrous.

Kalinda Patel

Excellent read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 23, 2013

Verified Purchase

Science is brought to life. I will be re-reading this and recommending it to my GCSE students and anyone else who enjoys science and good writing.

June Miller

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

good buy

Sumaya

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 14, 2015

Verified Purchase

Perfect

See all reviews

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