The dubious value of popular/simplified science books

[Eponine]

I've read a handful of nonfiction books about different scientific topics, and it seems like a group of subjects where it's particularly difficult to bridge the gap in knowledge between anecdotal "science is so cool" stories and actually learning anything. It certainly isn't a way that I would recommend anyone gaining a real level of scientific knowledge, but I can see how such books could be useful to expose people to new ideas and concepts.

Obviously, not everyone is going to be qualified to thoroughly understand a multitude of scientific topics. Even among those who have a good knowledge base, there are too many specialties for anyone to be an expert at everything. For those who don't have a scientific education, there's going to be limited benefit in doing hundreds of hours of problems in each field. What level of knowledge is necessary to be able to make informed decisions about science-related issues or have a decent basic understanding of how physical things work? And is that level attainable by reading simplified books about science written for the layman?

I'm sure that there's some benefit in having even an anecdotal familiarity with important scientists and experiments, but in a lot of ways it seems more like a class signifier than anything - along the same lines as we laugh at the poor idiot on the street who does not know that George Washington was the first American president. It seems terribly ignorant, but as someone who isn't a historian, teacher, sociologist, political scientist, etc., the knowledge of who George Washington was has probably not improved my life or my decision making in any real way, except by helping to define my social class (arguably, having all these facts accumulate into a big picture about the world is a benefit, while the inclusion or leaving out of most single facts isn't that significant).

Have you found that these types of books have improved your knowledge or understanding in a useful way? If so, which were particularly enlightening?

[Hello World]

But how else would I engage in pretentious discussions about quantum psychics in the Bakker thread if it weren’t for these books?

[Spockydog]

Have you found that these types of books have improved your knowledge or understanding in a useful way? If so, which were particularly enlightening?

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog

[Sci-2]

Isn't Popsci more about social engineering than education/elucidation?

For example, seems like a good deal of work has gone into making the MWI a publicly accepted theory despite the incredible nature of the claim.

[Darth Richard II]

MWI?

[Spockydog]

Many Worlds Interpretation

[maarsen]

Many Worlds Interpretation

Somebody has read How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog.

[Spockydog]

Woof!

[Darth Richard II]

Oh I thought it was goign to be something really stupid like Vaccines causing Ebola, or something :P

[unJon]

Buy and read Thinking Fast and Slow right now. Everyone. It will also help Eponine answer all the questions she asked in the OP.

[Happy Ent]

Epo, I think you’d have to be more concrete.

I read quite a few popular science books. I learn a lot from them. It’s the best reading experience that I know.

I also know a lot of popular science books that are absolute hogwash. They will actually make you dumber, in a way that no other medium can do.

Knowing which is which is really hard. I use reviews (in New Scientist, say) a lot. There was a good thread on this very forum about recommended books as well. You need know that you can trust the book.

[Happy Ent]

Since you asked for recommendations: start with Kahneman, Thinking, fast and slow, Pinker, The Language Instinct, Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.

[Eponine]

Buy and read Thinking Fast and Slow right now. Everyone. It will also help Eponine answer all the questions she asked in the OP.

I've read it. ETA: And I've read more academically oriented articles by Kahneman while getting a degree in mineral economics. (And although I think it's a valuable book, I could have started pretty much the same thread about popular books in the social sciences). I think that for a scientific issue such as climate change, for example, there's a significant difference in understanding what climate change is as a concept, understanding environmental science/ecology/meteorology etc., and understanding the conclusions and potential paths as statistics (which is more of what Kahneman is addressing). Perhaps the best course of action for the non-scientist is to study statistics but trust scientists on the specialized details. However, I was initially thinking more about using books that aren't textbooks to increase your understanding of specific scientific fields.

[Eponine]

Epo, I think you’d have to be more concrete.

I read quite a few popular science books. I learn a lot from them. It’s the best reading experience that I know.

I also know a lot of popular science books that are absolute hogwash. They will actually make you dumber, in a way that no other medium can do.

Knowing which is which is really hard. I use reviews (in New Scientist, say) a lot. There was a good thread on this very forum about recommended books as well. You need know that you can trust the book.

I didn't want to be more concrete because I'm not really asking for help in evaluating books that I've already read or intend to read. I'm not so arrogant that I think that outside input is worthless, but I was thinking more about the person who was starting from a more limited knowledge base than you or I, vs. the mass of simplified science books that are available and sometimes popular.

Like, you already can discern the difference between value and hogwash. You have an active interest in following educated reviews. You have the educational/intellectual background to understand books written at a higher level. I guess I was asking less of a lit forum question, and more of a general question about how much the average person benefits from exposure to New York Times bestseller type scientific non-fiction. Looking at a Googled list, I know some are good, some look like real crap. Some don't seem to be written by people with any real scientific credentials. It seems extremely hit and miss, so that I'm uncertain about whether this kind of reading is increasing the amount of scientific knowledge among non-scientists or whether it's mostly giving ignorant people false certainty and a veneer of understanding. (As far as the question about the level attainable by the layman, I guess the followup is how much footwork that person has to put in to find the *right* books to read rather than trusting in popularity).

So for some concrete examples, I've returned to The Theoretical Minimum (Susskind and Hrabovsky). I find that the level of math would probably be inaccessible to someone who hadn't had calculus and had forgotten a lot of high school level math. I read A Brief History of Almost Everything (Bryson) for entertainment more than education, and was mildly entertained and barely educated, but it would probably be at least a little useful for someone with no scientific background to read something about the history of various experiments. I find it somewhat hard to hit the area between math problems and anecdotes, especially in physics. I'm (at least theoretically, no pun intended) willing and able to sit down and churn out the math for some real albeit elementary problems, which not everyone is willing to do. I won't get to the point where I'm doing math for serious quantum physics, unless for some reason I decided to make it a dedicated area of study (in which case, I'd probably just sign up for a non-degree class at Mines). Despite this reading, I'm not going to have that great a knowledge of physics, and I accept that. But given that, I would probably get just as much out of reading about concepts rather than doing any math at all?

[Happy Ent]

[…] I was thinking more about the person who was starting from a more limited knowledge base than you or I, vs. the mass of simplified science books that are available and sometimes popular.

OK, thanks.

Yes, I worry about that as well. For instance, every time I pass a display of whatever Malcolm Gladwell has just published, I want to smack a “The Happy Ent has not approved this book” label on them.

As you say, there seem to be precious few ways of separating the good from the bad, in this genre as in others. I don’t know what to do about that, except to talk about it like in this thread. Good topic.

[Happy Ent]

The Theoretical Minimum is on my “maybe, someday” reading list as well. I’d love to write a book like that about my own field (algorithms).

[Darth Richard II]

A good rule of thumb is to not read books about physics written by gym teachers.

[Jo498]

To me the problem seems less simplification per se, but a combination with presenting strange ideas from the fringe that sound vaguely great, but cannot be evaluated by a layman.

It has been ages since I read it, but Hawking's first popular bestseller "A brief history of time" must be a prime offender. IIRC he is basically selling a mathematical trick (going to an "imaginary time parameter") as an answer to big questions about cosmology and Everything. I do not think anyone without fairly advanced (you can certainly graduate without it) of mathematical physics would see the sleight of hand, although maths or physics majors would probably at least suspect it. Usually, one does not understand anything at all, but is led to believe Hawking has solved the Mystery of the Big Bang, God and whatnot.

[SilentRoamer]

Isn't Popsci more about social engineering than education/elucidation?

For example, seems like a good deal of work has gone into making the MWI a publicly accepted theory despite the incredible nature of the claim.

Yeah it boggles the mind. Especially when certain famous ex guitarist physics professors claim on a UK national TV show that in another Earth Liverpool won the Premier League... to say I was mildly annoyed at this would be an understatement. It wasn't the implication that this COULD be true it was spoken as a fact. Even accepting an MWI interpretation of the Universe/Multiverse then this would not necessarily be a fact. It is not like an infinite set of variable over finite time produce infinite results.... Like the idea a monkey will eventually type Shakespeare - that is a very annoying fallacy regarding infinities.

MWI annoys me so much because it is completely theoretical and by definition cannot be proved.

The Arxiv servers and articles (most specifically the summarized works that delve less into the math) are very good - speaking specifically of Cosmology/Astronomy field here of course.

There is a problem with this sort of thing in televised media as well... don't even get me started on Kaku!

[Seiche]

You have an active interest in following educated reviews. You have the educational/intellectual background to understand books written at a higher level. I guess I was asking...a general question about how much the average person benefits from exposure to New York Times bestseller type scientific non-fiction.

What type of benefit are you wondering if people are receiving?

Feeling enjoyment at reading something that interests you or an increase in self-esteem for digesting a bit of challenging content might be some of the benefits enjoyed by people reading scientific non-fiction. You might even say these types of benefits can accrue to the individual even if the content itself is hogwash.

What I think you're getting at beyond these types of benefits is the question of whether reading a given book would empower an individual to make an informed choice which would be 'more correct' than a choice they might make if they had not read the book. Is that in the ballpark of what you're asking about?

I think the answer would key on both (a) the individual's ability to understand the information and incorporate it into their decision making process (the intellect question you raised) and (b) their awareness of confirmation bias and their interest in combatting it.