"THE BEST" SCIENCE WRITING OFTEN NEGLECTS CHEMISTRY

by Rebecca Rawls

As someone who makes a living by writing about science, I was delighted to see two new annual series get underway this fall, each aiming to pull together excellent examples of science writing. One, edited by Pulitzer Prize nominee James Gleick and published by Ecco, is simply called The Best American Science Writing. The other, from Scribner, has almost the same name: The Best American Science and Nature Writing. It's edited by two-time National Magazine Award winner David Quammen.

I've now read both books, and both are nicely done. They draw their selections from many of the same sources, including the New Yorker, the Sciences, and the New York Times. Some of the same writers, and in one case even the same essay, appear in both books.

As the title perhaps suggests, Quammen's collection leans a little more toward nature writing, offering essays on canoeing Wyoming's Green River and a wildlife safari to South Georgia Island, for example, that wouldn't find a place in Gleick's volume.

"I don't think these editors set out to deliberately neglect chemistry."

But both books, I'm sorry to say, have little to offer about chemistry. The closest either comes is in the essay both books share, a beautifully written recollection by neurologist and author Oliver Sacks of his childhood fascination with chemistry that first appeared in the New Yorker. Gleick follows his excerpt from Sacks's essay with a reminiscence by jazz pianist Don Asher, originally published in Harper's magazine, of Asher's agonizing attempt as a young man to meet his family's expectations of him by becoming a chemist, despite his natural inclination to be a musician. Only when working in chemistry brought on a mental breakdown did Asher and his family accept that this wasn't the life for him.

Of the two, Sacks's essay treats chemistry much more positively. But the chemistry he writes about, grounded in the classification of minerals and the ordering of the periodic table that occurred in the mid-19th century, is a far cry from the modern science.

That's not the picture these books present of other sciences. They include selections that explain with great clarity and precision the intricacies of viral vectors in gene therapy, for example, and the challenges of attempting to detect neutrinos at the South Pole. In general, they do a fine job of presenting contemporary issues and challenges scientists are working on and thinking about-except when it comes to chemistry.

I don't think these editors set out to deliberately neglect chemistry. Instead, I worry that these books may actually reflect what "the best" American science writing looks like today.

Readers of this essay already know that chemistry is a fascinating, dynamic, central science, every bit as relevant and interesting to contemporary American life as any field of human endeavor. But how often do you read about it, outside of the pages of C&EN, of course?

. . . those of us who know the field aren't making much of an impression on the wider society.

There are some fine writers who do regularly write about chemistry. Roald Hoffmann, chemistry Noble Laureate and professor at Cornell University, writes a regular column for American Scientist, for example. And, to be fair, Quammen's book lists one of Hoffmann's essays, "A Really Moving Story," in its appendix of other notable examples of science and nature writing. Harvard's George Whitesides can capture in a paragraph or two both the essence and the fascination of almost any aspect of the chemistry of surfaces. John Emsley, the British science writer and chemist, has made a career of writing about chemistry for the general public, and Philip Ball, former physical sciences editor for Nature, certainly includes chemistry in the scope of material he writes engagingly about.

Yet considering how many fascinating things are going on in chemistry today, these two collections suggest that those of us who know the field aren't making much of an impression on the wider society.

These books are a reminder that such neglect may have a cost, for society, and, perhaps, for chemistry.

At a conference in Houston [in October], I heard Thomas A. Steitz, biochemistry professor at Yale University, talking about the ribosome, the almost unimaginably complex living machine that constructs the proteins that we are all made of. Steitz's lab is one of the rarefied few where people have actually seen a major component of the ribosome at atomic resolution. And Steitz has the gift of being able to step back and describe in words his own fascination with this amazing molecular device and what its structure is revealing about how it works. Unlocking the structure of the ribosome is a fascinating adventure, and the people who are doing it are articulate and engaging. Surely that's the raw material for great science writing.

A week later, I listened to Richard E. Smalley, chemistry Noble Laureate and professor at Rice University, explaining why he thought programmable nanoscale robots of the sort some writers have envisioned might one day threaten human society are, in fact, a physical impossibility. The task of assembling specific molecules is both more subtle and more complicated than even most chemists appreciate, Smalley said. There simply isn't room around any interesting molecule for all the fingers a nanorobot would need to hold everything simultaneously in place. And the fingers themselves would have to be made of something that might react with the molecule being assembled. He captivated his audience with intricate word images of fumbling robots with fingers too fat or too sticky to do what they were designed to do.

I often hear these rich and articulate voices of our science. And I suppose I'm as guilty as anyone of not taking the time to share them with a broader audience. These books are a reminder that such neglect may have a cost, for society, and, perhaps, for chemistry.

Rebecca Rawls is a senior correspondent at Chemical & Engineering News.
Reprinted with permission from Chemical & Engineering News, Nov. 27, 2000, 78(48), p 28. Copyright 2000 American Chemical Society.

---

Return to NASW homepage.

Return to NASW Members' Lobby.

Return to ScienceWriters Newsletter homepage.