Tiffany O’Callaghan, CultureLab editor
Some of the world’s most influential scientists shared a stage at the Royal Society in London last night, reading excerpts from their recent popular science books and debating whether the public understanding of science is waxing or waning.
The occasion was the 2012 Royal Society Winton book prize, created 24 years ago to recognise works written for a non-specialist audience.
Yet despite the mighty assembly of shortlisted scientist-authors, it was a self-described outsider who ran away with the honours. “I am in the category of people on the outside, with their faces pressed up against the glass,” said veteran science writer James Gleick as he accepted the award for The Information - as well as a cheque for £10,000.
The Information is a clever exploration of information theory and how the message was disentangled from the medium, starting with the long-distance drumming that Africans have used for millennia to convey vital messages, and coming up to date with our reliance on Wikipedia. What’s more, as prize judge Sam Kean put it, the book examines the notion held by some physicists that “information is more fundamental than both mass and energy - that it may be the very bedrock of reality”.
A former writer and editor for The New York Times, Gleick is the author of six books - including the 1987 work Chaos, which New Scientist readers voted one of the 10 most influential popular science books earlier this year.
Announcing the winner, society president Paul Nurse welcomed a “renaissance of science writing in the last decade”. The panel of judges had certainly been spoiled for choice: as well as Gleick’s winning work, the shortlisted titles included The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker, The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene, A Viral Storm by Nathan Wolfe, My Beautiful Genome by Lone Frank and Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer.
During the ceremony, hosted by comedian Ben Miller, each shortlisted author read a selection from their nominated works - including Nathan Wolfe, who was unable to attend the event but sent a video-recorded reading.
Before the winner was announced, the audience quizzed the authors and even managed to prompt some disagreement with the persistent question of whether public understanding of science was improving or getting worse.
When they were asked if the gap between what scientists and the general public know is widening, Lone Frank simply replied, “Yes.” Joshua Foer took a different tack, arguing that increasing specialisations within science meant that the gap between scientists themselves is getting broader.
Yet some rapid wordplay made for the most notable exchange. Earlier in the evening, Gleick had commented that “information is not knowledge, let along understanding”. So when he argued that public understanding of science had improved in recent years, saying that the spread of “scientific knowledge has never been greater than it is now”, Frank tartly reminded him of his earlier words.
