This
is an area of reading which common readers would be able to understand
with a keen interest for reality and unexpected nature. This is the area of reading which I want to call “science nonfiction (S.N.).”In this term, I want to differentiate from “science fiction (S.F.)”. It is not too much to say that S.N. is a fruit of the intellectual activity of mankind. Hoping that we may be able to retrieve the real world of interest which easily emanates, I listed titles of S.N. which I have recently read. There should be more of these kinds of books. From my habit of reading, I have listed some books from my bookshelf which I believe from a certain word of interest. I would like to further discuss the interesting world of S.N. as I perceive it. The area of my interest lie mainly in biology or its related world, because biology is easy to access unlike physics or astronomy which requires one to have a mathematical background. It is my easy access to the profundity of biology which gives me a clear image in terms of sensitivity. Moreover, we often find biologists as fine prose writers and eloquent speakers. It is like watching an exciting intellectual game to read scientistsユ endless arguments on the theory of evolution. It way be a good idea to read a book my Robert Jastrow, former director of the NASA Research Institute. Justrow's trilogy covers a wide range of subjects from space, the most advanced science, to microorganisms with abundant illustrations and photos. Among them is the theory of evolution, which is very thrilling to read. According to Jastrow, Darwin hesitatingly published the theory of evolution about 130 years ago, which created a sensation. His theory, however, was immediately and candidly rejected by Lord Kelvin,agreatscholar of thermodynamics. Lord Kelvin's counterargument was that the age of earth is only scores of millions of years considering the rate of its cooling down and that Darwin's theory that the length of evolution is as long as hundreds of thousands of years is nothing but ridiculous. Darwin was distressed by Kelvin's criticism and he died saying to himself that evolution could proceed within hundreds of thousands of years. |