Babbage: Science book club

Summary

Babbage: Science Book Club – Episode Summary

Podcast Title: Babbage
Host: Alok Jha
Episode: Science Book Club
Release Date: December 20, 2023

In this special edition of Babbage, The Economist's weekly podcast on science and technology, host Alok Jha introduces the inaugural Science Book Club. The episode delves into the favorite science books of several of the magazine's correspondents, exploring how these books have influenced their perspectives and careers in science journalism. The discussion is enriched with insightful quotes and personal anecdotes, providing listeners with a curated selection of must-read literature in the realm of science.

Introduction to the Science Book Club

Alok Jha sets the stage for a reflective session by highlighting the integral role books have played in shaping scientific thought and communication. He emphasizes the accessibility of books compared to academic papers, noting their ability to distill complex ideas into engaging narratives.

"Books are really the original form of science communication, distilling science down to something that's understandable and even beautiful in some senses." – Unnamed Correspondent [04:08]

Correspondents' Book Recommendations

Alok Jha: The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

Alok shares his deep appreciation for Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, a poetic collection of short stories where each chapter is named after a chemical element. He highlights the memoir aspects intertwined with fictional narratives, which collectively explore the profound connection between chemistry and life.

"It's chemistry... it makes you understand life in a much more profoundly interesting and new way." – Alok Jha [07:40]

Rachel Dobbs: When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut

Rachel expresses her fascination with Benjamin Labatut's blend of fiction and non-fiction, which chronicles the transition from classical to quantum physics amidst the backdrop of world wars. She appreciates how the book humanizes scientific endeavors, portraying the emotional and obsessive drives of scientists.

"It couples kind of those two separate drives... It's very emotional... science is a very human endeavour." – Rachel Dobbs [13:07]

Kenneth Cukier: A Theory of Everyone by Michael Muthakrishna

Kenneth recommends Michael Muthakrishna's exploration of cultural evolution, a concept that underscores the collective advancement of society over individual cognition. He finds the book particularly resonant in understanding modern societal challenges and the importance of social collaboration.

"It's the collective brain that advances civilization and progress and society, not the individual constituents in it." – Kenneth Cukier [19:40]

Emily Steinmark: Madame Curie by E.V. Curie

Emily highlights her admiration for E.V. Curie's biography of her mother, Marie Curie. She underscores the book's intimate portrayal of Curie's life, her relentless pursuit of education, and the profound impact of her scientific passion on her personal relationships.

"It gives you a sense of how moving science can be as something that brings people together..." – Emily Steinmark [23:14]

Kunal Patel: Sociobiology by Edward Wilson & The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Kunal discusses the impact of these seminal works on gene-centered views of evolution, particularly in animal behavior. He credits these books with shaping his academic interests and career trajectory in science journalism.

"There are chapters... where you think, wow, like, if we were to take this seriously, we would design our institutions like this." – Kenneth Cukier [19:28]

Abby Bertix: Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

Abby recommends Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist, a multifaceted narrative blending biography, memoir, science, and philosophy. She appreciates the book's exploration of human-imposed categories in understanding the natural world, emphasizing the fluidity and complexity beyond rigid classifications.

"Humans hallucinate boundaries that aren't there... it's the excitement and curiosity with which she sees and investigates the world is contagious." – Abby Bertix [34:54]

Kunal Patel’s Favorite: How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler

Rounding off the book club, Kunal introduces How Far the Light Reaches, a memoir structured around ten sea creatures. The book intertwines personal experiences with scientific insights, using vivid imagery and emotional narratives to explore the interconnectedness of life and the natural world.

"It's incredibly creative and beautiful... how she takes these animals and ties them to her lived experiences." – Unnamed Correspondent [39:59]

Conclusion

Alok Jha wraps up the episode by reflecting on the diverse range of books discussed, each offering unique insights into the scientific landscape and personal growth of the correspondents. He underscores the value of these literary works in fostering a deeper understanding of science beyond the confines of traditional reportage.

"It's really lovely to take a step back from that and see what inspires them to write and talk about science." – Unnamed Correspondent [38:01]

Listeners are encouraged to explore these recommended titles to gain varied perspectives on science, its communication, and its profound impact on human experiences.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Books are really the original form of science communication, distilling science down to something that's understandable and even beautiful in some senses."
  – Unnamed Correspondent [04:08]

• "It's chemistry... it makes you understand life in a much more profoundly interesting and new way."
  – Alok Jha [07:40]

• "It couples kind of those two separate drives... It's very emotional... science is a very human endeavour."
  – Rachel Dobbs [13:07]

• "It's the collective brain that advances civilization and progress and society, not the individual constituents in it."
  – Kenneth Cukier [19:40]

• "Humans hallucinate boundaries that aren't there... it's the excitement and curiosity with which she sees and investigates the world is contagious."
  – Abby Bertix [34:54]

• "It's incredibly creative and beautiful... how she takes these animals and ties them to her lived experiences."
  – Unnamed Correspondent [39:59]

This episode of Babbage not only celebrates the written word in science but also offers a window into the inspirational sources that fuel the correspondents' journalistic endeavors.

Transcript

[Alok Jhar]

Hello. This episode of Babbage is available to listen for free. But if you want to listen every week, you'll need to be an economist subscriber. For full details, search online for economist podcasts. Plus.

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[Alok Jhar]

The Economist. Just a short walk away from Trafalgar Square, nestled in the heart of central London, London is an underground treasure trove.

[Keith Moore]

This is Principia Mathematica by Sir Isaac Newton. So this is from 1687. It is the work that Newton is probably best known known for. This is his description of the workings of the universe.

[Alok Jhar]

Books have long held a vital place in science. And the Royal Society Library holds some of the most weird and wonderful books of all. In honour of the books that have shaped, spurred and spread science over the centuries, our producer Kunal Patel, had a look at some of the Royal Society's more interesting tomes.

[Keith Moore]

My name is Keith Moore, I'm head of library at the Royal Society. So here we have from 1665, Robert Hooke's book Micrographia. So this is a seriously large book with great illustrations of what one might expect to see through a microscope. And the most famous of the lot is his drawing of the flea. But I kind of like the head louse and various other things in here. Probably the most famous natural history book of all time is this one. This is Charles Darwin's on the Origin Of Species. So this is one that Charles Darwin himself presented to the organization. Books are vital to science because this is one of the ways that scientists circulate ideas. Books are just a wonderful way of communicating with people. And I always liked to say that most of my friends are dead people. It's because I read a lot of books. It's a great way of connecting people with ideas, with personalities.

[Alok Jhar]

I'm Alok Jhar and this is Babbage from the Economist. Today, we're bringing you something a bit different the science books that have inspired us. Today I'm joined by our producer, Kunal Patel, who as I understand it is our resident literary aficionado. Hi, Kunal. It's nice to have you here.

[Kunal Patel]

Hi.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

I've been known to read a book on occasion.

[Alok Jhar]

Well, this is very exciting. We all know if you're a listener to this podcast, you probably enjoy books. We certainly all do here. But tell me what you think is important about the relationship between books and science.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, I think books are a really accessible medium. A lot of science can be very esoteric, particularly scientific papers.

[Alok Jhar]

Almost all size is hysteric, you're right.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah. And I think books are really the original form of science communication, distilling science down to something that's understandable and even beautiful in some senses. And so I remember that even, like, as a kid, the first thing that kind of got me interested in science is I just had this, like, massive collection of nature encyclopedias and I would just pore over the pictures of all these animals and things. So, yeah, it was really my gateway drug to science.

[Alok Jhar]

And I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people who are even vaguely interested in science. First accessing ideas are quite complicated and abstract through interesting narratives. And books that can explain things like physics or evolution in beautiful stories. They're just wonderful things. And of course, you start with Charles Darwin's on the Origin of Species, which in itself is just a nice book to read, even though it is also the original book that introduces the idea of natural selection. Of course, the medium itself allows for more discussion, doesn't it? We try and do that on the podcast, of course, by having chats, but books allow you to sort of develop and think about ideas and just take ideas to their logical conclusions or have thought experiments and stuff.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah, I think books really give scientists and science writers permission to break the style of academic writing or news writing and really have fun with it and blend science with art a bit more and really lean into that storytelling instinct that I think most people have, which, incidentally is, as you said, something we try to do on this show.

[Alok Jhar]

Well, okay, look, this is a special edition of the show then, and I'm very excited about it. You've been putting this together for a few weeks. Tell us what we've got around the corner.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah, so with the end of the year coming up, I thought it was about time that we at Babbage reflected on the science books that have inspired us over the years.

[Alok Jhar]

So a Babbage Book Club.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Exactly. And so to kick things off alok, do you have a favourite science book?

[Alok Jhar]

Well, you know, I've read a Lot of science books for work and pleasure. And the one I keep coming back to, the one I keep rereading, which I suppose love the most, is the Periodic Table by Primo Levi. It was published in 1975. It's a collection of short stories, and each story is named after a different chemical element from the periodic table. And the idea is that Primo Levi uses chemistry, and specifically the chemistry of the element in question, as a metaphor for some story about life that he wants to tell you.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So I guess in a bit more detail, what is it about? Is it a memoir?

[Alok Jhar]

Yeah, it's part memoir. So there are chapters which are about his family and his upbringing in Ital. So there's chapters like Phosphorus, which is a little detective story, really. So Primo Levi, during his life he was a chemist and he worked in a paint factory, and he identifies different elements that are responsible for making paint function. Essentially. You don't think about it very much in real life, but, you know, sometimes a batch of paint won't reach the standards you need it to reach, or it'll have solidified for some reason because an element is missing. And so he uses his time there to explain bits of chemistry to you in his work, but also then he drops in a bit of fiction now and again as well. So there's a future chapters, which are essentially tiny little stories about people discovering iron for the first time, or my favorite one, which is carbon, which is the story of a carbon atom from space going all the way through various different star clouds and atoms and different molecules and plants and things on Earth, all the way to being a part of Primo Levy himself. It's like a really interesting, grand, sweeping story about the. The importance of this particular element. And it's done incredibly poetically.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So why does that resonate with you?

[Alok Jhar]

Well, the thing is, when I read it for the first time, I was told that it's an amazing book and I should read it. And I did, and I really enjoyed it. And I wasn't expecting to love it as much because, you know, I like science in all its guises, but chemistry was my subject that I did not really enjoy that much. I found physics much more interesting. But this book transformed my idea of what chemistry is. It wasn't just atoms and molecules interacting with each other and exploding and smelling in different ways, but chemistry is not subject. It's life. It's reality. Every single behavior is chemical in some part. And Primo Levi, in his book, does not make life into chemistry. But by talking about chemistry, which is something he loved then. It makes you understand life in a much more profoundly interesting and new way, which I hadn't really thought about. One of the things I would say about this book is that Primo Levi famously is a survivor of Auschwitz. So he was a Jew in Italy in the 1940s. He was packed off to Auschwitz and because he was a chemist, they found use for him as a slave laborer in the chemistry laboratories. So there's a chapter called cerium and another called vanadium. Now these are elements that are rare earth metals essentially that you use to make batteries. But because he knew how to get them out of different materials, he was able to make elements and chemical compounds for his Nazi superiors, essentially. So they kept him alive. So there's darkness in the book as well. It's not just light stories about life. It's life, it's family, it's chemistry, it's darkness, it's everything.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And from all of that, is there a particular moment or section that really stayed with you?

[Alok Jhar]

So I think that the chapter on carbon is my favorite because he sort of takes this flight of fancy of a carbon atom being created in the cosmos and then it floats around and ends up on Earth and becomes part of a plant and then it goes into a dinosaur and all these other things. And I think many writers have tried to do similar things with other things. I certainly have. I wrote a book about water once and I tried to do the same thing with a molecule of water. It's fun. I didn't do it quite as nicely as Primo Levy, but it's just a rollicking space adventure which ends in the most lovely way. I don't want to spoil it for you because honestly, it will make your heart stop, the way that story ends.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, apart from the heart stopping ending, why do you think other people should read the book?

[Alok Jhar]

Because it gives you a bit of everything. It's not a science book in the sense it's trying to explain some bit of science to you. It's about life and it's about this human being, Premier Levy, who's a fascinating human being. And you get little windows of his life and he's just one of the. I mean, this sounds like a trite thing to say. He's just one of the best people that's ever lived. He's such a good person and knowing about his life will enrich you. And this is the way he's decided to tell his story in this particular book. And I think that everyone should know about his life.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

That sounds beautiful. Thank you very much for giving us an insight into the unknowable mind of Alok Shah.

[Alok Jhar]

Well, slightly more noble I hope. Yeah, it's unknowable to me anyway.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, all right, to get things going then. Which Economist correspondent do you think I should speak to first?

[Alok Jhar]

All right, well look, why don't we start with somebody who we've spoken to very recently on the show, Rachel Dobbs, our climate correspondent. She's been talking about carbon geoengineering, all these things. So let's continue the theme.

[Rachel Dobbs]

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

All right, first I guess just if you want to do a little self identification.

[Rachel Dobbs]

Hi, I'm Rachel, I'm one of the climate correspondents here at the Economist.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Rachel, thank you very much for joining me for Babbage's inaugural book club. So what's your favourite science book?

[Rachel Dobbs]

My favourite science book is on the reason I'm laughing is that it is almost entirely fictional. But it is When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, who is a Chilean author. It was published in 2020 and it is described as a non fiction novel. It starts with an essay that is almost entirely factual apart from the last paragraph. And then to hear the author describe it, it become fictional as the book goes on. And the fiction is like this sort of mad outgrowth that eventually takes over the entire book. But it is primarily about the transition from classical to quantum physics and the scientists involved in that transition against the backdrop of the two world wars. Okay, it's a very weird book and.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

What about it resonates with you so much.

[Rachel Dobbs]

So I have always really liked physics and also not really understood physics. I am somebody who read A Brief History of Time and then had to read A briefer history of Time and then still couldn't understand it, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure A Brief History of Time is written for children. But what I think it does really brilliantly is a. It actually makes a lot of very difficult physics concepts comprehendable, but also it looks in kind of very close detail at what drives people to the sort of obsessiveness and the single mindedness that you need to try and understand some of these concepts. And also despite them being incredibly cerebral, the extent to which they come out of a desire for order and for finding certain aspects of the world and humanity kind of incomprehensible.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

What about that to you is so compelling?

[Rachel Dobbs]

One of the things that I've always really liked about science is that science is a very human endeavour and I think it's Actually, a very emotional endeavour. I see that a lot in the kind of writing that I do about climate because it's very much about humanity's continued existence in the world. But it's sort of underpinned by a lot of these very sort of esoteric examinations of, like, atmospheric physics or the chemistry of the ozone layer or stuff like that. And so I think that I found it very compelling because it couples kind of those two separate drives.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah.

[Rachel Dobbs]

I feel like that's not a particularly clear answer.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

That was my favorite answer that you've given. It was lovely also.

[Rachel Dobbs]

It is just absolutely beautifully written. It's also beautifully translated.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah. I started reading it and have not got through it yet. The thing that, like, drew me to the book is I read a quote about, I don't know if it's lemon trees that blossom all at once right before they die.

[Rachel Dobbs]

Yes. So that is based on something true, which is that does happen at the end of the life of particularly citrus trees is which they know that they're dying and they put out all of their energy and all of their minerals into making this, like, terrifying gluttony of fruit in this kind of very creepy, almost kind of gothic horror way. I'm imagining that's the quote that you read.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

It is. Except, like, I read, I'm like, oh, that's so beautiful. It was not giving Gothic horror in my brain.

[Rachel Dobbs]

It gives Gothic horror in the book, I think. Well, because it's like this mad abundance before something decays. And the abundance is a sign of decay.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Ahay. Saw as kind of like a swan song kind of thing. Like his last kind of bloom of life before.

[Rachel Dobbs]

Okay, maybe I'm just more depressive than you are.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Is there a particular part of the book that really stood out to you that sticks with you still?

[Rachel Dobbs]

A lot of what the book focuses on is the kind of unintended consequences that can come from science. So the principles that underlied, ultimately the atomic bomb but also a lot of other warfare were not the endeavor of the scientists who originally came up with them. Grothendeck, whose name I'm almost definitely butchering, who was an incredibly influential and important mathematician, became incredibly, incredibly disillusioned with it and essentially became something of a hermit in his later life. And that passage I found very emotive in the dual problem of wanting to understand incredibly esoteric concepts. And also that understanding being based often in distress with the world or being a reaction to or against some kind of emotional lever.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And why do you think people should read it?

[Rachel Dobbs]

Honestly, I think people should read it a. Because it's an incredibly well executed and odd piece of writing in that I think it's very rare to approach something that scientific in this kind of very creative way in which you are marrying together sort of fiction, nonfiction. It's beautifully executed. The sleight of hand that he does is. Is amazing. After I read it the first time and then at the end, the sort of degree to which it's fictionalised and how the fiction changes throughout is revealed, I then went and read it again. And it is completely seamless the way that he does it.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Right. Thank you very much, Rachel. Who are the Economist do you think I should speak to next?

[Rachel Dobbs]

I think you should speak next to Ken Cukier because he is a man of very eclectic interests and enthusiasms and I would be very interested to know what his favourite science book was.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, would you like to introduce yourself?

[Kenneth Cukier]

My name is Kenneth Cukier. I'm the deputy executive editor of the Economist.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you very much for joining me for Babbage's Book Club. So what's your favorite science book?

[Kenneth Cukier]

The one I want to discuss today that made the biggest impact for me is called A Theory of Everyone by Michael Muthakrishna. What Muthakrishna is talking about is cultural evolution. Cultural evolution takes the idea that we evolve as a society, but that all that we have we've inherited from the past and use without thinking about it, that our success as a species is not based on cognition, but based on culture. But culture, which is, if you will, information that's transmitted from one person to another, from one generation to another, is not seen. You actually have to deliberately stop and see it. Now, his point, though, which is a great one, is that if we stop and look at all of these features of our culture, our institutions, our bureaucracy, our use of money, our educational systems, how it fails, how it succeeds. What we can do is two things. We can see what worked and what didn't. But more importantly, we can then do a better job of using culture, designing the features of society into having a better future, one that doesn't have some of our shortcomings and our lapses.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And so why does this sweeping account of human history and cultural evolution resonate with you as an individual?

[Kenneth Cukier]

I am really in a quandary right now, thinking through a world that looks very different than what I anticipated. The rise of Trumpism, of national populism, Russia invading Ukraine, the terrible situations in the Middle east, as well as the rise of intolerance. The idea that very basic agreements on how we treat each other just to get on in the world seems to have frayed and broken down. I'm curious about first why it's broken down, but also how to repair it, how to build it back up, because I think we need that. We need to bring that back in. So stepping forward into cultural evolution has opened my eyes into this new domain that I really didn't know existed.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And is there a particular moment from the book that really stuck with you?

[Kenneth Cukier]

On almost every page you have a pardon my French, holy shit moment in which you think, wow, like, if we were to take this seriously, we would design our institutions like this, we would change laws like this, we would reimagine this process like that. It's a fabulous book because it takes this one idea and it justifies it, it upholds it and substantiates it with rigor. And then you're on a rocket thinking about the world in a new way.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

I think it's really interesting that you've decided to look to the past to find a new perspective on present issues. Is there a particular moment from the book that really stood out to you in that respect?

[Kenneth Cukier]

Yes. He cites one of his mentors and collaborators, Joseph Heinrich, a scholar whose famous aphorism is it's better to be social than to be smart. If you rely on just your individual smartness, you've got to hope that you're going to be good enough to respond to every challenge you face, answer every any question that presents itself to you, and do it correctly. And if you're not smart enough, you're dead. But if it's better to be social than to be smart suggests that you don't need to know the answer. You just need to turn to the other people in your community or in the world who do know the answer to get the answer. And by getting the answer, you happen to also become smarter yourself. But the key thing is that it underscores this idea that the collective brain is what advances civilization and progress and society, not the individual constituents in it. So what does that mean? It's better to be social than to be smart? It really is a relief for people like myself who didn't come as in doubt as we would like. Mentally. It's good to know so. So too, as civilizationally, you don't want to rely on the lone genius. You do want to integrate people. If you don't have that, if you are blocking half the labor force because they have XX chromosomes and not XY chromosomes, if you do it on grounds of religion or on grounds of race or on grounds of sexual orientation, whatever it is. Well, you will underperform as a society. We'll be forestalling that potential innovation, those new ideas, those responses to challenges.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So in the spirit of being social, who at the Economist do you think I should speak to next?

[Kenneth Cukier]

Well, there's n number of people at the Economist who I'd recommend you could speak to next. But the person who I definitely recommend you do not speak to is Emily Steinmark. Under no condition should you speak to Emily Steinmark next.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Oh, absolutely not.

[Emily Steinmark]

My name is Emily Steinmark and I am on the U.S. digital team based in New York.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you for joining us all the way from New York. You might recognize Emily from her reporting on our Embryoids episode. Thank you for coming back. I'm glad we haven't scarred you.

[Emily Steinmark]

Yeah, no, absolutely happy to be back.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So let's cut to the chase. What's your favorite science book?

[Emily Steinmark]

My favorite science book is Madame Curie by E.V. curie, her daughter. And it came out in 1937.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Oh, okay. So it's a vintage collection.

[Emily Steinmark]

It's a vintage. I mean, if I, I know this is a podcast, but I would show you my copy, which is super, super old, from the like 40s, a sort of lovely hand bound book.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Where did you manage to get a hold of this lovely hand bound vintage edition?

[Emily Steinmark]

My dad is a book nerd. He is really into sort of old books that have been bound by hand. And during the height of his obsession with this, he was very keen for everyone else to be into it too, which I appreciate. I'm the same. And so he got me it for Christmas.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, I guess you heard it here. If any of you are still doing any holiday shopping, really, really old copies of Marie Curie's autobiography are hit with the kids, apparently.

[Emily Steinmark]

Yeah, I was pleased.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Obviously it's a biography of Marie Curie, but tell us a bit about what it's about.

[Emily Steinmark]

Yeah, I think the thing that makes this book really special is that her daughter Ev wrote it. So you get a really intimate look into her life. You see how when she was a child, she wasn't this like prodigy genius that you might expect. She was a normal girl. You see how she was growing up in Poland during the Russian Empire and you see how she and other people like her had to hustle to even access education. And you follow her to Paris and when she meets Pierre and just this like fantastic partnership that they forge initially over science, but then they become a couple and start a family, there's something truly I Don't know. It just gives you a sense of how moving science can be as something that brings people together and how moving education and knowledge and just the thirst for that can just animate people's lives. There's a real romanticism to it. And I think obviously it's written by her daughter, so you have to kind of keep that in mind. But I think it does say something about the role that science and the obsession with the work that they were doing, how that really filled their family life.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Why does this very holistic portrait of Mercury resonate with you?

[Emily Steinmark]

I think there are a few reasons. The first one is probably more to do about how the book came into my life. So during the pandemic, I used to call my late grandmother and we would have these discussions around books. She couldn't go to the library, so I had a bunch of books sent to her and we'd talk about them on the phone and she would go on about this book about Mary Curie that she'd read. And she was like, you must read it, because at the time I was a PhD student in physics. And then my dad gave it to me for Christmas. And it was just this lovely book. And I was really excited to read it. My grandma then got cancer, and actually it's one of the, like, last books that we managed to discuss before she died. So personally, it's got like a huge connection for me. But also, my grandma was a really bright woman and she didn't have the opportunity to go to high school. It just wasn't really what the girls did at the time. And so something about the way that Mary or Maria really had to fight for her education, it felt like it wasn't that long ago. You know, it felt like these were things that people I knew had to deal with. Not to the same extent, of course, but I think for women and other people that been disadvantaged to just fight for the right to educate themselves and to know more stuff about the world, like that really hit home for me. I also just think it's interesting to see Marie Curie as a person outside of her science. She's radical from a young age. She is constantly doing things that she thinks is important, even if it's forbidden by the regime that she lives under. And I think her choice to go to France and like, the real sadness it is for her that she can't return to Poland and she can't pursue her career there. It just reminds you that it was a super struggle. And it's not just remarkable that she was the Genius that she was, it was remarkable. She got to be that genius despite everything. And that was all I had to say on the propaganda from Marie Curie.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

I mean, that sounds like there's an insane amount in that book that. I mean, already I've learned a lot more about Mercury than I knew before. But why do you think people should read it?

[Emily Steinmark]

Oh, that's a really good question. She was so unusual for her time. I mean, even outside of her time. Right. How many women is it that have won the Nobel Prize in physics now? Is it five or something? She was just so, so unusual. And I think we'd like to imagine genius as being this special blessed thing, you know, a gift from God, sort of. And I think in many ways she was totally normal, totally ordinary. She was just completely obsessed. And I think, you know, she was moved by the same things that everyone else is moved by. It's really an eye opener on how extraordinary and ordinary that she was.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, thank you for giving us a peek behind the curtain to what inspires you in science writing. Who are the economists do you think I should speak to next?

[Emily Steinmark]

That's a really good question. The Economist is full of really interesting people. I think you should speak to Jeff Carr. He joined the Economist back in like 1991, which was a year before I was born as a science correspondent. So I feel like he would have just bags of knowledge about stuff. I'm sure he's read tons of books. I can only imagine it will be super interesting.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Excellent choice. All right, well, thank you very much for your time.

[Emily Steinmark]

Thank you.

[Kunal Patel]

I'm Geoffrey Carr and I'm senior editor of Science and technology at the Economist.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you very much for joining me for Babbage's very first book club.

[Kunal Patel]

Pleasure.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So what's your favorite science book?

[Kunal Patel]

Well, I'm going to offer two because they came out at more or less the same time. They're on very similar subjects and they influenced the course of my career. And the first one is sociobiology by a man called Edward Wilson, who was at Harvard, now dead sadly. And the other was the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, who was and remains at Oxford.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And can you tell me what they're both about?

[Kunal Patel]

Well, they're both about the shift to a gene centered view of evolution and particularly in the context of behavior, where because you can see the phenotypes which are the expressions of a gene's action on an animal much more easily and do experiments on behavior rather than anatomy. In the 1970s when these books were published, they informed the way that animal behavior was being studied. And they've led to a serious change in the way that people look at the nuts and bolts of evolution.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So how old were you when you first read them?

[Kunal Patel]

I would have been 19 or 20. I was an undergraduate and I was a zoologist.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And so reading this at that time, why did it resonate with you so much?

[Kunal Patel]

Well, it was a new thing. And, yeah, when you're that age, you like new things. It fitted in with the idea that life is formed and diversified by evolution, which I believed ever since I was capable of believing such things. But it clarified things in a very nice way. And when I read them, I wanted to do research, but I wasn't quite sure which direction to go in. And I was kind of thinking that marine biology would be an interesting area because there's a much greater diversity of animals in the oceans than there are on the land. And also, in my slightly naive undergraduate mind, I felt it might get you to go to lots of interesting parts of the world. And when I read these books and thought about this stuff and talked with my tutors, I actually thought studying animal behavior would be a more fruitful line of endeavor. That's what I ended up doing.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Is there a particular moment or chapter in the book that really stuck out to you?

[Kunal Patel]

Well, there's one sort of outlier chapter in the Selfish Gene, which looks at not genes, but the idea of what Dawkins called memes, which are culturally transmitted evolutionary units. I've always found this idea interesting, and if I ever went back to academia, I think I'd look into it. Nobody's ever really quite made it work, although the word meme has itself become, in a new sense, a meme, and is used for an idea that spreads around the Internet. But this is the idea of stuff that spreads culturally from person to person, such as aspects of language, aspects of religion, music, that sort of thing. And how much memes are independently evolving and how much they are contributing to the underlying genetic evolution of people, I think is an extremely interesting question. It's worth reading if you want to see how a wide range of groups of animals might have arrived at social behaviour, from corals to us.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you very much, Geoff, who at the Economist do you think I should speak to next?

[Kunal Patel]

Well, I suggest you speak to Abby Bertix, who is the latest recruit to the science section. I recruited her myself and she joined last year, I think.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you very much. Would you like to introduce yourself?

[Abby Bertix]

I'm Abby and I'm a science correspondent at the Economist.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you very much for joining me for Babbage's very first Science Book Club.

[Abby Bertix]

You're not going to have yourself saying a welcome statement 30 times. Or are you?

[Unnamed Correspondent]

I think I am, actually.

[Abby Bertix]

It's like an AI meeting.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah, a little bit. Science Writers Anonymous. All right, Abby, so what's your favorite science book?

[Abby Bertix]

Favorite's a really complicated question, Kunal, but one of my favorites is why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Okay, this is clearly a science book that has stood out to you in some way. What is it about?

[Abby Bertix]

It's a blend of a lot of different things, which is partly why I like it. There's biography blended with memoir blended with science blended with philosophy. And kind of the guiding thread throughout it all is she's trying to make sense of her life. And the guy that she's writing about is also trying to make sense of the physical world. The person that she's writing about is morally complex, to say the least. He's a eugenicist, so not a great guy. But in spite of that, it leads to some really interesting discussion of science and philosophy, particularly about categories and labels. And at the center of it is a story about taxonomy. On the surface, it's about fish. And a really interesting fact is that fish, as like a taxonomical label, as a category, just doesn't exist. Like, we humans take it for granted. Really? Oh, yeah, that's a fish. But if you look at the little tree that ends up happening, it's not a nice sub tree of fish. Things get really complicated if you look at it too closely.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

And why does that idea and this book resonate with you?

[Abby Bertix]

I think part of it is that I have this, like, pet idea in my brain at all times that nothing really exists, which is a little obscure. But I think that the closer you look at anything, like when you're in a plane flying above the ocean and you see, okay, there's the coast, you have ocean, you have sand. It looks like there's a nice clear line between the two. But when you're standing on that beach, there's no clear line. And this kind of pet notion in my mind is that humans hallucinate boundaries that aren't there. So when we're studying these kind of categories, these things that humans have hallucinated, I don't think they actually exist in real life, which sounds kind of wacky, but every time you look at anything from a scientific point of view, the closer you zoom in, you kind of realize that there is no discrete boundary separating things. That's just what we've made up to make sense of the world.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah, it's really interesting as an idea.

[Abby Bertix]

In this book, she cuts on the fact that it says more about us and the human condition, that we feel the need to put things in nice and neat boxes and understand things in such a, like, compartmentalized, categorized way than it does about the wild and chaotic and mysterious natural world that we're trying to tame.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Was your takeaway from this book that we should obliterate all categories?

[Abby Bertix]

No. I think pragmatically, they serve, like, a really important purpose, but I think it's also really important and interesting to occasionally question their existence.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Is there a particular moment or chapter or idea from this book that really stuck with you?

[Abby Bertix]

I like the notion that if you look at anything, no matter how simple or how much you think you understand, and especially if you think you understand it, looking harder at something kind of reveals a lot of complexity and mystery. And that's kind of what a lot of science is. And I just think the fact that everywhere around you there are things that we take for granted, categories we take for granted, objects we take for granted that have infinite mystery and infinite potential of understanding in them is something that would drive me as a scientist and does drive me as a science writer to try to better understand the world around me.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

I think that's one of my favorite things about Lulu Miller as. As a writer, as a storyteller, a big Radiolab fan. And I think the way that they don't take anything for granted, they find all of this wonder and joy in things that you would not expect to find it in is what I find very compelling about their work and what also motivates me as a storyteller as well. And she's also got a very good way with words.

[Abby Bertix]

Yeah, I mean, I want to be her when I grow up. So that's another reason why same is.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Really awesome to me and to people who aren't converts to the church of Lulu Miller. Why do you think other people should read it?

[Abby Bertix]

The way that she writes is just beautiful. It's not a burden on your brain to read it, but I think it's also just the excitement and curiosity with which she sees and investigates the world is contagious. Like, after reading this book, you'll find yourself more excited to be in whatever mundane situation you might find yourself in, because she finds wonder kind of everywhere.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you very much for your time, abhi.

[Abby Bertix]

Thank you, Kunal.

[Alok Jhar]

I'll be back with Kunal in just a moment. First, though, if you've been enjoying today's episode of Babbage. There's plenty more recommendations for the holiday season in the pages of the Economist. Every year, my colleagues on the Culture Desk write guides to the finest cultural treats, from the year's best games to films and even podcasts. I'm sure they've recommended this one as one of the best, as well as our comprehensive list of books of the year. Don't worry, there's a science and technology section within that, too. You can find a link to those pages in the show Notes.

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[Alok Jhar]

Today, our producer, Kunal Patel has been speaking to our correspondents about the science books that inspired them. So, Kunal, what was it like to get an insight into the inner literary lives of our colleagues?

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, we always hear from our correspondents on Babbage talking about their reporting or the stories they've been working on. But it was really nice to take a step back from that and see what inspires them to write and talk about science and sometimes what inspired them to get into being a science journalist. And it was just really lovely to see how excited they all got about all these different books that they'd read.

[Alok Jhar]

It's always good to hear journalists getting excited about something because otherwise we're all such a cynical bunch that sometimes it's good to just force them back into remembering why they enjoyed this stuff in the first place. And you can excuse some of the cheesiness and schmaltziness right now because it is Christmas time. So I think it's okay now, given that you've talked to all of the correspondents about their books and even got me to talk about my book. Let's round this off with you then, Kunal. So what's the science book that inspired you? What would you choose as your favorite book?

[Unnamed Correspondent]

So my favorite science book is How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler, which is a memoir told through 10 different sea creatures.

[Alok Jhar]

Okay, so just tell us a bit more about what the book is about.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah, so it is a Memoir by the author, but it's told in this way. It's actually quite similar to your book, just, I guess, the biology version of the periodic table. So essentially it goes through 10 different sea creatures and relates each one of them, through metaphor, to some aspect of the author. So we have chapters like My Mother and the Starving Octopus, which talks about this deep sea octopus that basically starves itself for several years while it takes care of its eggs. And it has this lovely poetic way of writing, and it's just incredibly creative and beautiful the way that she takes these animals and ties them to her lived experiences.

[Alok Jhar]

I mean, already, from the examples you've given me, I'm finding resonances with my own mum and my grandma in terms of, like, people who look after you without sort of looking after themselves. Why does it resonate with you particularly? Are there particular bits of it that you see within yourself?

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yeah, she writes in this really lovely, lyrical style. The imagery's so vivid and it's just so deeply emotional. And yet you're learning all of these things about, like, yeti crabs and how they dance on these vents. And then she's tying it to, like, finding queer community. And it's just the unexpected nature of the connections between these things that I think is just so lovely.

[Alok Jhar]

I think it's always the best way to learn about something through a story, through something which you were not expecting to learn something, but you find that resonance almost as a sort of side product of the thing you're trying to be taught. I think it's the best books, the best writing of all sorts, does all of that. Is there a particular bit of the book that struck a chord with you?

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Yes. So there's a chapter called how to Draw a Sperm Whale, which talks about whaling, and in particular, after a whale has died, scientists perform necropsies on them. And then it relates that back to a failed romantic relationship that the author had. So it goes between necropsy of a whale, describing how this whale that was killed by.

[Alok Jhar]

Where is this going? This is fascinating.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Well, yeah, the wrong word for that.

[Alok Jhar]

For a relationship, but go on.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

It goes back and forth between this story of this whale that was killed in a ship strike, and then to the author's first lesbian relationship when she was in university and how that fell apart. And it's jumping back and forth between these things, and then it also goes back to talk about the history of whaling, and it just draws all of these things together in this lovely way where you're both learning about how humans as a species decimated whale populations, and then also about this very intimate relationship that slowly spun itself out.

[Alok Jhar]

I love it. It sounds messy and complicated and exactly the kind of story that would make a fascinating narrative. It sounds amazing. It'll definitely go on my list of books to read. In fact, so will all of the books that our correspondents have recommended. Shamefully, I haven't read any of them. I mean, this is terrible. I thought I read a lot of books in science and I've got another load to add to my list. So thank you to you for having the idea for this episode. And can I ask you one question? What was it like seeing Principia Mathematica? You know, Newton's famous book right at the beginning of the show.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

It was very, very cool. I will say it was not the best thing I saw there.

[Alok Jhar]

What did you see?

[Unnamed Correspondent]

My favorite thing in the Royal Society collections was actually the first ever book of cyanotype prints of British algae.

[Alok Jhar]

This is niche. I love it.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

They're just really beautiful. It's like so cyanotype printing is. You get this ink and then it's exposed to the sun and it turns blue. And anything that hasn't been exposed or is translucent is like a level of white or light blue. And so just this book with like page upon page of these bits of algae that are very like beautiful strands of algae and leaves that were made.

[Alok Jhar]

Well, I'm glad you got to see that. And it is a special place. The Royal Society Library. Kunal, thank you very much for doing all of this. It's been absolutely wonderful.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

Thank you for letting me embark on this little passion project.

[Alok Jhar]

Thank you also to our wonderful correspondents, Rachel Dobbs, Kenneth Cuquier, Emily Steinmark, Jeff Carr and Abby Bertix for sharing their wisdom on today's program. And thank you for listening to Babbage. Don't forget that if you want to listen to us and all of the Economist specialist weekly podcasts every week, you'll need to become a subscriber. Treat yourself this Christmas for your best Economist Podcast plus subscription offer. Click on the link in the show notes or search the web for Economist Podcasts. Babbage is produced by Kunal Patel and Jason Hoskin with mixing and sound design by Nico Rofast. The executive producers are Jason Palmer and Marguerite Howell. I'm Alok Chhah and in London. This is the Economist.

[Abby Bertix]

My dad works in B2B marketing.

[Unnamed Correspondent]

He came by my school for Career.

[Abby Bertix]

Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

[Kenneth Cukier]

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