The Sacred Beetle and Other Great Essays in Science

by Martin (edit). Gardner

Acknowledgments
Preface
Francis Bacon: The sphinx
Charles Darwin: Recapitulation and conclusion
John Dewey: The influence of Darwinism on philosophy
Stephen Jay Gould: Nonmoral nature
William James: The problem of being
Havelock Ellis: What makes a woman Beautiful?
Jean Henri Fabre: The sacred beetle
Gilbert Keith Chesterton: The logic of elfland
Carl Sagan: Can we know the universe? reflections on a grain of salt
Joseph Wood Krutch: The colloid & the crystal
Jose Ortega Y Gasset: The barbarism of specialization
Thomas Henry Huxley: Science & culture
John Burroughs: Science & literature
Isaac Asimov: Science & beauty
Ernest Nagel: Automation
Johathan Norton Leonard: Other-worldly life
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Physics in the contemporary world
Alfred North Whitehead: Religion & science
John Dos Passos: Proteus
Julian Huxley: An essay on bird-mind
Arthur Stanley Eddington: The decline of determinism
Aldous Huxley: Science in the brave new world
Rachel Carson: The sunless sea
Maurice Maeterlinck: The nuptial flight
H.G. Wells: The new source of energy; Science & ultimate truth
Laura Fermi: Success
Samuel Goudsmit: The gestapo in science
Robert Louis Stevenson: Pan's pipes
Sigmund Freud: Dreams of the death of beloved persons
Bertrand Russell: The science to save us from science; The greatness of Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein: E=mc2
Lewis Thomas: Seven wonders

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Essays, Philosophy, Reference, Mathematics

447 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked most about this book was it's variety of essays, some of which I never would have read by themselves. At the same time some of the essays seemed fairly irrelevant. All in all it was an enjoyable read. I especially liked the (completely dated) essay which talked about the certainty of vegetation on Mars, while it doesn't reflect contemporary thought it was interesting to read something which was written with some degree of certainty and which has proved to be far from the truth. The change in thought is progress and without it life would be somewhat less interesting.

[Alayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has taken me ages to read this book, a collection of essays in Science, mainly physics. Some of them were profound, deeply moving, and others very dated. Some were written so technically that I gave up on them. But despite the age of the book, I enjoyed (most) of the essays in it.

[Bill Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is somewhat misleading. A few of the essays are truly great, and some others are interesting. A few are so unreadable as to be incomprehensible.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

2/3rds of the essays are really good, interesting and funny to read. The other third are boring tho. Just skip those ones.

[Firda · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many great essays indeed (although some are quite obsolete, mind though I was reading the first published edition from 1940s). Although, I think I must admit I often have problems reading essays, oops.

[Maciej Chojnacki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oczekiwałem jednak czegoś więcej, chociaż jest tam kilka perełek. Całość na solidnym poziomie, na pewno nie rozczaruje.

[Belle Meade School]

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