Physicist and Cambridge college Master Athene Donald takes on the complex and important issue of the gender balance in the sciences. We get plenty on the problem and the vast difference there is between the stats in the biological sciences, where there are more female than males entering the profession, and subjects such as maths, physics and computing, where females remain significantly in the minority. We also see how career progression, even for the biological sciences, seems biassed against female scientists. What is less clear is the solutions. One of the essential contributory factors, for instance, how science is taught in secondary schools doesn't get as much coverage as it deserves. Donald mentions the important aspect of hands on - how taking part in experiments is an important introduction, but health and safety has made it far less part of the curriculum - but not how to overcome this. And there's no real mention of the way that school science, particularly physics,
One of my favourite TV shows is Hustle , and in effect what Maria Konnikova gives us in this 2016 title is the science of Hustle - the psychology behind the way that confidence tricksters are able to manipulate their marks, whether it’s to sell something dodgy or to live a fictional life. Konnikova breaks down a con to its traditional stages, from the first contact (the put-up) to the final subtlety where the true con artist does not go for a single take, but rather makes it seem like things have gone a little wrong, so the mark needs to double down and come up with even more. At each stage we are presented with one or more stories from real life, some quite as remarkable as the fictional cons in the TV programme, others far simpler. From Nigerian princes to Ponzi schemes, all of fraudulent life is here. The temptation would be to focus on the stories at the expense of science, but Konnikova gives us plenty of depth in psychological studies that help explain why some con artists are