Dean Burnett - Four Way Interview

Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist and stand-up comedian. He lives in Cardiff and works at the Institute for Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University. The most-read blogger on the Guardian Science network, his 'Brain Flapping' blog has been viewed over 11 million times. His latest book is The Happy Brain.

Why science?

Obvious answer would be 'Why not science?', but I imagine that's been done. My own interest in science stems, I think, from being an early love of sci-fi that offered some escapism from being a shy, chubby child in an isolated rural community. I wanted to find out why I was different, never really got a good answer, but my research into the brain sparked my interest and it pretty much snowballed from there.

Why this book?

I never planned to write a second book. I didn't even plan to write a first one, if I'm honest, but I got the opportunity to do so and thought I should take it. Figured it would be a one time thing, so essentially splurged all my saved up knowledge in it, expecting it to be met with a polite nod then be forgotten about. Didn't happen; it went really well, so my agents and publishers started asking what my second book was going to be. I had no clue, so started asking everyone I knew for suggestions. While they all varied tremendously, the one thing people kept saying was 'You've just got to write about whatever makes you happy.' Turns out, I'm a very literal person.

What's next?

Hopefully, more writing, what with me having given up my day job to do it full time not too long ago. Discussing future book plans now, but one thing I've always done is not form any concrete plans. Given my background and connections, getting into university in the first place meant I was in uncharted waters, so I've learned to just see how things pan out and react to opportunities as and when they occur. Seems to have worked out ok so far, but I'm probably overdue a crushing public embarrassment, so keep an eye out for that.

What's exciting you at the moment?

As hinted at before now (and throughout my works), I don't really feel I was 'meant' to be a prominent writer/academic/scientist, and yet here we are. So what I do like doing is finding someone else with something relevant to say and helping get their stuff out there too. I find this very rewarding, so it's not exactly altruistic, but I feel like I've been let into 'the establishment' by accident, so am holding the door open for as many other misfits and oddballs as I can before they notice.

Comments

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

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