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The Joy of Science - Jim Al-Khalili ****

While some pocket-sized science hardbacks have been very thin on content (think Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons), Jim Al-Khalili has demonstrated how it's possible to pack a feast for the mind into this compact form in The World According to Physics. He is, however, trying to do something very different with The Joy of Science, even though the format is similar.

The title gives nothing away (apart, possibly from a knowing reference to the work of Alex Comfort) - what Al-Khalili tries to do here is to explain how scientists look at the world and from this to draw lessons for all of us on topics such as how 'Mysteries are to be embraced, but also to be solved', 'If you don't understand something, it doesn't mean you can't if you try' and 'Don't value opinion over evidence' - that last a particularly difficult one at a time even academic institutions seem determined to rate feelings over reality in their effort to appeal to the cult of the individual.

Because of this topic, Al-Khalili doesn't have the same ability to pack in the approachable science. It can be easy when the author is a scientist, and is telling people how to avoid biases and how to be more like a scientist in their viewpoint, to come across as smug and arrogant. Thankfully, Al-Khalili avoids this - he makes it clear that he is aware of his own biases. This isn't just something the common people suffer from. Even so, there is a real difficulty in telling us anything that is practically useful here. For example, as we are told several times, you can argue with a conspiracy theorist as long as you like and you won't shift their opinion whatever approach you take.

It's interesting to compare the book with Lee McIntyre's How to Talk to a Science Denier. Unlike McIntyre, Al-Khalili doesn't tell much in the way of stories of dealing with those who struggle with scientific thinking (though, to be fair, McIntyre mostly fails to engage with real science deniers in his narrative sections) - but Al-Khalili does have a clearer picture of what the issues are and at least how the reader can take a viewpoint that is more likely to result in an appropriate analysis, even if this won't help persuade someone who simply isn't prepared to listen to the evidence.

The book's least successful part for me is where Al-Khalili explains what science does. He makes the odd statement that 'A physicist like me tries to uncover ultimate truths about how the world is.' Leaving aside the Kantian idea that we can never engage with true reality (Kant's 'Ding an sich') only phenomena, this is an oversimplified view of science. While it's true, as Al-Khalili says, that part of the job of science is collecting facts that are indisputable, such as the value of the acceleration due to gravity, that's not the interesting part. The best bits of science, particularly physics, are not about what happens, but why or how it happens. When that's the case, science isn't about reaching ultimate truths, but about establishing the best theory given the current evidence. It is only by recognising this that we can truly explain what science involves - and what drives and fascinates many scientists.

Similarly, despite claiming to be aware of his own biases, I don't think Al-Khalili is prepared to be detached enough from those biases when, for example, he remarks 'Is superstring theory... not proper science because we don't (yet) know how to test it and therefore cannot claim it to be falsifiable?' The answer to that, without the bias of a working physicist, is 'Yes'. It isn't proper science. It may become so, but it certainly isn't yet and may well never be.

There are some limitations, then, to this book - and it certainly isn't as engaging a read as Al-Khalili's The World According to Physics - but it is a worthwhile attempt at something important and well worth taking a look at.

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