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Comment by edanm | Hacker News Reader

Great article!

Here's a question: What other books that were written for a popular audience (or that achieved a largely popular audience) also served as works that affected science itself? E.g. the article talks about The Selfish Gene being both a pop-sci book, but also a book that profoundly changed the field of Evolution.

Are there other good examples?

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The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes. It would be a stretch to say it succeeded in profoundly changed its own field, but it certainly is more than just explication for the lay reader - it lays down a compelling argument which attempts such change.

And it's a great read.

By asking for books that affected science itself you set the bar pretty high. Here are some of my favorite popular science books that I think are all noteworthy enough to have been discussed by scientists.

- Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter

- The Emperor's New Mind - Roger Penrose

- The Embodied Mind - Varela, Thompson & Rosch

- Don't sleep, there are snakes - Daniel Everett

On the origin of species by Charles Darwin

That's an interesting one, but was it written for a popular audience? (Maybe it was; I don't know.) In terms of achieving a popular audience, "Relativity: The special and general theory" may be in the same league as Darwin.

I read Origin of Species before The Selfish Gene and I enjoyed it a lot. I actually knew enough about evolution to follow all arguments easily. This is not surprising given that Darwin tried to introduce the idea to an audience that was largely alien to the concept.

I think what I liked most about the book is the (clearly labeled) speculations. He was already anticipating a lot.

The article also mentions that so I'm guessing the questioner is looking for other examples.

The Mars Project (1952) by Wernher von Braun had a pretty big impact on the public imagination and helped drive the Apollo project [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mars_Project

I took a course on scientific writing as literature. My favorite authors were Oliver Sacks, David Quamman, Tom Wolfe, R. Seltzer, and Loren Eisley.

syllabus http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/51786/PEER_stag...

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