Great Essays in Science

448 Pages·1994·24.93 MB·English

by  edited by Martin Gardner

GREAT
ESSAYS In»
SCIENCE
7
Isaac Asimov ® Rachel Carson |
Charles Darwin ° John Dewey ~
Albert Finstein ¢ Jean Henri Fabre
Sigmund Freud ¢ Stephen Jay Gould
_ Aldous Huxley * Julian Huxley |
William James -e Ernest Nagel
Bertrand Russell * Carl Sagan
Lewis Thomas e H. G. Wells
and others
_ EDITED BY
MARTIN GARDNER >
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/greatessaysinsci0000unse_k5j2
GREAT
ESSAYS IN
SCIENCE

GREAT
EPRR Scee a Si ee eArrs YS In
SCIENCE
Isaac Asimov ¢ Rachel Carson
Charles Darwin ¢ John Dewey
Albert Einstein ¢ Jean Henri Fabre
Sigmund Freud ¢ Stephen Jay Gould
Aldous Huxley ¢ Julian Huxley
William James ¢ Ernest Nagel
Bertrand Russell ¢ Carl Sagan
Lewis Thomas ¢ H. G. Wells
and others
EDITED BY
MARTIN Se a
@& Prometheus Books
59 John Glenn Drive
Buffalo, NewYork 14228-2197
-a e
Published 1994 by Prometheus Books
59 John Glenn Drive, Buffalo, New York 14228-2197
Copyright © 1984, 1994 by Martin Gardner
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Great essays in science / edited by Martin Gardner.
p. cm.
Rep. ed. of: The sacred beetle and other great essays in science. 1984.
ISBN 0-87975-853-8
1. Science. I. Gardner, Martin. IJ. Sacred beetle and other great essays
in science.
Q171.S13 1994
500—dc20 93-35453
CIE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For copyrighted material the editor is indebted to the following authors,
publishers and agents:
ABELARD-SCHUMAN, INC. for permission to reprint “The Gestapo in
Science” from Alsos by Samuel A. Goudsmit, copyright, 1947.
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD. for permission to reprint “The
Barbarism of ‘Specialization’” from The Revolt of the Masses by José
Ortega y Gasset for sale in the British Empire and Open Market; “Dreams
of the Death of Beloved Persons,” originally titled “Dreams of the Death of
Persons of Whom the Dreamer Is Fond,” from The Interpretation of
Dreams by Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, for sale in the
British Empire and Open Market. ;
APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS, INC. for permission to reprint “Re-
capitulation and Conclusion” from The Origin of Species by Charles
Darwin; “Science and Culture” from Science and Education by Thomas
H. Huxley.
ISAAC ASIMOV for permission to reprint “Science and Beauty” from The
Roving Mind.
BASIC BOOKS, INC. for permission to reprint “Dreams of the Death of
Beloved Persons” from The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, translated
by James Strachey, for sale in the United States.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS for permission to reprint “Religion
Acknowledgments Vv
and Science,” Chapter XIII, from Science and the Modern World by Alfred
North Whitehead for sale in the British Empire, except Canada, and Open
Market; “The Decline of Determinism,” Chapter IV, from New Pathways in
Science by Sir Arthur Eddington.
CHATTO & WINDUS, LTD. for permission to reprint “An Essay on
Bird-Mind” from Essays of a Biologist by Julian Huxley for sale in the
British Empire and Open market; “Science in the Brave New World,”
Chapter XVI, from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley for sale in the
British Empire.
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, INC. for permission to reprint “The Sacred
Beetle” from The Sacred Beetle and Others by J. Henri Fabre for sale in the
United States and Canada, copyright, 1918, by Dodd, Mead & Company,
Inc.; “The Logic of Elfland,” from “The Ethics of Elfland,” in Orthodoxy by
G. K. Chesterton for sale in the United States, copyright, 1908, 1935, by G.
K. Chesterton.
JOHN DOS PASSOS for permission to reprint “Proteus” from The 42nd
Parallel, part of the trilogy, U.S.A., published by the Houghton Mifflin
Company, copyright, 1930, by John Dos Passos.
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, INC. for permission to reprint “The New
Source of Energy” from The World Set Free by H. G. Wells for sale in the
United States and Canada, copyright, 1914, 1942, by Herbert George Wells.
HARPER & BROTHERS for permission to reprint “Science in the Brave
New World” from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley for sale in the
United States and Open Market, copyright, 1932, by Aldous Huxley.
HENRY HOLT & COMPANY, INC. for permission to reprint “The In-
fluence of Darwinism on Philosophy” from The Influence of Darwinism on
Philosophy and Other Essays by John Dewey.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY for permission to reprint “Science
and Literature” from Indoor Studies by John Burroughs.
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. for permission to reprint “An Essay on Bird-
mapa from Essays of a Biologist by Julian Huxley for sale in the United
tates.
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, LIMITED for permission to reprint
“The Logic of Elfland” from Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton for sale in the
British Empire and Open Market.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY for permission to reprint “Religion and
Science,” Chapter XII, from Science and the Modern World by Alfred North
Whitehead for sale in the United States and Canada.
COUNTESS MAURICE MAETERLINCK for permission to reprint “The
Nuptial Flight” from The Life of the Bee by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated
by Alfred Sutro.
NATURAL HISTORY for permission to reprint “Nonmoral Nature” by
Stephen Jay Gould from Natural History, Vol. 91, No. 2, copyright the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History, 1982.
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. for permission to reprint “The Bar-
barism of ‘Specialization’” from The Revolt of the Masses by José Ortega y
Gasset for sale in the United States, copyright, 1932, by W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc.
HAROLD OBER ASSOCIATES for permission to reprint “The Sacred
Beetle” from The Sacred Beetle and Others by J. Henri Fabre for sale in the
British Empire, except Canada, and Open Market.
vi Acknowledgments
DR. J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER and the A. D. LITTLE LECTURE
COMMITTEE for permission to reprint “Physics in the Contemporary
World.”
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. for permission to reprint “The
Sunless Sea” from The Sea Around Us by Rachel L. Carson for sale in the
United States, Canada, and Open Market, copyright, 1951, by Rachel L.
Carson.
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY, INC. for permission to reprint “E=mc?"
from Out of My Later Years by Albert Einstein, reprinted from Science
Illustrated, copyright McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, Inc.
RANDOM HOUSE, INC. for permission to reprint “What Makes a
Woman Beautiful?” from “Sexual Selection in Man” in Studies in the Psy-
chology of Sex by Havelock Ellis, copyright, 1905, by F. A. Davis Company,
copyright, 1933, by Havelock Ellis; “Other-Worldly Life” from Flight into
Space by Jonathan Norton Leonard, copyright 1953, by Jonathan Norton
Leonard, for sale in the United States and Canada.
PAUL R. REYNOLDS & SON for permission to reprint “The Problem of
Being” from Some Problems of Philosophy by William James, published by
Longmans, Green & Co., Inc., copyright, 1911, by Henry James, Jr.
BERTRAND RUSSELL for permission to reprint “The Science to Save
Us from Science” from the March 19, 1950, issue of The New York Times
Magazine, and “The Greatness of Albert Einstein” from the May 30, 1955,
issue of The New Leader.
SCOTT MEREDITH LITERARY AGENCY, INC., 845 Third Avenue,
New York, NY 10022, and Dr. Carl Sagan for permission to reprint “Re
flections on a Grain of Salt.”
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD. for permission to reprint “Other-Worldly
Life” from Flight into Space by Jonathan Norton Leonard for sale in the
British Empire, except Canada, and Open Market.
SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. for permission to reprint “Automation,”
originally titled “Self-Regulation,” by Ernest Nagel, copyright, 1955, by Sci-
entific American, Inc.
WILLIAM SLOANE ASSOCIATES, INC. for permission to reprint “The
Colloid and the Crystal” from The Best of Two Worlds by Joseph Wood
Krutch, copyright, 1950, by Joseph Wood Krutch. (Copyright, 1950, by Street
& Smith Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of Mademoiselle.)
STAPLES PRESS LIMITED for permission to reprint “The Sunless Sea”
from The Sea Around Us by Rachel L. Carson for sale in the British Em-
pire, except Canada.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS for permission to reprint
“Success” from Atoms in the Family by Laura Fermi, copyright, 1954, by
the University of Chicago.
VIKING PENGUIN INC. for permission to reprint “Seven Wonders”
from Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, by
Lewis Thomas, Copyright @1983 by Lewis Thomas.
THE EXECUTORS OF THE ESTATE OF H. G. WELLS for permission
to reprint “Science and Ultimate Truth,” Section 4 of Chapter II, from The
Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind by H. G. Wells, copyright, 1931,
by Herbert George Wells; “The New Source of Energy,” Sections 1 and 2 of
Chapter I, from The World Set Free by H. G. Wells for sale in the British
Empire, except Canada, and Open Market.
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