Books are weapons of mass instruction, according to a bookshop window in London. The point was well illustrated at the capital鈥檚 Science Museum on Wednesday evening, when Chris McManus won the Aventis Science Book Prize for Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures.
Novelist Margaret Drabble, chair of the judges, said the panel had had their brains seriously exercised by 鈥渢he pages of knowledge鈥� exhibited by a strong shortlist. Some books had been difficult to understand but rewarding, she said.
Drabble thinks McManus鈥檚 book will become a classic, while another shortlisted book, Robert Kirshner鈥檚 The Extravagant Universe, caused 鈥渁n explosion in the mind 鈥� with its account of the discovery that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
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Right Hand, Left Hand examines not only the science, but also the culture of asymmetry, of which being left or right handed is the most obvious example. Accepting the 拢10,000 prize, McManus noted that he was standing near the Crick and Watson model of DNA 鈥� a right-handed spiral.
The professor of psychology and medical education at University College London added that in researching the book he had been lucky to have twin daughters, one right-handed and one left-handed.
The book is doing exceptionally well for a science hardback, selling better than most novels. It confirms the trend that the life sciences produce more prize winners than the physical sciences. Previous winners of the Aventis prize include biologists Jared Diamond, Steve Jones, Steven Rose and Stephen Jay Gould.
Six handshakes
The panel of two scientists and three writers or journalists had a shortlist of six from which to choose. This included Steven Pinker鈥檚 controversial The Blank Slate, an examination of human nature and our changing ideas about it.
Mark Buchanan鈥檚 Small Worlds tackles the power laws underlying the notion that we are all, as Drabble put it, 鈥渟ix handshakes away from the president of the US鈥�. The judges described it as 鈥� 鈥淎 perfect example of how to show that science and maths underpin everything.鈥�
The judges also praised Gerd Gigerenzer鈥檚 Reckoning with Risk for getting to grips with counterintuitive ideas that can lie under the surface of statistics, which includes showing how poorly most people understand them.
Finally, in Where is Everybody?, Stephen Webb provides 50 answers to the question of why, in such a huge Universe, have we not yet met extraterrestrial life.
All the shortlisted books have been reviewed in New 杏吧原创 print edition:
声 Right Hand, Left Hand: The origins of asymmetry in brains, atoms and cultures by Chris McManus, Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Harvard, 拢20, ISBN 0297645978
New 杏吧原创 print edition review, 29 June 2002, p 57
声 Calculated Risks: How to know when numbers deceive you by Gerd Gigerenzer, Simon & Schuster, $25, ISBN 0743205561
New 杏吧原创 print edition review, 25 May 2002, p 52
声 Nexus (Small Worlds in UK) by Mark Buchanan, W W Norton/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $25.95/ 拢18.99, ISBN 0393041530
New 杏吧原创 print edition review, 27 July 2002, p 58
声 Where is Everybody? Fifty solutions to Fermi鈥檚 paradox by Stephen Webb, Praxis, 拢17.50/$27.50, ISBN 0387955011
New 杏吧原创 print edition review, 26 April 2003, p 53
声 The Blank Slate: The modern denial of human nature by Steven Pinker, Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, 拢25, ISBN 0713992565
New 杏吧原创 print edition review, 7 September 2002, p 56
声 The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos by Robert Kirshner, Princeton University Press, 拢19.95/$29.95, ISBN 0691058628
New 杏吧原创 print edition review, 16 November 2002, p 42