Quotes About Author

recent popular biography by a fine science writer is James Gleick's Isaac Newton (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003)

The Mass Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994).

Drawing out Leviathan: Dinosaurs and the Science Wars (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001).

David Young, in his excellent book The Discovery of Evolution, strikes just the right note of balance in our interpretation of science; his words can serve as a coda for this chapter:

In a letter to the editor of the (now, sadly, defunct) magazine The Sciences (vol. 35

Steve Woolgar develops his views in confrontational style in Science: The Very Idea (London: Tavistock Publications, 1988

One very good introduction to the topic of scientific explanation is the chapter "Scientific Explanation" by Wesley C. Salmon in Salmon et al., Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992).

Another very clear and helpful overview of the topic of explanation is in An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, third edition, by Karel Lambert and Gordon G. Brittan Jr. (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing, 1987)

On the other hand, the Santa Claus hypothesis is highly empirically successful for five-year-olds, but, of course, five-year-olds are very limited in their ability to test hypotheses

Unfortunately, this is so obviously a convention of bad fiction that it might as well read, 'Looking in the mirror, Joe saw a tall, brown-haired man, trapped in a poorly written novel.

Historical research has the same status as all background information. The author must know it, even if it does not appear directly in the novel. Otherwise, the characters won't seem like people, and the setting won't seem like a place.

He vacated a myriad times in the naively prolonged girl.

Any of the following crimes against fiction can prevent the publication of your novel. Committing several will prevent the publication of novels by anyone whose name is similar to yours, just in case.

If the equality of individuals and the dignity of man be myths, they are myths to which the republic is committed.

I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow.

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

His lordly darkness decked in filthBearded with weed like a lady's favor,He is a black planet.

Muriel and Zachary's Maine coon cat was named 'Epilogue' for the fact that he concludes the lives of so many mice.

Muriel sometimes put her emotions on highest exhibit by exaggerating a suppression of them.

Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.

About 25 years ago, I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime, because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are negligent of order.

in statesmanship, too great a preoccupation to avoid the errors of the past makes it likely that you will fall into the errors of the present.

I have a lot of time for vegetarians (though apparently not all of them have a lot of time for me), and that's because I respect anyone with principles about food.