Overwhelmed and disgusted by politics, climate inaction, and the looming collapse of global human civilisation? Unless you’re a sociopath, of course you are.
Yes, there are the usual cures for existential angst, but heroin is illegal, alcohol is expensive, and both will kill you.
Losing yourself in a good novel is a worthy option, but the gains from good science writing will take you into the world of ideas to discover deeper insights about ourselves and our universe. Science is also a fundamental counter to the dis- and misinformation that continuously pours into our lives via various media.
Here are two excellent new science releases to intrigue, inspire, enlighten and amuse.
First up, this year’s anthology from UNSW – The Best Australian Science Writing 2024.
This engaging, thoughtful and witty collection includes 34 essays and poems from scientists and science journalists, and includes a host of topics – the quirks of AI, the mysteries of slime mold, medical whodunnits, why dogs might be the best people, asks if covid was really a lab leak, holds Big Pharma to account, and so much more.
The editors, Jackson Ryan and Carl Smith, preface the brief essays with a foreword from Deadly Science founder, Corey Tutt, who calls out the failure of STEM education and industries to create ‘an equitable and inclusive environment’ for indigenous science. If that strikes the reader as ‘woke’ (a meaning-free signifier for Sky After Dark viewers to ignore reality), spend enough time on the frontlines of the non-indigenous exploitation of the land, and you might note we’re destroying what indigenous people cared for over the last six millennia in just two short centuries. In short, if we give a damn about our future, we (indigenous and non-indigenous alike) need Australian First Nations scientific perspectives as foundational to our learning and decision-making. Good science needs to be decolonised.
Another terrific read is Why Are We Like This? by award-winning Tasmanian science writer Zoe Kean.
The art of good science is finding better questions to ask, which is why Zoe Kean has done well with the title of her latest work, Why Are We Like This? Subtitled An evolutionary search for answers to life’s big questions, Kean puts a range of human behaviours into the context of evolution to explain them.
Every chapter starts with a pithy question, such as ‘Why do we care?’, ‘Why do we drink?’, ‘Why do we sleep?’ and ‘Why do we have inner lives?’ All topics are not only fascinating in their own right, and cover the history of each question through the ages, but are highly relatable.
The fact is, humans are weird. Life is weird, sex is weird, sleep is weird and the voices in our heads are weird. Each topic is littered with questions, which form the stepping-stones to navigate how our thinking has evolved on every aspect of our being alive and conscious.
Kean also makes the processes of science more transparent, allowing us to think alongside those scientists who actively pondered the great questions.
In the final chapter, Why Do We Have Inner Lives?, Kean addresses what’s called the Hard Problem: what is consciousness?
How can something so ineffable, glorious, weird, wild and wonderful as sentient ‘thought’ emerge from meat?
Science, along with art, is the great giver of insight and understanding, of connection and joy in ourselves, and with the life around us. So ditch that queasy feeling you get from scrolling your phone and switch to the small joys you’ll get from science. Well done to Kean and those all involved in getting this one published.
The Best Australian Science Writing 2024, UNSW Press, 273pp, ISBN: 9781761170157, RRP $32.99
Why Are We Like This?, by Zoe Kean, NewSouth Publishing, UNSW, 352pp, ISBN: 9781742238104, RRP $32.99
B.P. Marshall is a scriptwriter and author.
