The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2004

by Pinker, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780618246984
• ISBN10: 0618246983
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-14
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004, edited by Steven Pinker, is another "provocative and thoroughly enjoyable [collection] from start to finish" (Publishers Weekly). Here is the best and newest on science and nature: the psychology of suicide terrorism, desperate measures in surgery, the weird world of octopuses, Sex Week at Yale, the linguistics of click languages, the worst news about cloning, and much more.

Author Biography

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Introduction by Steven Pinker	xiii
SCOTT ATRAN.
Genesis of Suicide Terrorism
from Science
RONALD BAILEY
The Battle, for Your Brain	15	(13)
from Reason
PHILIP M. BOFFEY.
Fearing the Worst Should Anyone Produce a Cloned Baby	28	(3)
from The New York Times
AUSTIN BUNN.
The Bittersweet Science	31	(7)
from The New York Times Magazine
JENNET CONANT.
The New Celebrity	38	(7)
from Seed
DANIEL C. DENNETT.
The Mythical Threat of Genetic Determinism	45	(6)
from The Chronicle of Higher Education
GREGG EASTERBROOK.
Were All Gonna Die!	51	(11)
from Wired
GARRETT G. FAGAN.
Far-Out Television	62	(7)
from Archaeology
JEFFREY M. FRIEDMAN.
A War on Obesity, Not the Obese	69	(8)
from Science
ATUL GAWANDE.
Desperate Measures	77	(24)
from The New Yorker
HORACE FREELAND JUDSON.
The Stuff of Genes	101	(4)
from Smithsonian
GEOFFREY NUNBERG.
The Bloody Crossroads of Grammar and Politics	105	(4)
from The New York Times
MIKE O'CONNOR.
Ask the Bird Folks	109	(9)
from The Cape Codder
PEGGY ORENSTEIN.
Where Have All the Lisas Gone?	118	(8)
from The New York Times Magazine
VIRGINIA POSTREL.
The Design of Your Life	126	(3)
from Men's journal
JONATHAN RAUCH.
Caring for Your Introvert	129	(4)
from The Atlantic Monthly
CHET RAYMO.
All the Old Sciences Have Starring Roles	133	(3)
from The Boston Globe
RON ROSENBAUM.
Sex Week at Yale	136	(16)
from The Atlantic Monthly
STEVE SAILER.
The Cousin Marriage Conundrum	152	(7)
from The American Conservative
ROBERT SAPOLSKY.
Bugs in the Brain	159	(5)
from Scientific American
ERIC SCIGLIANO.
Through the Eye of an Octopus	164	(9)
from Discover
MEREDITH F. SMALL.
Captivated	173	(2)
from Natural History
MAX TEGMARK.
Parallel Universes	175	(16)
from Scientific American
NICHOLAS WADE.
In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients	191	(4)
from The New York Times
NICHOLAS WADE.
A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the World	195	(6)
from The New York Times
Contributors' Notes	201	(5)
Other Notable Science and Nature Writing of 2003	206