Panning a Popular-Science Book
Recently I read the book The Story of Measurement, by Andrew Robinson (London : Thames & Hudson, 2007, 224 pages). It's a coffee-table sized book filled with lovely color illustrations and short digestible articles on all manner of topics related to measurement that I was hoping to find interesting.
Interesting enough they were, but they were also peppered with inaccuracies, inconsistencies, misleading word choices, and enough other little sins of omissions, faulty analogies, and not-quite-right explanations that the quality of the entire text is thrown into question. Although these may have been a matter of only a few words here and there–how much trouble can that cause?–the fall-out can be out of all proportion if the reader is left with inaccurate notions about scientific concepts or, worse, she believes she now understands a concept but has in fact been given a faulty understanding.
It's a shame because this could have been a fun, attractive, and informative book if only the publisher had seen the value of having an editor with scientific understanding provide editorial assistance.
And, while I'm on the subject, I should point out that there's still plenty of time to read some books for the Science-Book Challenge 2008.