Short Book Reviews (notes) On-Line 1996

THE FUTURE OF STATISTICS. AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE.	Z. Kenessey (Ed.).
THE BELL CURVE WARS. Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America.	S. Fraser (Ed.).
THE PRIVATE SCIENCE OF LOUIS PASTEUR.	G.L. Geison.
EINSTEIN, HISTORY, AND OTHER PASSIONS.	G. Holton.
JUDGEMENT AT THE SMITHSONIAN. Smithsonian script by the curators at the National Air and Space Museum.	P. Nobile (Ed.). Afterword by B.J. Bernstein.
TRUST IN NUMBERS. The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life.	T.M. Porter.
ORGANIZING TO COUNT. Change in the Federal Statistical System.	J.L. Norwood.
HOW TO THINK ABOUT STATISTICS, 5th edition.	J.L. Phillips, Jr.
THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF STATISTICS IN THE MEDICAL SCIENCES.	B.S. Everitt.
SUSTAINABILITY AND POLICY. Limits to Economics.	M. Common.
SCIENCE IN THE FUTURE OF EUROPE.	E.S. Vizi (Ed.).
SELLING SCIENCE. How the Press Covers Science and Technology. Revised edition.	D. Nelkin.
A MATHEMATICIAN READS THE NEWSPAPER.	J.A. Paulos.
THE MYTH OF SCIENTIFIC LITERACY.	M.H. Shamos. Foreword by M.B. Rowe.
SCIENCE AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS. Science in the Political Thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Madison.	I.B. Cohen.
THE DIFFIDENT NATURALIST. Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of Experiment.	R.-M. Sargent.
THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Music, Science, and the Natural Order of the Universe.	J. James.
EMPIRES OF TIME. Calendars, Clocks and Cultures.	A.F. Aveni.
THOMAS GRAY IN COPENHAGEN. In which the Philosopher Cat meets the Ghost of Hans Christian Andersen.	P.J. Davis. Illustrated by M. Dorian.
ALICE IN QUANTUMLAND. An Allegory of Quantum Physics.	R. Gilmore.
THE EXTRA MILE. Rethinking Energy Policy for Automotive Transportation.	P.S. Nivola and R.W. Crandall. Foreword by R.C. Leone.
TAKING NATURE INTO ACCOUNT. Toward a Sustainable National Income. A Report to the Club of Rome.	W. Van Dieren (Ed.). Foreword by A. King.
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. The Battle for Personal Privacy.	G.G. Scott.
STAIRWAY TO THE MIND. The Controversial New Science of Consciousness.	A. Scott.
THE PRICE OF GREATNESS. Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy.	A.M. Ludwig.
LONG-TERM EXPERIMENTS IN AGRICULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL SCIENCES. Proceedings of a conference to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Rothamsted Experimental Station, held at Rotha	R.A. Leigh and A.E. Johnston (Eds.). Foreword by T. Lewis.
LEADING ECONOMIC CONTROVERSIES OF 1996.	E. Mansfield.
THE MATHEMATICAL EXPERIENCE. Study Edition. P.J. Davis,	R. Hersh and E.A. Marchisoto. With an Introduction by G.-C. Rota.
SOCIETY'S CHOICES. Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine.	R. E. Bulger, E.M. Bobby and H.V. Fineberg (Eds.).
MISUNDERSTANDING SCIENCE? The public reconstruction of science and technology.	A. Irwin and B. Wynne (Eds.).
POLITICS ON THE ENDLESS FRONTIER. Postwar Research Policy in the United States.	D.L. Kleinman.
EFFECTS OF ATOMIC RADIATION. A Half-Century of Studies from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.	W.J. Schall.
ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE. The Global Challenge.	L.C. Hempel.
SCIENCE, NONSCIENCE, AND NONSENSE. Approaching Environmental Literacy.	M. Zimmerman.
THE SIZESAURUS.	S. Strauss.
THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS. A History of Human Flight to 1919.	P. Scott.
INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL EPIDEMIOLOGY.	E.O. Talbott and G.F. Craun (Eds.).
THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL ATMOSPHERIC CHANGE.	I.H. Rowlands.
MATHEMATICAL MODELS IN FINANCE.	S.D. Howison, F.P. Kelly and P. Wilmott (Eds.).
A MATHEMATICAL KALEIDOSCOPE. Applications in Industry, Business and Science.	B. Conolly and S. Vajda.
THE NATURE OF SPACE AND TIME. S. Hawking and	R. Penrose.
THE GUTENBERG ELEGIES. The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age.	S. Birkerts.
TELLING LIVES IN SCIENCE. Essays on Scientific Biography.	M. Shortland and R. Yeo (Eds.).
ENOUGH FOR ONE LIFETIME. Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon.	M.E. Hermes.
THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF G.I. TAYLOR.	G. Batchelor.
PROBABILITY, 2nd edition.	A.N. Shiryaev.
THE ANALYSIS OF TIME SERIES. An Introduction. 5th edition.	C. Chatfield.

This volume contains eight studies and discussions presented at a conference on 'The Long Term Perspectives of International Statistics' in Voorburg, The Netherlands, in September 1994. The conference was sponsored by Statistics Netherlands, Central Planning Bureau of the Netherlands, the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands and EUROSTAT.

In nineteen essays by authors who include Stephen Jay Gould and Martin Beretz, the conclusions of the book, The Bell Curve, by R.J. Hernstein and C. Murray, are dismantled.

Louis Pasteur lived from 1822 to 1895. Thus 1995 was the one hundredth anniversary of his death. The author uses Pasteur's laboratory notebooks in order to present an accurate account about Pasteur and the competitive and political world at that time.

This volume of sixteen essays is divided into four parts: 1. Learning from Einstein, 2. Science in History, 3. Personalities in Physics and 4. Science for Students.

This is the story behind the Smithsonian's 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

From the book jacket: "This investigation of the overwhelming appeal of quantification in the modern world discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. How are we to account for the current prestige and power of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is seen as desirable in social and economic investigation as a result of its successes in the study of nature. Theodore Porter is not content with this. Why should the kind of success achieved in the study of stars, molecules, or cells be an attractive model for research on human societies? he asks. And, indeed, how should we understand the pervasiveness of quantification in the science of nature? In his view, we should look in the reverse direction: comprehending the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research will teach us something new about its role in psychology, physics, and medicine.
"Drawing on a wide range of examples from the laboratory and from the worlds of accounting, insurance, cost-benefit analysis, and civil engineering, Porter shows that it is "exactly wrong" to interpret the drive for quantitative rigor as inherent somehow in the activity of science except where political and social pressures force compromise. Instead, quantification grows from attempts to develop a strategy of impersonality in response to pressures from outside. Objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts, quantification becoming most important where elites are weak, where private negotiation is suspect, and where trust is in short supply."

The author analyzes the United States federal statistical system and discusses changes that might make it better. Comparisons are made with statistical agencies in Canada and the United Kingdom.

From the back cover: "This volume helps us to make sense of the numbers that we encounter as consumers, as voters, in business and in school. Focusing on the underlying logic of statistical analysis and problem-solving, rather than on mathematics and computations, he provides a solid framework for under-standing how statistics are conceived, gathered, re-ported, and interpreted-and sometimes manipulated, misrepresented, or obscured."

This dictionary of statistics in the medical sciences includes brief descriptions of over two thousand terms used in the medical and medical statistics literature. Some graphical illustrations and numerical examples are given but mathematical formulae are kept to a minimum.

Two of the greatest problems facing the world are poverty and the environment. The book examines economic and ecological approaches to the problem of balancing economic growth with the environment.

The twenty-five essays in this volume were given at a meeting in Budapest of representatives from twenty-six countries. The volume is divided into three parts: The main role of science in the 1990's; The future of democracies of Europe, the role of science; science serving humanitarian goals.

Selling Science discusses the relationship between scientists and journalists that affect the coverage of science in the media.

From the book review of this book by I. Stewart: "If you thought mathematics was only of interest to bespectacled eggheads in ivory towers, think again. Mathematics is all around you. And it's a great defense against the sharks, cowboys, and liars who want your vote, your money, or your life C as John Allen Paulos's latest makes crystal-clear."

Professor Shamos is a professor emeritus of Physics at New York University. From the book jacket: "Why do we make every schoolchild and college student take science? Does every American really need to be scientifically literate? [The author] argues that universal scientific literacy is a futile goal, and urges a critical review of the purpose of general education in science. Shamos argues that a meaningful scientific literacy cannot be achieved in the first place, and the attempt is a misuse of human resources on a grand scale. He is sceptical about forecasts of "critical shortfalls in scientific manpower" and about the motives behind crash programs to get more young people into the science pipeline. Finally, he is convinced that, as presently taught, the vast majority of students come out of science classes with neither an intellectual grasp nor a pragmatic appreciation of science."
Later in the book he states: "[The mass media] also holds the key to reinforcement of science facts and concepts for educated adults in the future, and to the exposure of scientific frauds. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the popular press for the most part de-votes space only to the "newsworthy" in science, the spectacular, the amazing, the commercial aspects of science, not to the task of helping to educate the public. Obviously, if a choice had to be made, any news-paper editor would throw out a science article in favour of some fast breaking news story, but would the editor consider sacrificing the comic page or the daily horoscope? It all boils down to the question of where a society places its priorities, for in the end one must assume that in terms of style and coverage news-papers ultimately respond to their readers' wishes.
"If all newspapers gave as much space to science columns on a regular basis as they devote to the pseudoscience of astrology, it is conceivable that our society would not be as illiterate in science as it is today. Of the roughly 1,600 daily newspapers published in the United States, some 1,400 carry regular (daily) astrology columns, and of these only a handful (fewer than fifty) print disclaimers along with their astrology columns to the effect that horoscopes are not based upon scientific fact, are presented only for entertainment and not as guides to the conduct of one's daily life. Freedom of the press is a cherished right in a democracy, but with freedom come responsibilities, among these being the obligation to use the enormous power of the mass media for the overall good of society. Promoting pseudoscience in the guise of astrology, innocent though it may seem, cannot be counted as contributing to such good."

From the book jacket: "America's founding fathers were remarkably well-rounded people, not least in their understanding of science.
"Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. In 1791, the newly-elected vice-president delivered a lecture on fossils to the American Philosophical Society, and his many scientific inventions and interests have astonished succeeding generations.
"Benjamin Franklin, in 1775, held inter-national fame in science. Credited with establishing the science of electricity, his Experiments and Observations on Electricity had been translated into six languages before the American Revolution.
"John Adams had the finest education in science the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechaniks, Staticks, Opticks.
"And James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federal Papers with refer-ence to physics, chemistry, and the life sciences.
"For these men science was an integral part of life-including political life. This is the story of their scientific education and of how they employed that knowledge in shaping the political issues of the day, incorporating scientific reasoning into the Constitution."

This volume gives a reassessment of Robert Boyle, one of the important figures of early modern science. The first paragraph of the introduction states: "Robert Boyle was not a scientific genius. Strictly speaking, he was not a scientist at all. Rather, he was a natural philosopher who devoted his life to developing the details of a new way of knowing that he called the experimental philosophy. Experimental practices were not new, of course. Experiments had been performed in the "low sciences" of medicine and alchemy for many years, and by Boyle's time they had been introduced into the mechanical and mathematical disciplines by Galileo, Pierre Gassendi, and Marin Marsenne, among others. What was new was the way in which Boyle sought to give experimental practices a rational foundation-to construct a "comprehensive method" that would lead to knowledge in all areas of human concern."

RIDDLES IN YOUR TEACUP. Fun with Everyday Scientific Puzzles, 2nd edition.
P. Ghose and D. Home.
Bristol: Institute of Physics, 1995, pp. xiii + 173, �10.95/US$22.00.

Albert Einstein said: "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." The collection of puzzles and paradoxes presented here are from everyday experience. Explanations are also given.

The author is the music critic for the London Times; he was a founding member of the magazine Discover. From the back cover: "For centuries, scientists and philosophers believed the universe was a stately, ordered mechanism-mathematical and musical. The smooth operation of the cosmos created a divine harmony (perfect, spiritual, eternal) which composers sought to capture and express.
"With The Music of the Spheres, readers will see how this scientific philosophy emerged, how it was shattered by changing views of the universe and the rise of Romanticism, and to what extent (if at all) it survives today. From Pythagoras to Newton, Bach to Beethoven, and on into the twentieth century, it is a
spellbinding examination of the interwoven fates of science and music throughout history."

From the back cover: "Different cultures experience and measure time in different ways. In this absorbing cross-cultural study, Aveni combines his renowned research in anthropology, astronomy, and archaeology to trace the fascinating history of timekeeping. From the development of sundials in Mesoamerica, where it was believed that human sacrifice preserved time's flow, and the first clocks, which regulated early Chinese bureaucracies, to modern time measurement, the cultural meaning of the world's calendars is a story of sacred relationships, natural rhythms, and religious and political intrigue. Indeed, this extraordinary journey through time and timekeeping cogently shows how political power and power over the calendar have always gone hand in hand."

In his previous book "Thomas Gray, Philosopher Cat", a Cambridge don Lucas Fysst's cat, Thomas Gray, is no ordinary pet being able to solve a centuries-old mathematical problem with a flick of its tail. In this volume "A rumor has spread in Copenhagen that the famous Danish writer of fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen, did not have a high regard for cats. Thomas Gray, the Philosopher Cat from Pembroke College, and her colleague, the scholarly Lucas Fysst, determine to rehabilitate Andersen's reputation. This involves them in adventures in Copenhagen that provide readers with an enjoyable satire on academic thought as well as an introduction both to Andersen and to Denmark."

This illustrated volume describes some scientific concepts in a way that the layman can understand. In the preface the author writes: "The Quantumland in which Alice travels is rather like a theme park in which Alice is sometimes an observer, while sometimes she behaves as a sort of particle with varying electric charge. This Quantumland shows the essential features of the quantum world: the world that we all inhabit.
"Much of the story is pure fiction and the characters are imaginary, although the "real-world" notes described below are true. Throughout the narrative you will find many statements that are obviously nonsensical and quite at variance with common sense. For the most part these are true. Niels Bohr, the father figure of quantum mechanics in its early days, is said to have remarked that anyone who did not feel dizzy when thinking about quantum theory had not understood it."

The Twentieth Century Fund of the Brookings Institution supported a study of energy policy, in
particular as it relates to the use of the automobile. The authors look at the problem of the desire of individuals to save energy, but perhaps the stronger desire to use the automobile. They show how replacing the cur-rent tax structure in many countries with a higher tax on gasoline could overcome many deficits and reduce road building.
The authors end by saying: "Similarly, it seems increasingly odd to bewail snarled traffic, polluted city air, and supposedly inadequate investment in transport infrastructure while stubbornly enforcing energy regulations that do not relieve such problems. America became an energy-conscious nation in the course of the 1970s. Still the average number of miles "In any case, policymakers cannot continue to have it both ways: wringing their hands about the national debt, gridlocked freeways, global warming, unbalanced trade, unfair foreign competitors, and reliance on insecure oil, while clinging to unsatisfactory policies such as the 1975 automotive fuel-use statute. Either the government will have to worry less, or, if worry it must, discontinue pet programs that often add to the difficulties it perceives."

From the back cover: "[The volume] makes clear the consequences of continuing to ignore the complex codependency of environment and economy. Initiated by the Club of Rome (an international group of influential business leaders, politicians, and scientists), and written in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature, the book reviews existing methodologies and makes recommendations for adjusting the way we think about and measure economic progress. Club member Wouter Van Dieren has brought together some of the world's most respected experts to speak out about the faulty framework of the SNA [System of National Accounts], the dangers of emphasizing production growth over the quality of life, and the need to facilitate sustainable development. These experts make the ethical, historical, economic, and ecological arguments for including environmental factors when measuring fiscal health."

From the introduction: "Today, an intense battle is going on over personal privacy, as recent social changes threaten to destroy this very basic right to personal liberty, autonomy, and one's person-hood or personality. These changes include the new in-formation-age technologies, threats of crime and un-checked immigration in a society experiencing an un-certain transforming economy, computerized marketing and sophisticated polling methods to a target market, concerns about threatening diseases, family members trying to evade responsibilities, and increasingly intrusive media racing to reveal secrets about celebrities, and soon-to-be-made celebrities and more. Society's response has been to try to crack down on personal privacy in various ways, while civil libertarians have been struggling to protect this privacy from unwarranted intrusions. But increasingly, bits and pieces of personal identity are being lost to the glare of these revelations as our society teeters uncertainly under both the opportunities and pressures of the nineties.
"The irony is that we both want public attention and adulation for recognition and success, yet we cringe in the destruction of the right to privacy too-a central paradox of our media- and information-driven age."

This volume describes the structure of science in a way that may contribute to the understanding of the nature of the mind; the book is about the science of consciousness and about the nature of science.

Many have wondered whether genius is linked to madness. "The Price of Greatness" helps to settle this issue. The book is also filled with anecdotes about eminent artists, scientists, politicians and soldiers.

From the foreword by T. Lewis, Director of Research, Institute of Arable Crops Research, Rothamsted Experimental Station: "We are experiencing a period of intense reappraisal and change in the need for, and approaches to, agricultural research. Many of the important questions facing farming today such as the sustainability of different cultural systems, environmental impact, climate change and public perception of the industry and countryside, require long-term studies to provide meaningful information and answers. Such an approach has been pioneered and sustained by Rothamsted Experimental Station since its foundation and this book is a celebration of 150 years of continuous agricultural research and the inception of a unique set of field experiments - the classical experiments - that have run continuously for all or most of that time. These experiments, established by the Station's founder, Sir John Bennett Lawes, FRS, and his scientific collaborator, Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert, FRS, originally aimed to study the nutrient requirements of arable crops. This objective was fulfilled relatively quickly but the experiments were continued and, with their associated archive of soil and crop samples, now provide a unique resource that is continuously providing new information and insights of relevance to the needs of the late 20th-century agriculture and its interaction with the wider environment.
"The benefits and insights gained from the classical experiments are due largely to the foresight shown by Lawes and Gilbert and their successors in maintaining and continuing the experiments after their immediate objectives were achieved. The chapters in this book are based on the papers given at the Rothamsted 150th Anniversary Conference, held in July 1993, and all demonstrate how insight into long-term and often slow change in environmental parameters of
ecosystems require foresight, patience and a belief in the potential value of the information that eventually emerges.
"The chapters discuss examples of the contributions that long-term field experiments and monitoring are making to agriculture, ecology and environ-mental sciences. They emphasize how such work has contributed to our understanding of changes in the wider environment and the responses of ecosystems to human and other activities. They should stand not only as a landmark of progress, but as pointers to new studies necessary to sustain and improve productive agriculture worldwide in an attractive environment."
The essays in the book are divided into four parts: 1. The Contribution of Long-Term Experiments to Agriculture and Forestry, 2. Unforseen Uses and Benefits of Long-Term Field Experiments, 3. Current Needs for Long-Term Experiments in the Development of Agriculture and 4. Monitoring Long-Term Ecosystems, Population Dynamics and Environmental Change.

This volume contains a collection of thirty brief articles and speeches by economists and policy makers. These articles are divided into ten parts: 1. The distribution of income, 2. Welfare reform, 3. Competition on the information super-highway, 4. Antitrust policy, 5. The environment, 6. Promoting U.S. economic growth, 7. Fiscal policy, 8. Monetary policy, 9. International trade policy, 10. Economic reform in Eastern Europe.

From the back cover: "Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create it, teach it, foster
it, and apply it in a variety of situations. The auth-ors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world should support them at it. They also believe that mathematics should be taught to non-mathematics majors in such a way as to instill an appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics."

From the back cover: "Breakthroughs in biomedicine often lead to new life-giving treatments but also may raise troubling, even life-and-death, quandaries. Society's Choices discusses ways for people to handle today's bioethics issues in the context of America's unique history and culture - and from the perspectives of various interest groups. The book explores how Americans have grappled with specific aspects of bioethics and identifies criteria for evaluating the outcomes of these efforts. It offers recommendations on the role of government and professional societies, the function of commissions and institutional review boards, and bioethics in health professional education and research."

This volume is concerned with the public understanding of science. The contents of the book are: Introduction, by A. Irwin and B. Wynne. 1. Misunderstood misunderstandings: Social identities and public uptake of science, by B. Wynne; 2. Science and Hell's kitchen: The local understanding of hazard issues, by A. Irwin, A. Dale and D. Smith; 3. Disembodied know-ledge? Making sense of medical science, by H. Lambert and H. Rose; 4. Now you see it, now you don't: Mediating science and managing uncertainty in reproductive medicine, by F. Price; 5. Ignoring Science: Discourses of ignorance in the public understanding of science, by M. Michael; 6. Insiders and outsiders: Identifying experts on home ground, by R. McKechnie; 7. Authorising science: Public understanding of science in museums, by S. Macdonald; 8. Nature's advocates: Putting science to work in environmental organisations, by S. Yearley; 9. Proteins, plants, and currents: Rediscovering science in Britain, by H. Rothman, P. Glasner and C. Adams; Conclusions, by A. Irwin and B. Wynne.

The book begins with the following two quo-tations:
"Science knows no politics. Are we in this frenzy of economy, brought about by those who control the wealth of the go on when existing political parties will long have been forgotten... Do not seek to put the hand of politics on these scientific men who are doing great work." Fiorello La Guardia, New York Mayor (1934-41)
"The "pure" universe of the even "purest" science is a social field like any other, with its distribution of power and its monopolies, its struggles and strategies, interests and profits... ." Pierre Bourdieu (1975)
The chapter titles are: 1. Thinking about the politics of science and science policy; 2. Mapping science: The scientific field in the United States, 1850-1940; 3. A scientist's war: Institutional advantage, social connections, and credibility; 4. High hopes: Setting the agenda in the battle for a postwar research policy; 5. Toward peace on the Potomac: State building and the genesis of the National Science Foundation; 6. From grand vision to puny partner: Fragmentation and the U.S. research policy mosaic; 7. Possibilities and prospects: Research policy at a new institutional divide.

This volume gives the account of the methods, findings and conclusions of the fifty-year study of the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

From the preface: "As humanity prepares to enter the twenty-first century, the world is experiencing the ecological strain produced by twentieth century thinking. The onslaught of environmental statistics, darkly portrayed, has left many people with a sense of numbness or helpless resignation. In an average day, an estimated 260 thousand people are added (net) to the world's population, 30-100 species of plants and animals are prematurely extinguished, over 90,000 new motor vehicles take to the road, 57 million metric tons of carbon dioxide are released to the atmosphere from the burning fossil fuels, over 42,000 hectares (162 square miles) of topical forest are destroyed, 68 million tons of topsoil are lost to erosion, and 38,000 children under the age of five die from hunger or contaminated drinking water.
"This book is about the struggle to protect the biosphere, and the public policies and institutions involved in that struggle. Its purpose is to examine the challenge of global environmental awareness and governance within an evolving international system and to identify promising directions for the design of future policies and institutions. Most of the book is devoted to the identification and management of trans-boundary and transgenerational environmental change. Governance, rather than government, is its focus; policy synthesis, rather than analysis, is its primary goal. The global and regional issues that are addressed in the book (e.g., greenhouse warming, ozone depletion, and declining biodiversity) are treated as part of an interacting set of environmental challenges that are likely to reach critical proportions within the life spans of most children born today."

From the preface: "Since 1959, when C.P. Snow so eloquently explored the gulf between an under-
standing of the sciences and of the humanities in his classic book The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, the problem he described has grown worse. Increasingly large portions of the American public are scientifically illiterate. By this I mean not that many people are unaware of specific scientific "facts," al-though there can be no doubt that they are. Rather, in pointing to scientific illiteracy I mean something far more rudimentary: an inability to differentiate science from pseudoscience. Science, based on scepticism and dependent on both falsifiability and experimentation, is dramatically different from pseudoscience, based on faith and dependent on gullibility. ...
"My hope is that by discussing in scientific terms issues of public concern, I might begin this process of educating scientifically literate environ-mentalists. My goal, however, is not merely to provide answers but rather to demonstrate how to ask the cor-rect questions. It is, after all, only by asking astute questions that we will be able to influence our elected and appointed officials along with the leaders of the corporate world."

The author considers the world of measuring and discovers that every method of measurement is em-bodied in the cultural assumptions of the society in which it originates.

From the book jacket: "Between the mythical flights of Icarus and Daedalus and the establishment of the airplane as practical transportation lie centuries of inspired failure and dogged technological advancement. The Shoulders of Giants brings to life this long and colourful history of humanity's quest for flight.

From the preface: "The importance of environ-mental epidemiology lies in the large number of people potentially affected and the opportunity for protecting the general population through governmental regulatory activity. Historically, findings from environmental epidemiology have resulted in extraordinary improvements in the health of human populations. The public health movement, which started in the last century, had its roots in studies of the relation between environmental sanitation and health. Perhaps the earliest and what could be one of the most influential epidemiologic studies was the demonstration by John Snow in 1857 that cholera was related to sewage in drinking water. This led to the prevention of cholera and was the kind of information that fueled the movement for improvements in drinking water quality and in general environmental sanitation. Some more recent discoveries from environmental epidemiology are described."
The chapter titles are: 1. The legal context of environmental protection in the United States, by W.V. Luneburg; 2. Environmental risk assessment, by I. Herz-Picciotto; 3. Association and causation in environmental epidemiology, by N.D. Traven, E.O. Talbott, and E.K. Ishii; 4. Statistical issues in the design, analysis, and interpretation of environmental epidemiologic studies, by G.M. Marsh; 5. Biological markers of exposure, by M.F. Vine and B.S. Hulka; 6. Epidemiologic aspects of environmental hazards to reproduction, by L.E. Sever; 7. Risk factors for cancer in the occupational environment and relevant epidemiologic study methods, by J. Siemiatycki; 8. The epidemiology of waterborne disease: The importance of drinking water disinfection, by G.F.Craun; 9. Injury, by L.S. Robert-son; 10. Ionizing radiation by D.J. Strom; 11. Electro-magnetic fields and cancer risks, by G. Th�riault; 12. Recent progress in childhood lead exposure, by H.L. Needleman; 13. Sensitive subgroups and normal variation in pulmonary function response to air pollution episodes, by B. Brunekreef, P.L. Kinney, J.H. Ware, D. Dockery, F.E. Speizer, J.D. Spingler, and B.G. Ferris, Jr.; 14. Health effects from environmental noise exposure by E. Talbott and S.J. Thompson.

This volume contrasts the comparative success of moves to set up an international regime to prevent ozone depletion with the inefficacy of attempts to address the problem of climate change.
The author notes that ozone was first discovered in 1840 and that the first air pollution law to deal with the deleterious effects of fossil fuel combustion was passed in London in 1273.

This book contains papers presented at the Royal Society of London meeting on mathematical finance. The thirteen papers give an over-view of some of the more mathematical aspects of finance.

From the preface: "During our professional careers as practising and teaching mathematicians it has been a pleasant, but often frustrating experience to brush against fascinating problems on the fringe of present interests, or to realize that aspects of cur-rent work have an unexpected connection with another field. All too often, through lack of time, these have been pushed aside without follow-up. Sometimes problems have been solved but left undocumented for the same reason. Happily there is an inexhaustible supply of problems left over and curious topics worth airing. It is salutary to start each day as G.H. Hardy is reputed to have done, with the intention to make attempts on outstanding unsolved problems like proving the Reimann Hypothesis, or the Goldbach Conjecture!
"In this little book we offer a collection of essays derived from such sources. They are mostly quite short; "mathematical moments" we might say, but, be-cause of the variety we call them a mathematical kaleidoscope. ...
"The collection would be a useful text for general mathematical background reading and it should not be ruled out as a companion for the bedside. It would also be a natural accompaniment for courses on the application of mathematics in the non-physical sciences, sometimes dubbed applicable mathematics."

From the book jacket: "Einstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. But was he right? Can the quantum theory of fields and Einstein's general theory of relativity, the two most accurate and successful theories in all of physics, be united in a single theory of gravity? Can quantum and cosmos ever be combined? On this issue, two of the worlds most famous physicists-Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose-disagree. Here they explain their positions in a work based on six lectures with a final debate, all originally presented at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge."

From the book cover: "In our zeal to embrace the wonders of the electronic age, are we sacrificing our literacy culture? ... In The Gutenberg Elegies, Birkerts explores the impact of technology on the experience of reading. Drawing on his own passionate, lifelong love of books, Birkerts examines how literature intimately shapes and nourishes the inner life. What does it mean to "hear" a book on audiotape, de-cipher its words on a screen, or interact with it on CD-ROM? Are books as we know them dead?"

From the book jacket: This volume "brings together a collection of original essays which explore for the first time the nature and development of scientific biography and its importance in forming our ideas about what scientists do, how science works, and why scientific biography remains popular."

"Enough for one lifetime" is a quotation from one of the letters of Wallace Carothers in which he stated that if he were able to obtain not only a synthetic rubber (neoprene) but also a synthetic silk (nylon) it would be enough for one lifetime.
Wallace Carothers (1886-1937) was the inventor of nylon. He was lured to the Dupont Company in 1928 to lead the program of basic research. It was here he obtained neoprene and nylon. Soon after Carother's death, nylon went to war in the form of parachutes, clothing, tents, tire yarn, etc. Nylon marked the beginning of the scientific design of materials. "This is a story of invention and chemistry and the ineluctable fate of the inventor of nylon." [preface]

G.I. Taylor (1886-1975) was one of the great physical scientists. He made contributions to the mechanics of fluids and solid materials, and his ideas have had application in many areas including meteorology and oceanography.

This second edition differs from the first in many places. In Chapter 3 are more refined methods and results on weak convergence are presented.

e fifth edition differs from the fourth edition in that three new chapters have been written to replace the old Chapter 11; they are on non-linear models, multivariate time-series modelling and some other topics.

Title	THE FUTURE OF STATISTICS. AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE.
Author	Z. Kenessey (Ed.).
Publisher	Voorburg, Netherlands: Editions Voorburg, 1994, pp. vi + 296, US$ 45.00.

Title	ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE. The Global Challenge.
Author	L.C. Hempel.
Publisher	Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996, pp. xvii + 291, US$50.00 Cloth; US$25.00 Paper.