David Quammen

I won't pretend I understood everything, but this was pretty interesting--it includes a great deal of biographical information about a number of scientists, and discusses their discoveries, and the developing, and sometimes abandoning of theories. One worries that some of one's beliefs would be considered ridiculous by the scientific community; this book makes it clear that the "ridiculous" opinion isn't confined to those outside the community. But that's a trivial point. What's interesting is the tracing of Horizontal Gene Transfer and other discoveries, and the fact that many scientists, while borrowing Darwin's fame (beginning their papers with "On the Origin of . . ." or, slightly less blatant, just "origin of . . ."), are critical of how much he was unaware of, to the detriment of future discoveries.
Narration by Jacques Roy is perfect.… (plus d'informations)