With a title like The Joy of Science, the British physicist Jim Al-Khalili’s book might be assumed to attempt to impart the elation of scientific discovery to a wide audience. But, with the exception of a few remarks in its conclusion, that is not its project. Rather, as Al-Khalili explains in the introduction, “I aim to distill what is best about science and its method and how it can be used as a power for good if applied to other walks of life” (p. 16). For biology teachers, who are already appreciative of the power of thinking scientifically but are primarily concerned with educating their students to exercise it in the scientific realm, it is the first part of the distillate—amounting to a discussion of the nature of science—that is likeliest to be of interest. Unfortunately, it is far from adequate.
Al-Khalili offers eight broad recommendations, each of which...
University of California Press