Great Scientists by Jacqueline Fortey

Reading Level: Juvenile Non-Fiction
Submitted by Gerti

"Great Scientists" by Jacqueline Fortey is an ambitious overview of a number of scientists from Aristotle in ancient times to Stephen Hawking, so current that he's been the butt of jokes on "The Big Bang Theory" designed for a young audience.  My biggest issue with the book is that I disagree with terming all the people chosen to highlight here as "great" scientists, but that's an issue for intellectuals to discuss in dimly-lit British pubs.  The reason this book exists is to acquaint you readers with the minds and movements of " the pioneers who changed the way we think about our world," as the cover states.  And to a large extent, the book is a good one as it accomplishes that goal.

I enjoyed the information contained in the book, but would quibble with the choice of scientists and "sidebars", the stories of other apparently "less great" (at least to Jacqueline Fortey) scientist who somehow supplemented the work of the great ones.  One example of this is the story of Barbara McClintock, who certainly aided in the understanding of DNA, but who wasn't even a sidebar in the section of Watson and Crick (the team who discovered its structure) but got a blurb on the page devoted to the Nobel Prize.  Having just finished another book on DNA, I knew about her extensive contribution to genetics and the world's understanding on inherited elements, and so felt that she was slighted in this volume.  Another example is Nikola Tesla, who was completely ignored in this books, even though his work on electricity rivaled that of Edison, who gets 2 pages here.

I acknowledge the difficulties inherent in producing a volume like this, but found several omissions of scientists I would consider great, the inclusion of several I would consider minor, and several typographical errors in the sidebar stories, I felt that "Great Scientists" was more of a committee effort, and was surprised today to find that one person was considered the author.  Perhaps that is exactly why the work is uneven-because one person cannot be an expert in all the areas of science that are covered in this umbrella title.  I am willing to admit that my own opinion as a non-scientist is also to be questioned when it comes to making such decisions of inclusion and exclusion, but perhaps DK could have benefited from that committee of scientific intellectuals in order to have more accurately found the 30 scientists who make up the majority of this book.