A Joyride of the World of Science

In her years as a high-profile science writer, Pulitzer Prize winner Natalie Angier has written about polar bears, cheetahs, lions, tigers and pit vipers. She's written about the science of empathy, altruism, why women's shoes don't fit, why we laugh, why we cry, testosterone, love, and interstellar space travel.

Now, Natalie Angier is tying the whole great world of science up in one essential package that just may be your survival guide to this century. Scientific literacy, she says, may now be optional only for losers.

This hour On Point: the canon of science, and a whole lot of fun with big science writer Natalie Angier.

Quotes from the Show:

"The success of science has shielded the public from, in a lot of ways, a need to know about science in the same way having maps and GPS systems means that you don't have to know how to navigate anymore." Natalie Angier

"Since a lot of our decisions that we're gonna make as a society and as individuals are going to rely on having a sense of what's going on, where the new trends are. To be in the middle of a scientific enterprise is really the happening thing. That's gonna be the future, that's our economic future, that's going to be the way in which we communicate with each other." Natalie Angier

"You can get sophisticated pretty fast as long as you don't assume prior knowledge." Natalie Angier

Guests:

Natalie Angier, Pulitzer-Prize winning science columnist for the New York Times. Her new book is "The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science."