Let's say you walk into a bookstore and you want to browse. I imagine that you are a bright and adventurous person looking for something that will fill you with wonder. I see you are curious about what it means to be alive and what it is to be human. You might be wondering why you are here and where you might go when your time is up. You might have questions like, "Why did that cola explode when I left it in the freezer?" or "Will I really lose my shoes in the rapture?"
How many aisles into the bookstore do you wander before you find books on science?
If you can't make it below the fold, you'll never find the science section of the bookstore.
The left side of the store is devoted to novels, literature, poetry, mystery and fantasy. Who doesn't love the left side? But we're not here for that today. Just three rows in on the right side and the aisles and the stars aligned. Yes, you've found Astrology. That sounds kind of science-y, does that count? No. Astrology shares its row with something called "New Age". Keep going. One row past Astrology, there's Religion and Christian Inspiration with a miraculously large amount of retail real estate covering both rows of one whole aisle. Move on. Don't be distracted by those tasty looking cookbooks, or the New You! pictured in the dieting and exercise section. Don't look for your diseases in the medical books or your neuroses in the self-help section. Pass by the children's section. Now you’re one row from the very back of the store and there at the far end, you found it.
There are four bookcases for science - all the sciences in four bookcases. Many are lying flat to take up the most space. Many are beautiful coffee table books with pictures of planets and stars and galaxies, but are you going to read those books or just display them? Oh look, there's "A Brief History of Time" by that guy in the wheelchair with the electronic voice. Are you going to read that? I've heard that book is one of the most purchased, least read books out there - I own it and I haven't gotten anywhere near through it.
Okay, let's try Evolution. Well, that's a lot of books by Charles Darwin, isn't it? Yes, indeedy. Sure, he is the man when you talk evolution, but are you going to read Origin of Species? What about all the science that has been built on Darwin’s work? Oh look, there's that Dawkins guy. I've heard about him, he's an atheist!
I have a thing for Carl Sagan. You can make fun, but you’d be a dick because he's dead. Sagan wrote about science with such love and wonder that reading his books changed me forever. Finding Carl Sagan was easy back then, he was everywhere in my youth. His miniseries "Cosmos" was on TV - more than once, but reading his books was the best. With all thanks to him, I am a non-scientist with an absolute love of science.
So I wrote a letter to Barnes and Noble expressing these concerns and suggesting that science is the solution, not the problem and that it should be at the front of the store where the browsing public will find it. I got a response telling me that they stock what the people want.
Magic 8 Ball, I ask you, will the people know what they want, or need, or would dearly love, if they never find it? Signs point to no.