The world is full of hidden mechanisms that humanity understands and explains itself. How does the atmosphere work? What are the intricacies of statistics? What happens in a cell? How something smaller than an atom behaves. What do the mites that live on our face look like? What is happening to the forests? How long will it take for the human species to self-destruct? This is exactly what science is all about, and that is why the genre of scientific dissemination is the most popular and effective way of spreading this knowledge alongside journalism.
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“Scientific dissemination, especially in book format, is experiencing a particularly good moment: there are many new voices and the subjects are more diverse than before,” says journalist and popularizer Antonio Martínez Ron, author of Algo nuevo en los cielos (Crítica). Disclosure can be seen as the final touch of the scientific process. It is not enough just to make hypotheses, test them through experiments, make predictions or find technical applications, but the circle closes when all this, which often happens in a vague way and is inaccessible to the layman, is explained to the public.
“This is where the research process ends when it communicates with the public, be it other researchers, the general public, students or children: scientific knowledge is a eminently social product and the University is aware of it,” said María Isabel Cabrera, President of the Union of Spanish University Publishers (UNE), at a round table at the Madrid Book Fair. The trade fair event this year is dedicated to the interface between books and science.
A person walks past the photo exhibition ‘Forests, our allies against climate change’ at the book fair on May 30. Isabel Infantes (Europa Press)
Popular books are published by university publishers such as UNE and by general publishers because it is a genre that is in good shape. In recent years, societal interest in science and technology has increased for a variety of reasons, such as the continued presence of technology in our lives, the infiltration of new scientific knowledge, or events of historical importance such as the pandemic. This interest is fueled by the media and publishers. At the same time, there is a growing belief in the scientific community that disclosure is another obligation for researchers, particularly when working with public funds, as a form of return to society. On the other hand, the rush of research and the constant need to publish work to build reputation mean that researchers, often on the brink of precariousness, cannot devote the time desirable for dissemination.
According to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) on editorial production, “literature” was the topic with the largest market share at 26.7% in 2019. In second place, however, are the grouped sciences: pure (2.9%), applied (6.5%) and social (9.3%), which together means 18.7%. This percentage includes popular science books and non-popular science books, such as university manuals. In addition, according to the report of the Internal Book Trade prepared by the Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain (FGEE), general disclosure was the best-selling subgenre within non-fiction in 2021: it totaled 168.4 million euros, an increase of 7, 2% compared to the previous year.
Exploring the connection between science and society
“We believe that the paradigm of the specialization of knowledge has long since been overcome and we are clearly committed to interdisciplinarity and the connection between science and society,” says Daniel Moreno, editor of Captain Swing, which devotes several lines to non-fiction. including scientific dissemination. His latest titles include “The Art of Statistics” by David Spiegelhalter and “The Rainbow of Evolution” by Joan Roughgarden. “There are no longer two cultures, humanistic and scientific, the humanities are also practical sciences, just as the sciences can become contemplative,” adds Moreno.
The themes that are most popular in current circulation are related to the environment and biology, given the climate crisis we are going through, or to nutrition, but also to disciplines that have always aroused interest such as physics, astrophysics , neuroscience or anything else related to technology and artificial intelligence, even for temporary reasons. Some titles currently making the news are The Harmony of Cells (Debate) by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Living Nanotechnology (Harp) by Sonia Contera, The Fundamental Ideas of the Universe (Harp) and The Fantasy of Fly” by Sean Carroll (Ariel) by Richard Dawkins or The Nanoworld Uncovered (Paidós) by Anna Morales. “What is not so clear is that the dissemination of proposals for distribution is equated with a larger number of readers: some small publishers are having a hard time and are even closing,” notes Martínez Ron, who is happy with the impact his books: brings in September he another out. The publishing house Volcano Libros, which is dedicated to nature issues, was closed in January.
Carl Sagan, in a NASA image.NASA
The popularizing genre also has its canon that has amazed generations of readers and inspired countless vocations. Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. A History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. A Brief History of Almost Everything, by Bill Bryson. Or The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Among other. Even the very popular works, less suitable for the layman, such as “The Emperor’s New Mind” by Roger Penrose or “Gödel, Escher, Bach, the eternal and fragile loop” by Douglas Hofstadter.
Without forgetting that dissemination does not have to be limited to hard science, but can also work very successfully in the field of humanities: this is the case of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. In fact, the humanities have a peculiarity: since they don’t use language as specialized as the physical sciences (based on mathematics, chemical formulation, or computer programming), in many cases avant-garde writers don’t need to reach the level of disclosure readers can attain: they do it directly. “A history book can be made available to the public without the need for a multiplier,” Cabrera exemplifies.
Not just for laypeople
When we talk about popularization, we envision books by scientists for non-scientists, but that’s not necessarily the case. “Scientists also consume disclosure: there are many branches of science where our knowledge is not profound, and we need that kind of translation just like any other human being,” says paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga. Although Arsuaga was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize for his work, it is essential for him to turn to popular science books to keep up with the latest advances in organic chemistry: to keep up with physics, he reads, as he says, the Italian Carlo Rovelli, who publishes his works in Anagrama. Today’s science is very broad and specialized, incomprehensible, and the expert in one field is profane in another. Arsuaga himself, along with writer Juan José Millás, had great success with his revelation in the Dialogue of Life and Death published in Alfaguara: Life Told a Sapiens to a Neanderthal and the book of the same name about death.
It’s strange, but parallel to the growing interest in science, pseudoscientific beliefs are on the rise: flat earthism, the anti-vaccine movement or climate change denial. Disclosure is a bulwark against delusional thoughts. “It’s a huge scourge,” says Pura Fernández, Deputy Vice President for Scientific Culture and Citizen Science at CSIC and Editor-in-Chief. “Fake news spreads extremely quickly and it’s difficult to fight against it.” work, not only through books and our dissemination collections, but also through workshops, exhibitions, conferences or our TikTok program. We need to educate about where to look for quality information and how science produces reliable knowledge.”
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