Anti-Science on the Rise, but One Book Is an Antidote

Key points

Scientists are attacked as evil to detract from their credibility.

The Shape of Wonder is an inspiring book that humanizes scientists.

Understanding the motivation of scientists is part of a strategy for improving the credibility of science.

Alan Lightman and Martin Rees’s book, The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live (2025), describes the lives of scientists; what inspires them, how they spend their time, how they became scientists, and how they develop the values that they bring to their work. Non-science-related activities such as hobbies, joys, backgrounds, family lives, and other obsessions humanize scientists.

Another important theme of the book is describing the factors that keep scientists going in the face of repeated failure with little loss of