They've dumbed down the science section at my local Barnes and Noble

[NNadir]

in Princeton, NJ at the Market Fair.

Gone are all the classic high level texts, all of the graduate level texts from publishers like Wiley and Springer and Elsevier.

This title is typical of the new "science" offerings there: "The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes"

We are doomed. We are really doomed.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Well, looks like we'll have to outsource math AND science because

Americans are going to be too stupid to do any advance technology.

[forgethell]

2. Damn straight!!!

The drop in educational expectations of students since the 60s is truly appalling.

[Clark2008]

3. Has anyone looked to see who B&N gives to?

I mean, are they a blue or a red company?

First, let's start with this and then we'll move from there for a game plan.

This is ridiculous - especially in Princeton, NJ.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

4. I believe they're blue. n/t

[david_vincent]

5. If you want to start a full scale SWAT - style lockdown at a B&N

just start yelling "UNION".

[paineinthearse]

6. You know you're really in trouble when...

...they start placing "evolution is a theory" stickers on the biology books.

[Donkeyboy75]

7. Hmm.

Is this very close to Princeton? I've noticed since starting at a university in 1993 that large bookstores have been moving onto campuses and stocking these kinds of books. Perhaps there's just not much of a market for them away from campuses?

[Lithos]

8. Buy online

Amazon, BN, Powells, etc.

L-

[NNadir]

11. That is really not an option. Computer searches (of all types)

are notably stripped of their "browse" value.

It is true, BTW, that the Princeton area community does have access to technical book browsing at the University Bookstore. Still, the BN science section in Princeton was at one time quite good, and I bought a number of good books there, including one memorable text on Fluid Metals.

I think it's a bad sign, but then again, I think just about everything right now is turning to shit.

[DrWeird]

9. Have you read the book?

I haven't. I was under the impression that it was a neurobiological piece on how the belief in the supernatural has a biological cause. Not some kind of theological mumbo jumbo. So that would mean it's about as valid as anything else in the science section. But again, I haven't read it.

Anyway, the bubble has burst in the popular science publishing market, which I consider a good thing. It was over saturated.

[mutus_frutex]

10. I think you are right.

I haven't read it yet, but from the reviews I've seen, that's the gist.

Cheers..

[ChairOne]

12. They've been dumbed-down in Seattle for years....

Borders is about the best available, and that ain't sayin much....

Thank god PDX is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump away.... Best bookstore in the country.... Cept mebbe the seminary or wutever in Chicago... Tattered Cover in Denver is pretty good too....

[DrGonzoLives]

13. Science books don't sell

It's nothing ideological, they're there to make money. Science books don't make money, so they get replaced with the pseudoscience that many Americans lap up like cats who have found spilled milk.

They could simply not cater to that, but people will just go elsewhere.

It sucks, yeah, it's indicative of the dumbing-down and de-emphasis on (real) science in our culture, but fighting over whether or not a bookstore carries good science books won't solve anything. This is something far more deep and pervasive.

I would just try to raid college bookstores - check their inventory after the first few weeks of the semester, chances are you'll find some returned books in decent condition.

[NNadir]

14. The Walmart theory then?

Bookstores, are of course businesses, but as someone who has spent tens of thousands of dollars in my lifetime on scientific books, I suspect that the claim of such books "not selling" is dubious.

John Wiley and Sons, a prominent scientific publisher, had revenues of $247 million in the second quarter of last year, and an operating income of 40 million. This isn't too shabby.

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-101310,newsId-2187.html

The Princeton Barnes and Nobel carried first rate science books for much of the last decade. I bought lots of them. Even when I didn't buy one of those hundred dollar technical books, it made me want to go in the store, and occasionally I would buy books for my kids and other books that were non-technical.

I don't know why they dumbed the store down. Maybe they hired a new MBA to manage the store and he only wants to sell pseudoscience because of his broad exposure in business school to Republicans.

Whatever. This is just local evidence of the broader descent into the abyss by an increasingly pathetic generation of Americans.

We deserve what we are about to get. We really deserve it.

[FM Arouet666]

15. I am glad you posted this, I observed the same thing

While visiting my parents over the recent holiday, out of boredom, I went to the bookstore for some stimulation. I was looking for books on astronomy, and more specifically astrophotography. Pathetic selection at Barnes and Noble. Not much to offer in the way of physics or chemistry either. I went to Borders and found a much better selection. I found a number of general information texts and graduate level texts within a host of fields.

Has the general public lost interest in science? Ironic, at a time when the human race has rovers on Mars and a probe on Titan. This should be the dawn of great advances in scientific achievement. However, the current political climate suggests a new dark age.