These five essays share a common theme: the ways in which major discoveries in biology, physics and medicine have been suppressed, misunderstood or simply forgotten during the course of scientific history. But they also share something more important - elegance of expression. As Robert Silvers explains in his brief introduction, the contributors were chosen "for the depth and lucidity of their writing and for their ability to connect scientific discoveries with their historical settings and social consequences". Thus we have Oliver Sacks on "Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science", Stephen Jay Gould on "Ladders and Cones: Constraining Evolution by Canonical Icons" and Jonathan Miller on "Going Unconscious". As the essay titles suggest, there are some hurdles for the lay reader to negotiate; but this is streets ahead of what usually passes for "popular science".
