Comments on: More on the Grand Canyon

By: Christian Burnham

Christian Burnham — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:55:28 +0000

Melusine,
Thanks.

I propose creating the nomy/logy index for the ratio of astronomy to astrology books.

Are bookshops solely intended to make money, or should they promote learning? B&N and Borders promote themselves as places where people can learn new ideas. Do they care at all about selling patently false pap to their customers?

I would love to find a bookshop which actually promoted good books and gave little space to astrology and the latest Coulter. A book-shop that actually cared about the books they sell and the public they sell to.

By: Melusine

Melusine — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:38:06 +0000

Christian, that would be about all the major bookstores (i.e., Barnes & Borders-A-Million*). The astrology/New Age section offers much more than astronomy - at least the stores I’ve been to. The Borders I most frequent has astronomy lumped in with physics (hence Bad Astronomy is on the same bookcase as Feynman, but it’s there, math is on the other side.) But in comparison to all the offerings I see on Amazon, there are not a lot of astronomy books. The self-help section is much bigger as well. These are business decisions - it’s what the public buys. If astrology books were not sold, there’s nothing to say those people would buy astronomy books for lack of choice. Sadly many non-chain or specialty bookstores have closed.

*I stole that from Blake Stacey - don’t know if it’s his originally.

By: Christian Burnham

Christian Burnham — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:18:40 +0000

‘Inspiration’?

No.

There’s already a section for this book. It’s called ‘fiction’.

Also-

Someone (and for all I know they already have) should start a campaign naming and shaming bookshops that have astrology sections larger than astronomy sections. It goes without saying that bookshops in which the reverse is true would be recommended to high heaven.

By: Dan Fingerman

Dan Fingerman — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:22:56 +0000

Your sticker idea is amusing, but I would be wary of inviting a Cobb-County-style lawsuit. (See, e.g., http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/13/evolution.textbooks.ruling/)

By: eddie

eddie — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 03:38:09 +0000

BA opened this post on the Grand Canyon with this gem: “Note: I meant to publish this post last week, but somehow it slipped between the cracks.”

I recognize good irony when I read it, or even a bad pun, intended or not.

OK, serious science folks, carry on.

By: dogscratcher

dogscratcher — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:36:13 +0000

Personally, I haven’t read the Vail book, but if it purports to be a science text, then I don’t think it should be sold in the park at all. Clearly that would be misleading.

But if (as it appears to be from the description on their webpage) it is a basically a picturebook with bible and religious quotes intermixed, then I think it could be legitimately sold in the “inspirational” section along with the native american creation myths.

By: Melusine

Melusine — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:12:25 +0000

~sigh~ It would help if you read your own commenters’ comments. This is a dead issue as far as I’m concerned, and has been so for two weeks. As the director said it has always been sold in the ‘inspiration” section and people who have gone there have said so. Now, they moved it out of the Natural History section on the web site as well.

If it doesn’t sell, great. If it sells to people who take Vail’s creation tours, they’re lost causes anyway. There are bigger fish to fry, imho.