My post about the disparity in interest between science and publishing generated some interesting comments. However, I know that most readers don't go back to previous postings and read the comments. So I am going to paste in one from Timo Hannay which says what I think but much more coherently:
(Disclosure: I wrote the blog post that Richard links to above and co-organised Science Foo Camp. I'm also a Nature Publishing Group, and hence Macmillan, employee.)
I take Richard to be asking not 'Why don't scientists show an interest in my blog?', but rather 'Why don't (book) publishers take an interest in science?'. Susan's comment implies that only scientists are interested in science, which is probably true but no less tragic for that.
I couldn't blame anyone for being indifferent to publishing any more than I could blame them for a lack of interest in steelmaking -- it's just an industry after all. But anyone with half a brain and an ounce of curiosity, whether a publisher or something else, ought to have an interest in science (as well as literature, music, philosophy, technology and history).
Whatever your area of expertise, if you don't understand Darwin then you don't understand fully what it means to be human. If you don't appreciate Einstein then you don't appreciate the wonder of the universe we inhabit. And if you haven't read up on Godel's Theorem (arguably the most profound discovery a human mind has ever made) then you have a gap in your experiences the size of a Beethoven or a Shakespeare. If I -- a humble neurophysiologist -- can subscribe to the Literary Review and read the works of Joyce then any publisher can occasionally digest the contents of Nature (or, if you must, some other scientific publication).
Funnily enough, the single greatest personal discovery that I made at SciFoo was just how much the invited writers -- in particular, a small posse of eminent science fiction authors -- added to the debates. Perhaps their eloquence and originality shouldn't have surprised me (though it did). But most of all I was taken aback by the depths of their insights. I'm no particular fan of sci-fi, but I am now a fan of those authors. They showed, among other things, that it's possible to hold a fascination for both reason and its artful expression; that a true love of knowledge doesn't stop at arbitrary borders; and perhaps that ignoring the very idea of 'two cultures' makes for a more complete and interesting human being.
PS Two very nice comments from the women in the Weinstube mentioned in yesterday's Stuttgart blog.