Plotting the development of modern science from Leonardo da Vinci to Chaos Theory, John Carey chooses accounts by scientists themselves that are both elegant and arrestingly written. The classic science-writers are here: Darwin, Huxley, Fabre. So, too, are the luminaries of the late-twentieth-century genre of popular science-writing which, Carey argues, challenges contemporary poetry and fiction in its imaginative power.

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In Eyewitness to Science John Carey has assembled more than 100 pieces of science writing into a kaleidoscopic tour of the field. As befits Carey's status as professor of English at Oxford University, some of the most interesting juxtapositions are between great scientists and great writers. For instance, J. B. Lamarck on "How the Giraffe Got Its Neck" is grouped with George Bernard Shaw's preface to Back to Methuselah and with a poem by U.S. poet laureate Richard Wilbur. Some of the more literary excerpts include John Updike on entropy, George Orwell on toads, and John Steinbeck on sea cucumbers.