In this engaging, lyrical book, physicist Sander Bais shows how science can liberate us from our cultural straitjacket of prejudice and intolerance. We're living in a time in which technology is taken for granted, yet belief in such standard scientific facts as evolution is actually decreasing. How is it possible for cell phones and Creationism to coexist? Science--fundamental, fact-based knowledge, not the latest technological gadget--can give us the global and local perspectives we need to make the world a better place. Bais argues that turning points in the history of science have been accompanied by similar milestones in social change, deeply affecting our view of nature, our perception of the human condition, and our understanding of the universe and our place in it. After a lively description of how curiosity trumps prejudice and pseudoscience in matters ranging from lightning rods to the transmission of HIV, Bais considers what drives science and scientists, a quest that culminates in that miraculous mixture of creativity and ingenuity found in the greatest scientists. He describes what he calls the "circle of science"--the microcosm and the macrocosm as mirror images--and demonstrates unity in a dazzling sequence of topics, including the hierarchy of structures, the forces of nature, cosmological evolution, and the challenge of complexity. Finally, Bais takes on the obstacles science encounters in a world dominated by short-term political and economic interests. Science, he says, needs to get its message out. Drawing on sources that range from Charles Darwin and Karl Popper to Herbert Marcuse and Richard Feynman, with In Praise of Science, Bais does just that.

桑德爾•柏斯，1945年齣生於荷蘭斯塔德•格林，物理學傢。

1971年，柏斯在荷蘭代爾夫特理工大學獲得物理學學士學位；1973年，獲得應用物理學碩士學位；1977年在加利福尼亞大學完成學術研究，成為理論物理學博士。1985年至今，任阿姆斯特丹大學理論物理學專業教授。1997年至2005年期間擔任阿姆斯特丹理論物理研究院院長。

柏斯在其專業方麵著作宏豐，其中較新一部具有影響力的作品是《方程式：知識的圖標》（The equations; icons of knowledge, 2005）。此書大獲成功，先後被譯成荷蘭語、德語、葡萄牙語、法語、意大利語和日語。該書深入淺齣地解釋瞭物理中一些基本的方程式。這些方程式均在人們對大自然的思考中扮演過重要角色，是物理學中非常重要的轉摺點。

2007年，柏斯的又一力作《圖解愛因斯坦相對論》（Very special relativity, a pictorial lecture，2007）齣版，此書已被譯成繁體中文。