SOURCE: "The Art of Giving," in New Scientist, Vol. 140, No. 1900, November 20, 1993, pp. 40-1.

In the excerpt below, Maitland writes that Black Holes and Baby Universes is patronising and not rigorous enough in its explanation of science.

About five years ago, partly because I wanted to write about dinosaurs in a novel, partly because of some theological questions, and partly because I had a curious child, I decided to learn more about science. It was not easy to find helpful books: a quick tribute here to Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time), Paul Davies (for inter alia, The Mind of God), Keith Devlin (Mathematics; The New Golden Age) and many others.

Apart from learning all sorts of things to expand the mind and the imagination, I have also been forced to consider a major cultural problem that we have in Britain: while science students are supposed to be...