Evolution of pop scientists

Why is Jon Turney so sour about John Brockman and so scornful of his authors (THES, May 10)?

Brockman's achievement is to have persuaded regular scientists to write for a general audience. That has been a crying need for decades.

To say that Richard Dawkins's books are all "the same book" because they describe the "ways of the selfish gene" is as absurd as it would be to complain that Darwin's many books were all the same because they are built around the theory of natural selection.

The fact that Brockman is my agent and Dawkins is a friend of mine does not affect the issue.

John Maddox Pitt Street London W8