Part I. WHAT SCIENTISTS STUDY:
James Jeans, from The mysterious universe -- Martin Rees, from Just six numbers -- Peter Atkins, from Creation revisited -- Helena Cronin, from The ant and the peacock -- R.A. Fisher, from The genetical theory of natural selection -- Theodosius Dobzhansky, from Mankind evolving -- G.C. Williams, from Adaptation and natural selection -- Francis Crick, from Life itself -- Matt Ridley, from Genome -- 'Theoretical biology in the third millennium' / Sydney Brenner -- Steve Jones, from The language of the genes -- J.B.S. Haldane, from 'On being the right size' -- Mark Ridley, from The explanation of organic diversity -- 'The importance of the nervous system in the evolution of animal flight' / John Maynard Smith -- Fred Hoyle, from Man in the universe -- D'Arcy Thompson, from On growth and form -- G.G. Simpson, from The meaning of evolution -- Richard Fortey, from Trilobite! -- Colin Blakemore, from The mind machine -- Richard Gregory, from Mirrors in mind -- 'One self : a meditation on the unity of consciousness' / Nicholas Humphrey -- Steven Pinker, from The language instinct, and How the mind works -- Jared Diamond, from The rise and fall of the third chimpanzee -- David Lack, from The life of the robin -- Niko Tinbergen, from Curious naturalists -- Robert Trivers, from Social evolution -- Alister Hardy, from The open sea -- Rachel Carson, from The sea around us -- Loren Eiseley, from 'How flowers changed the world' -- Edward O. Wilson, from The diversity of life.

Part II. WHO SCIENTISTS ARE:
Arthur Eddington, from The expanding universe -- C.P. Snow, from the foreword to G.H. Hardy's A mathematician's apology -- Freeman Dyson, from Disturbing the universe -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, from 'War and the nations' -- 'A passion for crystals' / Max F. Perutz -- 'Said Ryle to Hoyle' / Barbara and George Gamow -- 'Cancer's a funny thing' / J.B.S. Haldane -- Jacob Bronowski, from The identity of man -- Peter Medawar, from 'Science and literature', 'Darwin's illness', 'The phenomenon of man', the postscript to 'Lucky Jim', and 'D'Arcy Thompson and growth and form' -- Jonathan Kingdon, from Self-made man -- Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, from Origins reconsidered -- Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, from Lucy -- 'Worm for a century, and all seasons' / Stephen Jay Gould -- John Tyler Bonner, from Life cycles -- Oliver Sacks, from Uncle Tungsten -- 'Seven wonders' / Lewis Thomas -- James Watson, from Avoid boring people -- Francis Crick, from What mad pursuit -- Lewis Wolpert, from The unnatural nature of science -- Julian Huxley, from Essays of a biologist -- 'Religion and science' / Albert Einstein -- Carl Sagan, from The demon-haunted world.
 
Part III. WHAT SCIENTISTS THINK:
Richard Feynman, from The character of physical law -- Erwin Schrödinger, from What is life? -- Daniel Dennett, from Darwin's dangerous idea, and Consciousness explained -- Ernst Mayr, from The growth of biological thought -- Garrett Hardin, from 'The tragedy of the commons' -- W.D. Hamilton, from Geometry for the selfish herd, and Narrow roads of geneland -- Per Bak, from How nature works -- The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game 'life' / Martin Gardner -- Lancelot Hogben, from Mathematics for the million -- Ian Stewart, from The miraculous jar -- Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, from The mathematical theory of communication -- Alan Turing, from Computing machinery and intelligence -- Albert Einstein, from 'What is the theory of relativity?' -- George Gamow, from Mr. Tompkins -- Paul Davies, from The Goldilocks enigma -- Russell Stannard, from The time and space of Uncle Albert -- Brian Greene, from The elegant universe -- Stephen Hawking, from A brief history of time.
 
Part IV. WHAT SCIENTISTS DELIGHT IN:
S. Chandrasekhar, from Truth and beauty -- G.H. Hardy, from A Mathematician's apology -- Steven Weinberg, from Dreams of a final theory -- Lee Smolin, from The life of the cosmos -- Roger Penrose, from The emperor's new mind -- Douglas Hofstadter, from Gödel, Escher, Bach : the eternal golden braid -- John Archibald Wheeler with Kenneth Ford, from Geons, black holes, and quantum foam -- David Deutsch, from The fabric of reality -- Primo Levi, from The periodic table -- Richard Fortey, from Life : an unauthorized biography -- George Gaylord Simpson, from The meaning of evolution -- Loren Eiseley, from Little men and flying saucers -- Carl Sagan, from Pale blue dot.