Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science
The Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science is given annually by the Phi Beta Kappa Society to authors of significant books in the fields of science and mathematics. The award was first given in 1959 to anthropologist Loren Eiseley.
Award winners
Source:| Year | Book | Author | Subject |
| 2019 | Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth | Adam Frank | |
| 2018 | Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst | Robert Sapolsky | Biology |
| 2017 | The Gene: An intimate history | Siddhartha Mukherjee | Biology |
| 2016 | The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History | Thor Hansen | Biology |
| 2015 | Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle | Biology | |
| 2014 | Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian | A. Douglas Stone | Quantum Physics |
| 2013 | The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail—but Some Don't | Statistics | |
| 2012 | The Fate of Greenland: Lessons from Abrupt Climate Change | , Richard Alley, Wallace Broecker, and George Denton | Global warming |
| 2011 | Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century | Global warming | |
| 2010 | Complexity: A Guided Tour | Complexity | |
| 2009 | The Art and Politics of Science | History of science | |
| 2008 | Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body | Biology | |
| 2007 | The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution | Biology | |
| 2006 | Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate | Climatology | |
| 2005 | The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes and Humans | Biology | |
| 2004 | Isaac Newton | Physics | |
| 2003 | Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth | Biology | |
| 2002 | A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution & Abrupt Climate Change | Climatology | |
| 2001 | The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future | Climatology | |
| 2000 | Cradle of Life: The Discovery of the Earth's Earliest Fossils | Paleontology | |
| 1999 | The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | Cosmology | |
| 1998 | Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx & The Evolution of Bird Flight | Paleontology | |
| 1997 | Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies | Sociology | |
| 1996 | Where Does the Weirdness Go? Why Quantum Mechanics is Strange, But Not as Strange as You Think | Physics | |
| 1995 | Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration | , Bert Hölldobler | Biology |
| 1994 | Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy | Physics | |
| 1993 | Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos | Ecology | |
| 1992 | One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought | Biology | |
| 1991 | Envisioning Information | Statistics | |
| 1990 | Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History | Biology | |
| 1989 | The How and the Why: An Essay on the Origins and Development of Physical Theory | Physics | |
| 1988 | Infinite in All Directions | Cosmology | |
| 1987 | Chemicals and Society: A Guide to the New Chemical Age | Chemistry | |
| 1986 | The Mystery of Comets | Astronomy | |
| 1985 | The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form | Science | |
| 1984 | Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars | Astronomy | |
| 1983 | Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History | Biology | |
| 1982 | Emerging Cosmology: Convergence | Cosmology | |
| 1981 | Cosmic Dawn: The Origins of Matter and Life | Cosmology | |
| 1980 | The Image of Eternity: Roots of Time in the Physical World | Physics | |
| 1979 | Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery | and Katherine Palmer Imbrie | Climatology |
| 1978 | Mechanics of the Mind | Medicine | |
| 1977 | Space colonization | ||
| 1976 | Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay | Biology | |
| 1975 | The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World | Medicine | |
| 1974 | Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity | , Paul H. Barrett | Biology |
| 1973 | The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann | Computation | |
| 1972 | The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology | Sociology | |
| 1971 | Vitamin C and the Common Cold | Medicine | |
| 1970 | The Life and Death of a Salt Marsh | Ecology | |
| 1969 | Antibodies and Immunity | Medicine | |
| 1968 | Great waters: A Voyage of Natural History to Study Whales, Plankton, and the Waters of the Southern Ocean | Biology | |
| 1967 | Modern Genetics | Biology | |
| 1966 | Man Adapting | Medicine | |
| 1965 | Bird Migration | Biology | |
| 1964 | The Origin of Adaptations | Biology | |
| 1963 | The Unseen World | Biology | |
| 1962 | The World of Ice | Climatology | |
| 1961 | Communication Among Social Bees | Biology | |
| 1960 | The Forest and the Sea | Ecology | |
| 1959 | Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It | Biology |