David’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2009)

David’s comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

Jim wrote: "I've finished up my 2020 on Goodreads & it was another great year of reading even though I read fewer books. Most were nonfiction, amazingly good with some stranger than fiction; mo..."

I agree--this is a great way to keep a running summary of books read during the year. Thanks for pointing it out!

I put this book on hold at the library a few weeks ago. Now I am #15 of 18 people waiting in line, with just 2 copies (of the physical book) available.

Hi Guray! Welcome to our group. It looks like you have a wide range of interests. That's great!

Please check out our various conversations, and feel free to participate in all of them!

Brian wrote: "I just finished An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. Hadfield really gives the reader an inside book on what it is like to be an astronaut. He a..."

I really liked this book. Highly recommended! Nice review, Brian. :-)

You are welcome, Shell!

I just finished this book. It is fascinating, especially the chapter on "disgust", where the author delves into possible reasons why we feel disgusted by certain things. Many can be explained by behavioral evolution, and are linked to the fear of parasites. Here is my review.

I just started reading this book. It's engaging, easy to read, and short. Do you have a cat in your home? Then read this book!!

Brian wrote: "Hi David,
I just wanted to let you know that your link leads to the book instead of your review (which is, by the way, quite interesting)."

Thanks for letting me know, Brian. I've corrected the link.

This is a marvelous book, by Nassim Taleb. He is a VERY opinionated author, but his ideas are definitely "out-of-the-box" thinking. Taleb must have had a lot of fun writing this book, as he pokes a lot of fun at academics. Especially those academics who have no "skin in the game." Here is my review.

Welcome to our group, Veronica! It's wonderful to have a wide range of interests. Good luck in your studies. You are an inspiration to your children.

The book Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime is an excellent book. But we already read that book in February, 2020.

Herman wrote: "While I appreciate the info, I'm still confused about the "view group reviews" feature & why my reviews of the greyed-out books aren't listed like those of other group members."
Herman, could you give a specific example--a link perhaps? I don't know what a "greyed-out" book looks like.

Herman wrote: "Betsy wrote: "One of the purposes of this group is to share opinion of books read so that others in the group can decide if they too would like to read those books. But how does one find those opin..."

Herman, there are group discussions of books. In those discussion, some people post links to their individual reviews.

There are a couple of ways to find these discussions. The main page of the Science and Inquiry group is:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Scroll down to the "Book Club 2020" thread, and under that you will find threads discussions of individual books that we read in 2020. If you want to see discussions from earlier years, then scroll way down, to "More Discussions ..." and you can see book club discussions from earlier years.

Another way to find these discussions, is to click on this link:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...
When you see a book of interest to you, in the far-right column click on the "View Activity" link. That will bring you to the discussion about that book.

Just recently, the book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design was nominated for our book of the month. The book received high ratings and it claims that there are testable hypotheses that support Intelligent Design.

So, I read the book (it is huge--over 600 pages). The first third of the book is an excellent description of the discovery and operation of DNA, and how it conveys information. After that, the book attempts to justify intelligent design. I found the argument to be very deceptive and glib. I gave it 1 star--and that single star is totally undeserved.

Here is my review.

Occasionally I read fiction books that highlight science. I am not talking about science fiction, necessarily. Some fiction books actually contain a lot of science, that you can actually learn from. As an example, many of the novels by Neal Stephenson are packed with science. The book Zodiac is a tongue-in-cheek thriller in which chemistry plays a central role. You can learn a lot about chemical pollution from this book. Another example is The Martian by Andy Weir, which is packed with engineering and science.

If you know of other novels in which the science is factually explained, add a comment!

I enjoyed reading this book many years ago. Steven Pinker is one of my favorite authors. Here is my review.

I heard Steven Pinker speak a couple of years ago. Well, he is a much more impressive writer than he is as a speaker.

Brian wrote: "How about Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker?"

This is a great book. However, we read it in July, 2019. Here is our discussion.

I finished listening to the audiobook. I highly recommend this book--it is engaging, informative, with lots of surprising twists in the story. Here is my review.

My first summer job was at Harry Diamond Laboratory. It was a US Army lab, and the branch where I worked was studying the effects of an EMP blast on army equipment. They would generate these intense blasts of radiation--using electronics, no bombs were involved!

I remember one ironic twist to the entire effort. Electronic pieces of equipment that were based on solid state--as most things are, nowadays--were readily destroyed by EMP. But the old-fashioned equipment built using tubes were immune to EMP blasts.

Lemar wrote: "Hi, I nominate The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll. I just read "Something Deeply Hidden" and like his breezy but rigorous appr..."

This is a wonderful book! But we already read this book in February, 2017. Here is a link to our discussion of the book.