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

David’s comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

Hi Armen, and welcome!

Welcome to our group, Rumell!

While I find the subject of Arabic science to be fascinating, unfortunately I did not enjoy this book. It is heavy with scholarship and history, but light in insight. I don't want to discourage others from reading this book--I just did not appreciate the writing style. Here is my review.

I just finished reading Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. It is a wonderful book--highly informative and entertaining! Here is my review.

Nancy, your point about comparing apes to children is right on the mark. It is addressed in the book quite extensively.

I just put this book on hold at the library. Looking forward to reading it.

Nancy,
I agree with you 100%. The so-called health-care industry is designed to keep people in a state of disease, just short of dying. There are other approaches that apply natural, preventive methods, such as in Food Over Medicine: The Conversation That Could Save Your Life. I wish more doctors would read books like this. The problem is that the insurance industry would not approve of medicine-less treatments, and would not approve of the long teaching sessions that would be required. And--people like the quick fix, rather than the effort required by a lifestyle change.

That is amazing! I wonder what it actually means, in practice.

I just finished reading this book. It is marvelous! I would never have read this book, if this group at goodreads.com had not voted it for September. I urge everyone to read it. The authors is a zoologist, a recognized authority on primates, and his writing is very credible. He sifts through the scientific evidence, with a high burden of proof placed on experimenters who believe that animals "think". And, in so many ways, he shows that animals really are capable of thinking, in one experiment after another. Some animals can be experiment subjects in labs, while others can only be studied in the wild. But, of course it is difficult to do controlled experiments in the wild. But a few researchers do manage to develop well thought-out, controlled experiments in the animals' natural environment.

I highly recommend this book. Here is my review.

I recently read the book Idiot Brain - What Your Head Is Really Up To, written by neuroscientist Dean Burnett. This is one of the most entertaining science books I have ever read. I highly recommend it! Here is my review.

Nazima, The Penguin Lessons is a novel, and does not really fit into the theme of this group. Actually, it is not fiction though; more like memoirs.

I found this book to be wonderful. It is very informative, fun and filled with subtle humor, and I strongly encourage people to read it. Here is my review.

Madiha wrote: "The Miracle of Dunkirk"

Madiha, that looks like an interesting book. But I don't think it is appropriate for the "Science and Inquiry" group. It is more appropriate for a history group; for example, "The World War Two Group".

Nancy wrote: "The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language

Couldn't put it down. Author John McWhorter thinks outside the b..."

Thanks for the recommendation, Nancy. It sounds fascinating. I have put the book on hold at the library.

Welcome to our group, Rodrigo!
I cannot recommend a science book to you -- there are just too many excellent books out there nowadays. I would have to recommend a hundred!

Are there particular areas you are interested in, or are you interested in all areas of science?

Welcome, Joon Kiat! You should be able to get lots of good recommendations here.

I finished this book a while ago. Here is my review. It's interesting, but I am not going to recommend this book. It's too disjointed, and fuzzy about her scientific achievements.

Mythreyi,
The book Idiot Brain - What Your Head Is Really Up To was published just a couple of months ago. I think it might not be widely available yet. Please nominate it again in a couple of months.

Welcome to our group, Han. You should find plenty of recommendations for good books here.

Nicoleta, the book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst was just published last month and might not be widely available. It looks very interesting, so I would suggest nominating it again, in a few months.