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

David’s comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

I just finished the book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel laureate in economics, but earlier in his career he did groundbreaking work in the psychology of decision-making. The book is an excellent description of the fallacies of human decision-making. Here is my review.

Nominations are now closed. Please vote on the book you would most like to read and discuss in our poll.

Leonardo, do you have links to either of these articles?

It's time to start thinking about what you'd like to read for October 2012. Make your nominations in comments below. Please be sure to use the "add book/author link" just above the comment box.

Feel free to nominate a book that has been nominated before. But, we recommend that you do not nominate a book that is very new. It can take months for new releases to become available in libraries, as e-books, and in other countries. Keep in mind that our membership is varied.

Nominations will be closed on August 27.

Welcome to the group, Correen!

We have a discussion thread What science book is your most recent read? What do you think about it?. Let us know what you think of that book by Nessa Carey.

Welcome to the group, Eric! You have a wide range of interests--feel free to jump right into the discussions.

Lindsay, I think each of Brian Greene's books is pretty much "stand-alone". You don't need to have read any of his previous books to understand The Hidden Reality.

I just finished reading The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone--Especially Ourselves. Dan Ariely (a great author, by the way), manages to write a fascinating, fun book about a depressing subject. Highly recommended. Here is my review.

Leonardo wrote: "I highly recommend the book "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" by Dr. Amen (a psychiatrist). This excellent book examines the effects of healthy and unhealthy choices on brain function and illus..."

I agree--Daniel Amen's books are fascinating. Just today, in the Washington Post Magazine, there is an extensive article about Dr. Amen:
Daniel Amen is the Most Popular Psychiatrist in America. To Most Researchers and Scientists that's a Very Bad Thing. The article is about the controversy that surrounds Dr. Amen's unorthodox interpretations of SPECT scans; most psychiatrists believe that he is a quack. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence that his SPECT scan interpretations and diagnoses really do work.

Michael wrote: "Last science book read with review:
The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World by Carl Safina
5 stars

An outstanding read with a good balance of the author’s own lyrical, perso..."

This looks like a great book, Michael. I've put it at the top of my "To Read" list.

Steve, were you watching the landing live on the NASA channel, or on some other channel?

I ask, because just as the Curiosity rover was landing, I was reading the book Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe. It mentioned that when an earlier Mars rover mission landed, people all over the world stayed up late to watch the first photographs unfold, live on TV. However, people in the United States could not view the landing on TV because networks did not think people were interested.

I just finished Timothy Ferris' book, Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can still make real contributions. This book splendidly conveys the author's enthusiasm for his "hobby". Here is my review.

Aloha wrote: "I changed my review to include the beauty concept and deleted the links to the Escher work since GR has a glitch that prevents the images from being seen."

Great review, Aloha.

I don't know why your images don't show. I've put images into a couple of my reviews, and they show up.

Aaron wrote: "Just finished reading 'The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code.' It was fantastic. It's by Sam Kean (author of the equally spectacular 'T..."

Thanks, Aaron. I've put the book on my "to read" list, and reserved it at the library.

This news is very relevant to me right now. I just started reading The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone--Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely. Most "honest" people cheat a little bit, but not enough to destroy their self-image of a basically "honest" character.

If you are not easily offended by religious satire, then take a look at the book The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson. It is a hilarious parody on "Intelligent Design". Here is my review. Henderson says that his scientific theory--that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world--should not be taught in schools, without giving equal time to Intelligent Design and Evolution. Teach the controversy, and let students decide.

I just finished the book Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life. It is largely a collection of mathematical models, that the author builds up from first principles. The truth is, I have mixed feelings about the book. While it covers a variety of fascinating topics, the book does not do enough to interpret the model results, and also lacks model-data comparisons. Here is my review.

Hazel wrote: "Just a question, are the qualifications gained recognised? You see, my partner got a qualification in IT, and it isn't recognised as one that employers will accept, so are these qualifications reco..."

Hazel, after successful completion of a course, you do not get college credit. Instead, you get a "Statement of Accomplishment". My guess is that some employers will recognize it, while others will not. If recognition is important to you, then you might ask your employer ahead of time, whether they will recognize the qualification.

Kathy wrote: "There are some interesting looking reads in this thread. I would like to also nominate Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout[bookcover:Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie,..."

Interesting book--sort of an artistic graphic novel. Take a look at the Amazon page and click on the link "Click to Look Inside" to see what it's like. It's really about the artwork, the graphic design, and the printing process (called "cyanotype printing"), as much as about the Curies. Reviewers say that the book literally glows in the dark!

I finished the course in Machine Learning from coursera, a consortium of universities offering free online courses. The Machine Learning course was EXCELLENT. It was much more than simply watching video lectures. Many thousands of students from around the world submitted programming exercises that were graded automatically. I wrote a variety of programs that (for example):
1) recognized handwritten numbers
2) sorted spam from non-spam e-mail
3) performed image compression
4) recommended movies to watch
The next 10-week session of the course begins on August 20. If you are interested in programming in Matlab (or its freeware version, Octave), it is a great experience--I learned a lot!

After I took the course, the coursera program expanded to include a total of 16 international universities, and lots more courses. At present there are 111 free courses being offered, some by world-famous professors. The courses cover an amazing variety of subjects, in these categories:
BIOLOGY & LIFE SCIENCES
COMPUTER SCIENCE: PROGRAMMING & SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
ECONOMICS & FINANCE
HEALTH AND SOCIETY & MEDICAL ETHICS
MATHEMATICS
STATISTICS, DATA ANALYSIS, AND SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING
BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT
COMPUTER SCIENCE: SYSTEMS, SECURITY, NETWORKING
EDUCATION
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
MEDICINE
COMPUTER SCIENCE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTICS, VISION
COMPUTER SCIENCE: THEORY
ELECTRICAL AND MATERIALS ENGINEERING
INFORMATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND DESIGN
PHYSICAL & EARTH SCIENCES

I've signed up for another course that begins in September. Highly recommended!