Science and Inquiry discussion
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What science book is your most recent read? What do you think about it? Pt. 2
Jim wrote: "He had me chuckling about Watergate at one point, but what I'm finding interesting is his opinions on where health care & education are & where he thinks they are going. Also the public opinion on..."The Eiseley book is available to read online here:
http://www.naderlibrary.com/immense.j...
Just finished The Diversity of Life by E. O. Wilson. 20+ years old but still very relevant. Here's my review:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks Kenny!I started with Lives and will explore Journey when I'm done. So far an interesting read.
Rodney wrote: "Thanks Kenny!I started with Lives and will explore Journey when I'm done. So far an interesting read."
You're welcome, enjoy!
I just6 finished Timothy D. Wilson's "Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious," 2002, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. It contained an important piece of information on the unconscious and the adaptive unconscious that I had not realized. I guess the topic itself is murky, but he both refers to "adaptive unconscious" and the "personality of the adaptive unconscious." What was new to me was that material from the senses reaches the seat of the feelings prior to the sensory information reaching the cortex. I can't find his actual wording right now but I'll add it if I do, and can.I guess I'll rate it a 4. I had hoped he would have mentioned dreams.
Currently reading Ian Tattersall's Masters of the Planet, which is about the evolution of man. Very interesting.
Susanna, I absolutely loved that book. Next you might want to read Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth by Chris Stringer. Tattersall's book is a perfect lead-in to Stringer's.
The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson. I am engrossed in it!
Susanna, why are you Censored by Goodreads? That sounds ominous. Or intriguing. Or something.
Nan I will have to put that one on my list.
Nancy, GR started censoring reviews and shelf names in September 2013.
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "Nancy, GR started censoring reviews and shelf names in September 2013."Censored what, though? I'm intrigued now as well.
Censored is a pretty harsh way of saying that GR tightened some rules to moderate shelf names & reviews to cut down on name calling. People were creating shelf names like "author is a pedophile" & shelving books on it. These shelves were viewable by the community & in search engines. Others were giving poor reviews to books without reading them just because the author got into a fight with a friend of theirs or was an ass in a group discussion. GR decided that neither was acceptable. It amounted to libel. This is a site about books, not personalities. IMO, they were right. I still have shelves entitled "do-not-read" & "promotes-incest". Both are acceptable under the new guidelines & are not irresponsible accusations, simply statements of facts. They say nothing about the author, just that particular book.
I'm with Jim. The changes were good and needed. This forum is not a soapbox for anyone to express any and all kinds of objectionably personal attacks on others.
TED Talks presents "BOOKS WORTH READING, AS RECOMMENDED BY BILL GATES, SUSAN CAIN AND MORE…"http://ideas.ted.com/2014/12/16/books...
I only saw a couple that interested me & my library has neither. There are links within to other books the Ted Talk author also likes though. Should keep me busy for a while.
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Do you like spy thrillers? If so, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin is a nonfiction sketch of the birth of the atomic bomb is the place to see where the modern ones were born. The accounts are barebones, often understated, but the outline is all there from trying to stop Hitler from building his own atomic bomb by destroying the heavy water plant in Norway (Norwegian resistance, gliders, & sabotage) to troubled scientists dealing with the morality of their works. There is also a sketch of the politics behind many of the decisions regarding the creation, use, & finally crazy proliferation of this WMD. Everyone should read it & this was perfect for audio. I gave it 5 stars in my review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My last science book that I read was The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really TrueThe Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is a master explainer, arguably the best! I loved how he contrasted religious and cultural myths with the explanation that science provides. He covers a breadth of topics, not only in his expertise in evolution. Unfortunately, I've run out of his books to read. I guess I could re-read some of his best ones. I am waiting for part two of his autobiography An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist to come out. I, also, just purchased Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think, which is collected of pieces on him and not by him, so it really isn't the same.
Just a tip for you and other voracious science readers. I have found that books I have read years ago (Dawkins is a good example) re-read very well. I never totally absorb details of a book on first reading, and a re-read a few years later is eye-opening. Recently I've taken to re-reading books in tandem. For example, I just re-read Richard Fortey's HORSESHOE CRABS AND VELVET WORMS. But this time, for each new Phylum mentioned by Fortey, I re-read the corresponding Phylum section of FIVE KINGDOMS by Lynn Margulis.
Survivors: The Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind. Richard Fortey is an alternate, and perhaps more apt name for Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind, which are I believe the same book but by different publishers. And I agree with you, Robbower, it and many of Fortey's books are worth re-reading. I've read his Earth: An Intimate History twice and will probably keep on reading it about once every five years.
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The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking by Mark Bauerlein is a compilation of essays by some of the best & most interesting writers about the web & how it is affecting our lives. Well read. It was a bit long & dated, but well worth reading. Here's my 4 star review:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I finished two popular books recently, and both were worthy of recommendation.What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is geared more for entertainment, and succeeds but is also fairly informative and even enlightening (as readers of either XKCD or Munroe's "What If?" blog will know.) One note, if you are even an occasional reader of "What If?" (the blog), these are all reprints, I believe.
The second book is If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life. Those familiar with e.g. SETI will probably be familiar with the central question of this book, at least in passing. I have occasionally thought about this subject, but this is a collection of thought on the matter in much greater breadth than I've ever reached. Having read this I did reconsider my thinking about e.g. the probable distribution of intelligent life in the universe and the possibility that we may, effectively at least, be alone. This leads off into all sorts of very metaphysical and/or existential thinking, at least for me, which some folks may find surprising for a question that, colloquially, essentially is, "Where are the real UFO's?"
I read rThe Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution a long time back when my curiousity for darwin started taking good shape. i think if Darwins's Natural selection is the greatest discovery of all times than certainly Dawkins Greatest Show on Earth has to be the greatest book of non-fiction.p.s: However still some people thinkk that Darwin and Dawkins are Fiction writers, because perhaps its just too difficult for them to digest the great revelation/discovery!
The Poisoner's Handbook, based on comments from group members. Finding it very interesting!
Daniel,I haven't actual read the book you mentioned, but I have some perhaps idle speculation about the existence of UFOs or aliens here on Earth.
My hypothesis is that numerous intelligent life forms exist in other parts of our galaxy, like star trek if you wish! Unlike star trek, however, travel is limited first by the speed of light and secondly by galactic cosmic rays. The latter has a tendency to destroy living tissue, at least carbon-based life forms and is difficult to avoid away from the protected near Earth environment for example.
Unlike in star trek there is no getting around the speed of light limitation and space is incredibly empty. The nearest intelligent life forms might be 100 light years away but they could be thousands of l.y. away! Even travelling close to the speed of light, although physically possible, is way way beyond our capabilities and many other species as well presumably. In any case, how do you accelerate without destroying, the very biological entity that your trying to move. The physical forces are tremendous!
My thought is that we will only ever get to hear about aliens by radio transmissions from other star systems. That may be centuries off. After all, we have only had the ability to send such transmissions within the last century or so ourselves.
In the meantime, I believe that most reported aliens and UFOs are simply hoaxes and the rest are unknown.
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What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is geared more for entertainmen..."
Daniel,
I just started reading What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. It is hilarious! Lots of fun.
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My latest was Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World by Nick Lane. His Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life was a group read a while back and I've wanted to read something else by him since then. Here's my review:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Already depressing. Found out on page 23 that these fancy wrinkle creams are not going to make me any younger. Not sure if I can stand much more....
Why Zebras Don't Get UlcersGreat book! It covers a lot of different medicinal areas. I gave it 5 stars.
Started Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans, by Brian Fagan, last night.
Nancy wrote: "The Poisoner's Handbook, based on comments from group members. Finding it very interesting!"I actually found this book in Rome. My husband looks at me and goes "You definitely buying it." "Nah. It's too obvious." and I placed it down.
I'm reading The Ghost Map. Pretty good book, so far.
lol! well, it is a little misnamed, although i'm sure it could provide some evil insights. It focuses on poisoning in the early 1900s, from the point of view of the New York City medical examiner. We surely have more modern and sophisticated poisoning methods today! (Maybe this book needs a sequel? )
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I buy that anthology every year. Always interesting stuff!
That sounds interesting, Nancy! Now I feel stupid for not getting it. Getting good English books are difficult in Italy.
I bet...you probably have a limited choice unless you want to pay outrageous shipping. what about the kind you can download?
Nah, it's more like finding the right stores. It's like book hunting.
Some may say this is not science, or that it is borderline, but knowing this group I have a suspicion that there may be some interest in Deadbeat Dams: Why We Should Abolish the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Tear Down Glen Canyon DamFrankly, I was disappointed. Here's my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This is politics, not science.May I point out that less than one percent of USA legislators have a degree in a science.
In Japan, China and a few other countries, elected legislators with science degreees approach 50 percent.
Almost all of our worldwide problems can only be solved with science. Yet our elected officials cannot understand science that cannot be expressed in a 10-second sound-byte.
WE DESERVE THE POOR GOVERNMENT, BECAUSE WE VOTE FOR POOR CANDIDATES.
I recently read "Naturalist" by Edward Wilson. Being a nature buff myself it was quite an interesting read and I loved his stories. I found a nice connection to it, so by far it was one of the best scientific/autobiographical books I have read.
"The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond. There is not one dull page in this book. It's about the evolution and behavior of the homo sapiens species. I did not realize that before the arrival of humans, America was full of large predator and prey animals both. Most of these went extinct shortly after the arrival of people.I knew this was true in Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. The details are very sad. I was also shocked by the account of how European settlers totally exterminated the Tasmanian people. Apparently genocide and the killing off of other creatures has been around since the dawn of man.
Very interesting and well written book.
I'm about 70% (says Kindle haha) through Endless Forms Most Beautiful: the New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom by Sean B Carroll. It talks about how living things have so much in common on a genetic level, despite the countless variety in which it is expressed in nature. He writes a lot about the marriage of embryology and archaeology as genetics and how it is expressed becomes more and more understood. I'm enjoying it! Carroll is very clearly passionate about his work.
it's funny. all genes are pretty close. just some with useless genes to help with bulking up.
Dariana, it's so true! It's insane how much our understanding of DNA and gene expression has completely changed over the last few decades. Interesting stuff, I look forward to learning more.
Your comments made me curious about numbers of chromosomes. It's been far too long since I took a biology course, so I googled it & found a great site. This particular article is on the number of chromosomes.http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask257
Jim, I like the piles of clothes on the floor analogy in that article. It's a great way to visualize the arbitrary nature of chromosome number between organisms!
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Eisleley's book looks interesting. My library doesn't have it, unfortunately.