I just want to start out saying
1. Everybody has been tagged with this one, and
2. These aren't really "memes", although these days I think that term is otiose. A meme spreads itself.
Anyway, now I'm back from such non-English speaking places as Bristol, Exeter, London and Chicago (Paris and Bloomington IN were fine), I thought I'd answer this before I catch up on several weeks' sleep and blog on the second half of my trip (be patient, little ones).
1. One book that changed your life?
Well, I could start with 1984, which I read at the tender age of 8 (in 1963, ergo), but I think that David Hull's Science as a Process has had the most impact on me, although Popper's Objective knowledge: an evolutionary approach, although I now repudiate its ideas, is equal second with Toulmin's Human understanding.
2. One book you have read more than once?
I also read Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein so many times I memorised it, but that was the 70s, man. Hull I have read at least a dozen times.
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
The complete works of Terry Pratchett, although it's not out yet.
4. One book that made you laugh?
Good Omens by Pratchett and Neil Gaimann. They're supposed to be making a film of it.
5. One book that made you cry?
Ordinary people
6. One book you wish had been written?
Cultural evolution: a primer. I may write this myself.
7. One book you wish had never had been written?
Anything by Dan Brown.
8. One book you are currently reading?
Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale, but it's not so good as I had hoped.
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Phil Dowe's book on causation
10. Your oldest books?
My oldest book is Creation (Omphalos) by Phillip Henry Gosse (yes, that is the correct title folks), but I have a slew of nineteenth century logic and philosophy books. The one I treasure most is Richard Whatley's Elements of Logic (I have the nineth edition, c1883).
Stumble It!
Comments
> These aren't really "memes"
Yeah, well, it's that fucking annoying thing, isn't it, where a technical word gets appropriated with a changed meaning by the general community even though it still has its original meaning in its technical community, and even though the two communities overlap? I must ask Alison if there's a word for this.
I love the fact that we don't put our web sites on university servers any more, so we can say "fucking".
Jason
Posted by: Jason | July 31, 2006 8:45 PM
Meme, in a sense of "a set of questions and answers posted on blogs", is the only one with a clear definition and which I am comfortable using. After hearing Bill Wimsatt and Bob Brandon explain memes on several occasions, I now doubt that any other definition besides the one used in blogging is fully legitimate.
Posted by: coturnix | July 31, 2006 9:18 PM
Oh, I agree about Hull. Great book. I read it and Desmond & Moore's biography of Darwin around about the same time when I was writing up my PhD (which used numerical systematic techniques). Both sparked my interest in HPB. And look at me now! I've probably read both three or four times.
I wanted to tell Hull when I was at ISHPSSB how much I liked Science as a Process but never got the nerve, thinking he must hear it a lot.
Posted by: John Lynch | July 31, 2006 9:54 PM
Re: Cultural Evolution: A Primer. From our conversations this past week, hopefully "may" will become "will".
Posted by: Mark | July 31, 2006 10:42 PM
Good Omens may not be predicted, but IMDB lists Hogfather as in production. It even has a (UK) release date.
Posted by: Neil | July 31, 2006 11:48 PM
Not enough I fear. I got the impression he was pretty well resigned to being relegated to history. If you see him again, fawn. I'm sure he'll cope.
Yes, Mark. We are a go for that book, I reckon.
Jason: Fucking A!
Posted by: John Wilkins | August 1, 2006 2:24 AM
Coturnix,
Why give up on the original intent - I still think that Dawkin's idea was quite insightful.
(from wikipedia)
(that's simple enough ...)Posted by: apalazzo | August 1, 2006 9:15 AM
Good to hear you got back safely.
By the time The Complete Works of Pratchett is published, it'll be so large that you could use it as a bridge to get safely back to the mainland from any remote desert island.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | August 1, 2006 12:12 PM
Posted by: arensb | August 1, 2006 9:36 PM
Posted by: arensb | August 1, 2006 9:38 PM
> I can't help wondering how many of these words started out
> with entirely different meanings from the ones you intend.
> Let's start with "fucking".
Right. I wasn't complaining about language change. My wife, who's a linguist, would ball me out if I did that. I was complaining about the change happening in a community which overlaps with the community which is still having the technical debate. Not that that's surprising either, I suppose.
Posted by: Jason | August 1, 2006 11:35 PM
Now that I've posted twice, I think I'll carry on procrastinating by taking part in the meme.
1. One book that changed your life?
Gödel, Escher, Bach
2. One book you have read more than once?
Continuing John's science fiction theme: when I finished "Excession" by Iain M. Banks the first time, I'd enjoyed it so much and I was so sure there was a lot more to get out of it that I turned straight back to the beginning and started again.
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
Russell's "History of Western Philosophy"
4. One book that made you laugh?
"The Tin Men" by Michael Frayn
5. One book that made you cry?
"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
6. One book you wish had been written?
"The Likelihood Principle" by Berger and Wolpert
7. One book you wish had never had been written?
the bible
8. One book you are currently reading?
"The Well of Lost Plots" by Jasper Fforde, the thinking man's Terry Pratchett
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
I guess I should read that Hull book you've been going on about.
10. Your oldest books?
I don't know. My research field didn't really exist until around 1920. I've got several books from around then, but that's not old enough to get excited about, is it?
Posted by: Jason | August 2, 2006 12:09 AM
> 6. One book you wish had been written?
> "The Likelihood Principle" by Berger and Wolpert
Whoops. Sorry. I misread that as "One book you wish you'd written".
One non-existent book which I wish had been written is a detailed, convincing book supporting the pessimistic meta-induction. Maybe it has been written: if so, could someone please send me a citation? Thanks.
By the way, the world also needs a detailed history of Bayesianism. But I don't mind so much that that one doesn't exist yet, because I should be able to get it written: it seems like a perfect project for a PhD.
Posted by: Jason | August 2, 2006 12:12 AM
If you like Fforde, read The Big Over Easy. I can lend you a copy if you like. [Note to folk: Jason works at my uni occasionally. That is, he occasionally works there. He works all the time. Oh, hell, you know what I mean.]
But I must disagree with you on one point: Pratchett is the thinking man's Pratchett. Fforde is his own kind.
Posted by: John Wilkins | August 2, 2006 1:42 AM
Doesn't Stigler cover the early years in his books? The 20th Century is a bit more difficult, as the big developments in the use of Bayesian methods have come in the last 15 years or so.
Mind you, it would be fun. Almost as much blood as a history of the systematics debates (the cladistics vs likelihood wars).
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | August 2, 2006 2:16 AM