Books
Pharyngula
Category archives for Books
Remembrances of books past
Posted by PZ Myers on October 29, 2010 Our university library is having a book sale today, one of those unfortunate but necessary events where they purge old or duplicate items from the collections to make room for new books, and I had to make a quick browse. What did I discover but an old children’s book that startled me with fearful and…
The sexist brain
Posted by PZ Myers on September 7, 2010 It looks like I have to add another book to my currently neglected reading list. In an interview, Cordelia Fine, author of a new book, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), has a few provocative things to say about gender stereotypes and the flimsy neuroscience used to justify them. So…
If I had any free time to read right now…
Posted by PZ Myers on May 4, 2010 …the book I would pick up is China Miéville’s Kraken(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Read the review. But I have no time. Bye bye.
Dawkins ↑, Fodor/Piattelli-Palmarini ↓
Posted by PZ Myers on April 23, 2010 The long-awaited review of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s anti-evolution book by Jerry Coyne is now online in The Nation. It’s a double-review of both the bad philosophy book and the good science book by Dawkins. Settle in for a nice read.
The Frog Scientist
Posted by PZ Myers on March 9, 2010 I just got my hands on a very interesting book for the younger set: it’s aimed at kids in grades 5-8, and it’s a description of the life and work of a real live scientist, someone who does both field and lab work, and studies development and the effects of environmental toxins on reproduction. The…
Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be
Posted by PZ Myers on February 9, 2010 People keep asking me for books on evolution for their kids, and I have to keep telling them that there is a major gap in the library. We have lots of great books for adults, but most of the books for the younger set reduce evolution to stamp collecting: catalogs of dinosaurs, for instance. I…
Antique illustrations
Posted by PZ Myers on January 6, 2010 The National Library of Medicine has released scans of classic science texts from the 15th-16th century — they’re beautiful. And the amazing thing is, they’re still better science than anything you’ll find from a creationist!
Origin for sale
Posted by PZ Myers on December 2, 2009 In what may be the only good use of Ray Comfort’s version of the Origin, a copy is up for sale on ebay, with some added signatures. It’s a fundraiser for Skepticon III, so if you’re a collector of weird memorabilia, here’s your chance.
Great bathroom reading?
Posted by PZ Myers on November 22, 2009 I have mixed feelings about this: a first-edition copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species has been discovered, which is, of course, great — I do wish I had the pocket change to drop £60,000 to buy it for myself. The weird part is that it was found in the guest bathroom of an old house…
Ray Comfort is a parasite
Posted by PZ Myers on October 20, 2009 In this case, it’s unintentional, though. His mangled version of Darwin’s Origin is currently the #1 result of searches for the Origin on Amazon. It’s not there honestly, though: it’s because Amazon’s indexing system has a deep flaw. It doesn’t seem to actually track which edition is the most popular…it just gladly gives Comfort’s edition…