Books
grrlscientist | June 29, 2008tags: Return To Warden's Grove, ornithology, birds, field research, biology dissertation, Christopher Norment, book review
Throughout my life, certain people have had the audacity to lecture me about how a scientific education and a scientific life forever destroys a person's ability to appreciate nature. I always tell them how science enhances my appreciation and .. dare I say it? .. my love of the natural world, but I sometimes think no one hears me. But thanks to the wonderful book, Return To Warden's Grove: Science, Desire, and the Lives of Sparrows by Chris Norment (Iowa City: University…
laelaps | June 28, 2008The other night I finally picked up Adrian Desmond & James Moore's Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist and I have found it to be one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read (even though I am only about 130 pages in). I would have proceeded much further already but I started reading it aloud to my wife and she has been enjoying it so much that I have been barred from proceeding further unless I continue to orate the contents of the biography. It's a hefty book, my voice may well give out by time I get to the end, but it is certainly worth a few summer afternoons if you have…
grrlscientist | June 26, 2008tags: The Last Flight of The Scarlet Macaw, conservation, endangered species, parrots, politics, Bruce Barcott, book review
Nonfiction books are often thought of as being "good for us", as if they were literary vitamin tablets, but many people take their summers off from their vitamins by reading trashy novels or mysteries while ensconced under an umbrella on a sandy beach. So what would you say if you could read a book that has the best qualities of both genres? If you think that such a book doesn't exist, well, think again: Bruce Barcott's recently published book, The Last Flight of The…
grrlscientist | June 24, 2008tags: Ethics for the Real World, Ronald A. Howard, Clinton D. Korver, book review
We are confronted with seemingly small ethical choices every day of our lives, ranging from whether we should plagiarize a homework assignment, cheat on an exam, "pad" our resumes, pilfer office supplies, tell a "white lie" to a loved one ... if the average person cannot trust himself to behave in a consistently ethical way in such small matters, is it any wonder that most people do not trust their colleagues, neighbors, friends, families and even their elected officials? Unfortunately, small lapses in ethical…
laelaps | June 24, 2008In an essay called "The Reception of the 'Origin of Species'" printed in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (and reprinted in Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley), "Darwin's Bulldog" T.H. Huxley described the intellectual shock of understanding Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection;
As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my contemporaries who thought seriously about the matter, were very much in my own state of mind -- inclined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, "a plague on both your houses!" and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and…
aardvarchaeology | June 23, 2008Over at Podcastle, I just heard an amazing reading/performance of an amazing surrealist love story, "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery". It was written by John Schoffstall, first published as text two years ago, and read by Heather Lindsley at Random Jane. It's got some gore and a few naughty words, it's nerdily intellectual, it's lyrically written and it's really, really funny.
laelaps | June 23, 2008Everyone seems to be talking about Nicholas Carr's recent article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (see here, here, and here) and I'm not one to buck the trend, although there is one aspect of Carr's piece that I find a bit frustrating. It is way too long! I would probably fare better with the print version but for me the online version is damn-near unreadable after a few paragraphs. Admittedly, as someone who writes super-long posts in a relatively small font (I'm working on it), I recognize the plank in my own eye, but I think there may be more involved here than Google scrambling our brains.…
laelaps | June 23, 2008I knew I would have to bite the bullet and get to Charles Darwin eventually. I have mentioned Darwin here and there as I have gradually expanded my other chapters, but up until last night I did not have any section specifically addressing how the idea of evolution by natural selection came about. (I have actually spent far more time talking about T.H. Huxley, Richard Owen, Albert Koch, and William Buckland, at least thus far.) The story of both the man and the idea have been told so many times that I do not want to simply summarize other more in-depth biographies, the sheer volume of Darwin's…
neurophilosophy | June 23, 2008I've just discovered that the book Eye, Vision and Brain, by Nobel Prize winner David Hubel, is available online in its entirety.
Hubel is a neurophysiologist who performed some classic experiments with Torsten Wiesel, beginning in the late 1950s, on the development and functional properties of the visual system.
Using microelectrodes inserted into the primary visual cortex of anaesthetized cats, Hubel and Wiesel characterized the responses of cells to various visual stimuli. They found groups of cells which responded selectively to lines of a specific orientation, others which responded to…
laelaps | June 22, 2008Reflecting upon my high school science education, there isn't very much I can remember. Physics and chemistry are largely a blur (vague recollections of Avogadro's number and the time when my experiment exploded are all that remain) and the hours I spent in biology were largely a waste. For all the pressure put on us students to excel, taking the college-level AP classes early, I graduated high school with a passion for science but almost no real knowledge of it. I was not served well by the textbook procedures and had I not already resolved to be a scientist I probably would not have…
grrlscientist | June 22, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
Robb, Magnus, Killian Mullarney and The Sound Approach. Petrels Night and Day: A Sound Approach Guide. 2008. The Sound Approach. Hardbound: 300 pages. Price: about $70.00 U.S. (plus shipping). SUMMARY: Covers 23…
jlynch | June 21, 2008A few months ago, I quoted George Sarton's low opinion of Plato's Timaeus. Jonathan Barnes has reviewed David Sedley's Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity and has this to say about Timaeus:
Above all, Sedley lauds the Timaeus. It is a 'uniquely rich and seminal text'. It is 'the most influential of all Plato's works, and probably the most seminal philosophical or scientific text to emerge from the whole of antiquity'. And 'it could hardly be denied that Plato had been stunningly successful in explaining the natural world as the product of craftsmanship.' Well, I deny it with both hands.…
laelaps | June 21, 2008I stopped by the Cranbury Bookworm this afternoon to indulge myself in a minor book-buying binge (or at least a smaller one than the last time I went during their 1/2 off sale). Here's what I picked up for $21;
People of the Lake - Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin
The Emergence of Man - John E. Pfeiffer
Alfred Russel Wallace - Peter Raby
African Genesis - Robert Ardrey
Hen's Teeth and Horses Toes - Stephen J. Gould
Good Natured - Frans de Waal
Almost Human - Shirley Strum
I almost picked up a 1925 book called Evolution for John Doe (later called Evolution for…
gregladen | June 21, 2008Birds: Nature's Magnificent Flying Machines is a book by Caroline Arnold and illustrated by Patricia Wynne for, I'd say, Pre-Elementary School kids and first/second grade. This is a good book to read to a pre-literate kid. Then put it away for later when the first grade academic report on birds is due ... it will be an excellent reference.
This is a well done and highly recommended book.
Birds... is highly specialized. It deals with only one topic: Bird flight. I like that. Who needs just another book on birds. Demonstrating to the little ones that there are questions that can be…
laelaps | June 20, 2008For those of you who subscribe to Natural History there is an excellent article (featuring the always astounding artwork of Mauricio Anton) about the evolution of canids in the new issue. If such a short article on ancient dogs and their relatives isn't enough for you, though, you're in luck. Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History by Wang & Tedford has just been let off the chain and I can't wait to pick up a copy.
laelaps | June 20, 2008After many long nights of scribbling down potential titles for the book I think I've finally got one that fits. Beyond the content itself I wanted to choose something that reflected the changes my thinking went through during the writing process (and the changing of my expected date of completion), thus leaving me only one clear option. Chinese Democracy.
Now that I have a title I can start plans to get this thing to eventually appear on bookshelves, and taking a cue from some other recent events I'm trying to work something out with Coca Cola where everyone in the country will be offered a…
scientificactivist | June 18, 2008This evening, I was watching The Colbert Report--a show that, along with The Daily Show, I've been enjoying much more frequently lately since they began posting full (free and internationally-available) episodes online--and I stumbled across this interview from last night's show with Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of internet law at Oxford:
Zittrain was on the show to promote his new book, The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It. I have to admit that I haven't actually read the book, but Oxford is admittedly a pretty small world, so I'm at least fairly familiar with what he and his…
neurophilosophy | June 18, 2008
The authors of Trick or Treatment? The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine have thrown down the gauntlet to homeopaths:
We challenge homeopaths to demonstrate that homeopathy is effective by showing that the Cochrane Collaboration has published a review that is strongly and conclusively positive about high dilution homeopathic remedies for any human condition.
Or, we challenge homeopaths to have such a review published within 12 months of the first publication of extracts from Trick or Treatment? (8 April, 2009).
The Prize will be £10,000 - it will be paid by Ernst and Singh out of…
laelaps | June 17, 2008It baffles me how quickly my writing days go by. I usually wake up by 8 AM, get myself together (shower, check the blogs, etc.), and return from my morning walk by 10 AM, but even if I work constantly for the next few hours I can never seem to get as much done as I would like. I'm sure this will always be the case but there never seems to be quite enough time for me to feel pleased about what I've written in a day.
Although I was hoping to write more about whales, evo devo, and Albert Koch's contentious (but often forgotten) contribution to the debate over the antiquity of man, most of my…
gregladen | June 16, 2008She was a church lady. I could see it a mile away. Her hair cut, her clothing, her way of standing, and as I got closer, her way of speaking and, eventually, the things she said. I will call her Joan.
It is not that surprising to find a church lady like Joan at Har Mar Shopping Mall. Har Mar is a unique phenomenon. From the outside, it is a strip mall, and from the inside, it is a regular "inside" mall. Some of the stores are only on the inside part, some open on both the inside and outside part. None are only outside. So you park, walk into a store in the strip mall, like into the…