Books
pharyngula | June 5, 2007I want you all to know that I finished Michael Behe's drecky The Edge of Evolution, and that I really will have a review up soon. Although, actually, I suppose I could put up a review right now:
Sucks.
But you probably want details, don't you? So give me a little time to whittle this thing into shape. The book is awful throughout, and I'm more than a little embarrassed for Behe, who has just committed a whole pile of common creationist errors. Inane errors. Some errors so stupid I have to believe he's intentionally trying to fool someone.
pharyngula | June 1, 2007The Discovery Institute is so relieved — they finally found a textbook that includes a reworked version of Haeckel's figure. Casey Luskin is very excited. I'm a little disappointed, though: apparently, nobody at the Discovery Institute reads Pharyngula. I posted a quick summary in September of 2003 that went through several textbooks, and showed a couple of examples where redrawn versions of Haeckel's diagram were used. More recently, I posted a fairly exhaustive survey by Patrick Frank of the use of that diagram since 1923, which showed that it was rare, and that the concept of…
aardvarchaeology | June 1, 2007A few words about a new novel I read half of and didn't feel like finishing. (Better say something or the publishers might strike me from their mailing list.)
Rant is Chuck Palahniuk's eighth novel. It brings Nick Cave's Old-Testament grotesque And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989) to mind in its preoccupation with the bodily exudations of rural Americans. But it isn't at all as absorbing or painful to read, mainly because of Palahniuk's use of innumerable narrators. They take turns saying brief and dry little pieces, neatly labeled with their names and relationships to the central character, Rant…
clock | May 29, 2007Another wonderful reader dipped into my amazon wish list and picked Hidden Camera by Zoran Zivkovic (no relation).
Zoran was the first person in former Yugoslavia to get a PhD with science-fiction as a topic of his Dissertation. Soon after he was the first one to teach SF at the University of Belgrade. He was also instrumental (together with his colleagues in Croatia and Slovenia) in bringing SF to the region, translating the classics, starting fanzines, etc.
I am looking forward to reading his book now! Thank you!
clock | May 22, 2007Remember just the other day when I posted about Arsene Lupen, one of my childhood heroes? OK, Sherlock Holmes (called Herlock Sholmes for copyright reasons in the Lupen books) was a greater hero - there is probably not a single book or story I have not read at least once in my life.
I could also remember there was another French one, but I forgot his name so I omitted him from my post. I could recall the smell and sight of the beautiful new hardcover translations, and how my mother and her friends looked down on them and would not believe me that the books were well-written, smart and…
aardvarchaeology | May 21, 2007Michael Allen, a.k.a. the Grumpy Old Bookman, has a new novella out for free download: Mr Fenman's Farewell to His Readers. It's historical fiction with an unreliable narrator. I can't wait to read it!
"Who was the mysterious Madame de Mentou? And how did she become such an expert teacher in many different art forms? These are the questions which the writer Thomas Fenman addresses in a brief memoir which was written a few months before his death. Fenman's puzzling memoir is now published for the first time; Michael Allen provides a scholarly introduction."
To really round this post-modern…
clock | May 20, 2007This brief story on NPR today reminded me of some books I read as a child (in Serbo-Croatian translation) - though I have to admit that my brother loved them even more - in which the main character is Arsene Lupen, the art connoisseur and gentleman burglar. Listen to the NPR podcast and get the books - they are great! How well known is this character in the USA? Perhaps through his anime grandson?
clock | May 16, 2007
This and this arrived in the mail today. A birthday present from one of my readers! Thank you!
clock | May 14, 2007The other day I was chatting with my brother (the smarter brother of Sherlock Holmes) on the phone, and he said something that may have some truth to it - I was predisposed, from early childhood, to understand and like the Web and the blogs. How? By reading and re-reading a million times the books about the adventures of The Three Investigators. Actually, only four of the early books in the series were tranlated into Serbo-Croatian, but I read them over and over. Later, here in the USA, I managed to find and read a few more in English.
What does that have to do with blogging? Well, back…
pharyngula | May 12, 2007If you have a subscription to New Scientist, you can read my review of Stephen Jay Gould's latest book. "He's dead!" you might say, but he does have a new book on the way, titled Punctuated Equilibrium(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll).
Actually, it's not new — it's simply chapter 9 of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) extracted and published as a stand-alone book. It tells you something about Structure that this actually works well!
If you don't subscribe to New Scientist, the gist of the review is that it's an excellent book, it's actually much more digestible on its own, and…
ddobbs | May 3, 2007This makes me think of the old line about fading actors or writers when death brings them renewed attention: "Good career move." My post about leaving Seed's Scienceblogs and the conflict between blogging and more serious work got picked up and pondered by Andrew Sullivan at his Atlantic blogging home, as well as some other blogspots. Apparently this strikes a chord -- dissonant, and apparently in a minor key. It also shot my page-hits up to near-record highs; the only time I got more hits was when I wrote about sex. We won't explore here the possible links between writing about sex and…
pharyngula | May 1, 2007When I checked my mailbox this morning, I discovered a common sort of delivery, a pamphlet from a publisher listing their releases in a specific subject. What was unusual is the subject of the list from Random House: Evolutionary Theory & Intelligent Design. Bleh — that dignifies ID far too much, and I was feeling a bit peevish about the bogus category. Then I opened it up, and it's even weirder. The section titled "Evolutionary Theory" lists books like David Sloan Wilson's Evolution for Everyone, a selection of books by Darwin, Darwin's Ghost by Steve Jones, etc., all perfectly…
pharyngula | May 1, 2007Romney was asked to name his favorite novel, and what does he say? Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard — that monstrous lump of pulp with the absurd Mary Sue plot. Admittedly, it wasn't as bad as the Eye of Argon, but still … maybe it's just that someone who can swallow the goofy mythology of the Mormon church is a little more open to the goofy mythology of the Church of Scientology founder (or ghost-writer). I would have at least expected him to have slightly higher literary standards, though.
voltagegate | April 27, 2007I love to read old science books, especially those that discuss biology before the discovery of DNA (aka the "mechanism of heredity"). I found this particular book in a small antique store in Pennsylvania and was struck by a small passage affirming the viability of evolution.
From The Outline of Science: A Plain Story Simply Told, published in 1937:
The Evolution-idea is a master-key that opens many doors. It is a luminous interpretation of the world, throwing the light of the past upon the present. Everything is seen to be an antiquity, with a history behind it - a natural history, which…
grrlscientist | April 26, 2007tags: online books, ornithology, birds, anatomyAvian Anatomy Handbook, Julian Baumel
For those of you who study birds or who like to look at them, Julian Baumel's celebrated Handbook of Avian Anatomy: Nomina Anatomica Avium, 2nd Edition, published in 1993 by the Nuttal Ornithological Club, is now available as a free PDF download. It's a big file (400 pages; 49MB), so it might take some time to download, but it is free (shall I add that even though Julian Baumel was retired at the time, he came out of retirement for a short time to guest lecture the anatomy lab portion of my Ornithology course…
pharyngula | April 23, 2007Jessica Valenti of Feministing has an excellent interview in Salon, and has also written a book on contemporary feminism. I hope it does well! It's probably very polite — I'll let you know after I finish reading it.
clock | April 23, 2007Zuska wrote a very good review of Allegra Goodman's book "Intuition" from a very different angle than any other review I have seen so far, including those by Grrrlscientist and myself. Thought-provoking and worth your time.
purepedantry | April 20, 2007A controversial portrait -- possibly of the writer Jane Austen -- was put up for auction at Christie's yesterday. (Actually it failed to sell.) The controversy is over whether the picture is actually of her. (A photo of the portrait is to the right.)
All of that is very interesting, but not nearly so interesting as the argument I heard on NPR on why it isn't her: the woman in the picture is too attractive.
Some skeptics have argued that the short hair and empire-waist dress weren't stylish until Austen, who was born in 1775, was much older. They say that the young girl in the painting is…
aardvarchaeology | April 19, 2007Last week an anthology I've edited was delivered from the printers.
Scholarly Journals Between the Past and the Future. The Fornvännen Centenary Round-Table Seminar. Stockholm, 21 April 2006. Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Konferenser 65. Stockholm 2007. 109 pp. ISBN 978-91-7402-368-8.
On 21 April 2006 a round-table seminar took place on the premises of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities in Stockholm. The occasion was Fornvännen's centenary, and the theme was the current status and future prospects of such scholarly journals.
This volume…