Books
clock | August 30, 2006Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30th, 1797. She is very old now, but a team of mad scientists is working on resurrecting her with jolts of electricity.
scientificactivist | August 28, 2006I don't have my copy yet of the latest edition of Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science, but I've been told that it's on its way. And, believe me, I'll bump it up to the top of my reading list when I get it, so you can expect a review sometime soon.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I never actually read the hardcover edition, so I'm doubly looking forward to the new paperback. In his introduction to the paperback edition, Chris writes that it has more of a focus on what the reader can do to combat these attacks on scientific progress:
I often heard from readers of the hardcover edition…
jlynch | August 26, 2006Jonathan Wells is at it again. Erstwhile "developmental biologist," he has taken time off "working on a book criticizing the over-emphasis on genes in biology and medicine" to present a Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, one that is approved of by Ann Coulter, who sees Wells as "an expert of Darwinism and intelligent design". To be fair, this is probably true - Wells is an expert in the same way that Coulter is an expert on science and history.
In any case, over at the Thumb, the crew have begun to put together a chapter by chapter response to Wells' dreck. As…
pharyngula | August 26, 2006For more metaphorical execution of the ghastly Mr Wells and his dumb little book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, my article on chapter 3 is now available at the Panda's Thumb, and if you want something fresh, Burt Humburg tackles the internal contradictions and fuzzy thinking of Wells' theology. Not that I would ever imply that there is a theology that isn't fuzzy and contradictory, but Wells seems to have bunged up the job particularly well.
clock | August 25, 2006From Thursday, February 16, 2006, another old post in the where did my son get his smarts vein:
When I went to pick up Coturnix Junior from school today (he is in 7th grade), we bumped into his English teacher who informed me that he did not turn in his book review. He started coming up with excuses, that he lost the book, or it was stolen, etc. She said something like "Well, you better read something really fast, so you can turn in the review tomorrow. And it has to be something at middle-school level, not Dr.Seuss".
I doubt Dr.Seuss ever crossed his mind up till that moment, but he was…
clock | August 25, 2006Dr.Predrag Milosevic, an architect from Sarajevo (Bosnia) has written a book "Architecture in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Sarajevo 1918-1941)". In it, among else, he writes at length about my grandfather, Dr.Isidor Reiss, who designed and built a number of buildings in Sarajevo between the two World Wars, a few of which are now preserved as cultural heritage of the city, including the first skyscraper in the Balkans.
Graham Foundation in Chicago is ready to fund the publication, but it needs a large reputable publishing house to ask for it, to print it and to publicize it. If such a publishing…
clock | August 25, 2006
From January 15, 2006, another good book....
From Chris Mooney, a book suggestion, that I immediatelly followed. You know I have written a number of times on sexual politics, from the historical non-existence of "traditional" marriage to femiphobia as a psychological root of wingnuttery. Thus, of course I clicked on the link and ordered the book immediatelly. Who knows, once I read it I may write a post on it, too.
The book is How The Pro-choice Movement Saved America by Cristina Page. Here are a couple of excerpts from the editorial reviews:
The abortion issue is a cover for a…
clock | August 25, 2006From December 18, 2005 - a very modern version of Dick and Jane...
This is what my wife brought home yesterday: Yiddish with Dick and Jane. I picked it up and read it out loud for the whole family and we could not stop laughing! I cannot possibly give it the review it deserves, but check out the readers' reviews. Here is the "official" review first:
"Dick and Jane are all grown up, and they're living in the real world-and it's full of tsuris (troubles). That's the premise of this hilarious little book, which functions both as a humorous tale and a genuine guide to a language with a…
clock | August 25, 2006 You probably know that I am quite interested in the history, current state, evolution and future of the institution of marriage, mainly because it is an important indicator of societal attitudes towards sex and towards gender-relations, which is the key to understanding political ideology. Between May 29, 2005 and February 23, 2006 I frequently mentioned Stephanie Coontz and particularly her latest book - Marriage, A History, e.g., in New History Of Marriage, Stephanie Coontz On Marriage, Op-Ed on the 'End of Marriage', Don't Know Much About History.... and What 'traditional' marriage?.…
clock | August 25, 2006It is great when you write a blog post about somebody, then that somebody shows up in the comments and clarifies his position thus starting an interesting conversation (both in the comments and via e-mail), then you realize that his book-signing tour is bringing that somebody to your town, so you go there and meet that somebody in person and have a great conversation, which inspires you to write yet another blog post - the one under the fold....
It's too late and I am too tired to write a long post on this, but I know I won't have time tomorrow. All dirty, scrungly and unshaven after a day…
clock | August 25, 2006A very brief review from April 17, 2005....
I have just finished this fun fast-paced novel of not-so-far future. There are no more taxes, Police and NRA are security companies for hire, and Government investigates only if you can pay for it. Nobody seems to be able to recognize the US President when he appears in public, but CEOs of conglomerates are celebrities of sorts. It is a libertarian dream....and a logical outcome of such ideology is anarchy, and that is why every friggin' idiotic libertarian small-government, anti-tax, "free-market", gun-toting moron has to be forced to read this…
clock | August 25, 2006First written on March 04, 2005 for Science And Politics, then reposted on February 27, 2006 on Circadiana, a post about a childrens' book and what I learned about it since.
When I was a kid I absolutely loved a book called "Il Ciondolino" by Ricardo Vamba - a book in two slim volumes for kids (how times change - try to publish a 200+ page book of dense text for children today!). I later found out that it was translated into English under the title The Prince And His Ants in 1910 (Luigi BERTELLI (M: 1858 or 1860 - 1920) (&ps: VAMBA) The Prince And His Ants [It-?]. Holt.(tr S F WOODRUFF…
clock | August 25, 2006
I wrote this post on Dec 23, 2004 and posted it both on Science And Politics and DailyKos. Then, on April 03, 2005, I reposted it on my blog again. Many good books have been published since then, but the list would not have changed too much if I have made it today, e.g., I would have replaced E.J.Graff's book on the history of marriage with much better book on the same topic by Stephanie Coontz, and I probably would have replaced the last two on the list with new books by John Dean and Geoffrey Nunberg on the strength of reviews and what some smart bloggers said, as I have not read them…
pharyngula | August 24, 2006
This article is part of a series of critiques of Jonathan Wells' The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design that will be appearing at the Panda's Thumb over the course of the next week or so. Previously, I'd dissected the summary of chapter 3. This is a longer criticism of the whole of the chapter, which is purportedly a critique of evo-devo.
Jonathan Wells is a titular developmental biologist, so you'd expect he'd at least get something right in his chapter on development and evolution in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, but no:…
clock | August 24, 2006Now you know where I was last night instead of blogging. Local North Carolina wine and local North Carolina cheeses and local handpicked blueberries and local grass-grown beef and local organic potatoes, tomatoes and squash....and discussing "Omnivore's Dilemma" with the locally grown, organic and sustainable (grass-fed?) science writers of North Carolina.
clock | August 24, 2006Some ideas from November 17, 2005:
So, you've been writing a blog for quite some time now. You are proud of some of your work. You are particularly proud of some of your old stuff, now burried deep in the archives never to be seen again. Who reads archives, after all? You don't want to repeat yourself over and over again, and have never felt at ease with constantly linking back to your old posts (I never had such qualms). So, what can you do to make your old stuff more accessible and available?
Well, now you can turn it into a book form - yup, the real, physical book - and sell it through…
clock | August 24, 2006First reviewed on June 18, 2005:
Guns, Germs and Steel is an excellent book. Collapse is better.
When "Guns, Germs and Steel" first came out, I was fortunate to take part in a graduate seminar that was built around it. Along with reading a chapter each week, we also read a number of additional readings, some of which were technical papers.
Careful reading of "Guns, Germs and Steel" reveals that, contrary to some opinion, it is not a work of "environmental determinism". Much of history is microhistory. There is also quite a lot of history studying how quirks and idiosincrasies of important…
clock | August 24, 2006Wow - this one is old: December 29, 2004. It is in a need of serious updating, not to mention providing amazon links so I can earn pennies if you click and buy. But, it is still a good list nontheless:
I have picked my top ten books on politics and have posted a long list of books before, and now, as I promised, here is my list of best science books. As I struggled so much to restrict myself to just 10 books on politics, and left out so many worthy titles, this time around I decided to cheat a little. Instead of Top 10 Science Books, I will make a meta-list of my top picks of books in each…
pharyngula | August 23, 2006Chris Mooney did send me a copy of the new paperback edition of The Republican War on Science, so it's official: he's now the man who tried to kill me twice.
At least I can testify that a Mooney attack is survivable. I toughened myself up since the first edition with a regimen of Coulter and Wells, and if anything, Mooney is understating the tactics of the Right.
clock | August 23, 2006Looking at my two yesterday's posts, one on science fiction and the other on LabLit, together with Archy's excellent post on history of SF, something, like a hunch or an idea, started to develop at the back of my mind (continued under the fold).
If you look at the way scientists are portrayed in older SF and in recent LabLit, there is a distinct difference. There is not much old LabLit, and new SF does not have many scientists in it (what with the whole flood of cyberpunk and fantasy), so I'll ignore those for now.
In old SF, a scientist is likely to be portrayed as a loner, a refugee from…