Books
clock | August 11, 2006There are several excellent book reviews in the latest American Scientist. Check them out for reviews of Dennett and Collins books, if nothing else, but the one that caught my eye was the review of Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University by William Clark, which I will, just because of this review, put on my Amazon wish list. It is a history of academia and how it got to be organized the way it does today.
clock | August 6, 2006Tim Lambert alerts us that a new book about blogging, Uses Of Blogs, edited by Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs, is now out.
Joanne Jacobs, John Quiggin, Mark Bahnisch, Jean Burgess and Melissa Gregg are some of the contributors to the book, looking at various uses of blogs, from personal to political, with quite a heavy emphasis on what I am interested in - the uses in academia and teaching. Unfortunately, there is no chapter about uses of blogs by scientists and/or in science, be it reasearch or teaching or popularization of science.
You can get the more complete information, including the…
clock | August 3, 2006Lance speculates.
I was correct when I made the similar prediction for Volume 6, but I am out of my league now. Perhaps I'll have to do some more thinking on the topic....
clock | August 2, 2006
This is a post from June 28, 2005, reviewing one of my favourite new evolution books:
Ever since I read Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny in about 1992 or 1993., I knew I wanted to do research that has something to do with evolution, development and timing. Well, when I applied to grad school, I could choose between evolution OR development OR timing, but not any combination of two or more - the true evo-devo folks were just not available for me at that precise moment in history. I chose timing and than worked dilligently to infuse my work with as much evolution and development as I could. I…
clock | August 2, 2006When I saw this article in SEED Maagazine, I had only one thought - Mokie-Koke!
Readers of science fiction know what I am talking about. I was reminded of "The Merchant's War", the 1984 sequel to the 1952 brilliant dystopia "The Space Merchants", the book that beat "1984" and "Brave New World" in its accuracy of prediction. The initial novel - one of the all-time-greats of the genre, was written by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. The sequel, 32 years later, was written by Pohl alone.
It's been at least 15 years since I last read The Merchants' War, but if I remember correctly, each…
clock | July 31, 2006Carl tagged me with a Book Meme and, since he is one of my most frequent commenters, I cannot say No. Although I have done four book memes before. This one is different and much harder as it asks for just one book in each answer, so I tried to do that, although each question really has many answers. So here it is:
1) One book that changed your life?
"Ontogeny and Phylogeny" by S.J.Gould
2) One book you have read more than once?
"Origin of Species" by C.Darwin
3) One book you would want on a desert island?
"Boat-Building and Sailing for Dummies"
4) One book that made you laugh?
Collected…
clock | July 30, 2006Chad points to an article about the way book publishers are still clinging to the old ways of doing business and are, thus, suspicious of the whol Long Tail idea.
My copy of the book arrived a few weeks ago and is waiting (in a long line) to be read in the future, but I have read John Anderson's blog for quite a while now and I think I grok the idea of Long Tail. It applies to blogs, just as much as it applies to sales of movies, music or books.
As for books, the future is publishing-on-demand. No need for stokpiling books. If you use a publisher like Lulu.com, you can easily publish your…
jlynch | July 28, 2006Book meme from Janet:
1. One book that changed your life?
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
2. One book you have read more than once?
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
The Complete Works of Plato
4. One book that made you laugh?
Anything written by ID supporters.
5. One book that made you cry?
Anything written by ID supporters.
6. One book you wish had been written?
Women: A Guide for the Perplexed
7. One book you wish had never had been written?
I don't know if I would wish that any book had never been written. As Oscar Wilde said, books…
pharyngula | July 20, 2006Books from Nobel laureates in molecular biology have a tradition of being surprising. James Watson(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) was catty, gossipy, and amusingly egotistical; Francis Crick(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) went haring off in all kinds of interesting directions, like a true polymath; and Kary Mullis(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) was just plain nuts. When I heard that Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was coming out with a book, my interest and curiousity were definitely piqued. The work by Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus has shaped my entire discipline, so I was eagerly anticipating what her new book,…
jlynch | July 18, 2006Coturnix the Chronobiologist offers an oldest book meme. I guess my library is in as much disarray as his - especially as it's split between home and office - so here's what I have to hand and own that pre-dates 1900:
Geology and Revelation: of The Ancient History of the Earth Considered in Light of Geological Facts and Revealed Religion. Gerald Molloy, 1873 (2nd ed).
Memoir of Robert Chambers with Autobiographic Reminiscences of William Chambers. William Chambers, 1872.
Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation. James M'Cosh and George Dickie, 1857.
Not very much, I know. I like old books…
clock | July 18, 2006Apparently there is a meme going around the blogosphere in which people dig into their personal libraries on a search for the oldest book they have - originals, that is, not reprints or printouts. Considering that I am a book lover and a book hoarder, I was surprised to see how few of my books are really old.
It is not surprising that history bloggers have much older books than us mere mortals. Check out the ancient texts collected by Duane Smith, Chris Weimar, Chris Tilling and their commenters! Some go back to 16th century! There is no way I can best that.
There is also no way I can best…
clock | July 17, 2006David Ng of Science Fair is asking an informal AskThe ScienceBlogger question:
Are there any children's books that are dear to you, either as a child or a parent, and especially ones that perhaps strike a chord with those from a science sensibility? Just curious really. And it doesn't have to be a picture book, doesn't even have to be a children's book - just a book that, for whatever reason, worked for the younger mind set.
MarkCC and Janet have responded with their choices. And you should definitely look up David's reviews of several science-related children's books here, here, here, here…
jlynch | July 8, 2006Seen via Boing Boing:
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
If these statistics indeed represent the state of reading in this country, they go a ways to explaining why anti-evolutionism and ID have gotten a toe-hold.
clock | July 6, 2006George Lakoff has a new book out - Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea. You can read short blurbs and reviews on Rockridge Isntisute site, Salon and Washington Post. I have placed it on my wish list as well.
clock | July 5, 2006I wrote this book review back on February 18, 2006. Under the fold...
I see that Joan Roughgarden has a new paper in Science this week: Reproductive Social Behavior: Cooperative Games to Replace Sexual Selection
Theories about sexual selection can be traced back to Darwin in 1871. He proposed that males fertilize as many females as possible with inexpensive sperm, whereas females, with a limited supply of large eggs, select the genetically highest quality males to endow their offspring with superior capabilities. Since its proposal, problems with this narrative have continued to accumulate,…
jlynch | July 3, 2006Anti-evolutionists seem to have a special ability to foul up arguments using probability theory and pseudo-mathematicians theologians such as Dembski like to cloak their drivel in the trappings of such theory. So it's always good to refresh yourself on the material covered in those probability classes that you may have forgotten from college. Here, Grinstead and Snell make freely available a copy of their introductory textbook Introduction to Probability. Grab a copy and email one to your favorite creationist.
[Tags: probability | mathematics ]
jlynch | July 3, 2006
In November 1920, the celebrated author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle announced the beginning of a new "epoch in human thought." He believed that he was presenting "a strong prima-facie case" for the existence of fairies, based on photographs taken by two pseudonymous young girls in July and September 1917. Noting that "in a matter involving so tremendous a new departure one needs overpowering evidence before one can say that there is no conceivable loophole for error," he laid out the case for the existence of fairies in the village of Cottingley, Yorkshire. Some have seen this announcement in The…
pharyngula | June 27, 2006Then I guess I need to start typing faster. World o' Crap has a book out now. You know you want it: Better Living Through Bad Movies(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll).
pharyngula | June 6, 2006Last night, I had to read this book RPM mentioned. It's not very long—about 100 pages, counting a preface, an epilogue, and an afterward, and it has lots of pictures—but be warned: it's very inside baseball.
The book is Won for All: How the Drosophila Genome Was Sequenced(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) by Michael Ashburner, and its subject is the rush to sequence the Drosophila genome in 1998-1999. It's a rather strange twist on what I expected, though. While the subtitle says "How the Drosophila Genome Was Sequenced," there is almost no science at all in the body of the book; instead, it's all about…
pharyngula | May 24, 2006Zeno mentions a children's book series that had some impact on him: Danny Dunn! Oh, man, I remember reading through every Danny Dunn book my library had when I was in first and second grade—but the excerpt Zeno includes tells me I shouldn't try revisiting them, ever, lest my disappointment in their quality become even greater.
Other books I remember well from those kiddie days were the reference books of Herbert S. Zim (which also inspire unfortunate memories now), and of course, the usual suspects: Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Come to think of it, last time I looked at those author's…