Book Talk – reviews, recommendations, comments page 1

Mr. Mellow

13th January 2012, 09:50 PM

Reviewing books is too much work for me, so I'll just mention that I'm reading Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne. My useless minor in biology was at least enough for me to "already know this stuff," but it is no less interesting. Just for fun, and possibly due to a little conditioning by lurking on Dawkinsian fora, I'm tending to read it through the lens of a creationist.

I'm unprepared to give examples, but I find myself whispering, as Devil's advocate, "I'm still not convinced." This mostly happens while reading the author's lucid descriptions of biological complexity. It has occurred to me several times while reading the book that there's no magic-bullet way to convince creationists. My Devil's-advocate desire for more examples of the evolution of complexity, despite the fact that it isn't currently possible to recapitulate the history of life on Earth, gives me some insight into the mind of the creationist. In other words, the eye and hummingbird tongues are not "proof" – I want more, godammit! LOL

It's a convincing read to me, and even though I doubt it would change the minds of creationists I know, I will still part with it as the ocassion demands.

Read any good books lately?

nostrum

13th January 2012, 10:22 PM

That's interesting, because although I'm too lazy to wade through The Greatest Show on Earth, I accept evolution as now unequivocally proved. Am I being too lazy?

Re any good books lately, sadly no. I have to get back into my reading again.

Fuzzy

13th January 2012, 11:03 PM

I read The Greatest Show on Earth in August or September, I don't remember which, and it was a pretty enjoyable read! I'm not a biologist so I never really dug into the evidence for evolution.

I finished Green Mars yesterday! (And Red Mars before it, obviously) It was a pretty good read; I enjoyed it quite a bit. The second to last section from the perspective of Maya was kind of drawn out, but other than that I thought it was ace.

eta: I have Blue Mars and will probably start that next.

ConvolutedLogic

15th January 2012, 05:22 AM

There are basically two ways to go with evolution. If someone is basically uncommitted, and has intelliectual honesty, then Coyne's approach "Why Evolution Is true" will work.
If someone is relatively ignorant, but fed philosophical bullshit to the extent that they become hyperskeptical of all science [especially science they don't agree with] is to sell the " science is just about models that work.

Therefore the pressure they may feel about science contradicting their faith would be removed: science is just a game and not about truth. This might allow them accept science.
Nothing can be done about their faith however, although it is quite true that facts and reason is often quite subversive! :]

K.S.R.'s Mars Trilogy, was excellent overall, but did tend to drag in parts.

Nixon

20th January 2012, 10:53 PM

Cervantes' Don Quixote. Was good.

queenb

20th January 2012, 10:58 PM

I just read The Hunger Games which was very fast paced and enjoyable.

Orphia Nay

22nd January 2012, 05:49 AM

"At Home" by Bill Bryson. Fascinating and fun.

Mr. Mellow

22nd January 2012, 06:06 AM

Finished Why Evolution is True and I'm now a couple of chapters into The End of Faith, by Sam Harris. For some reason, I thought I had already read it, so have been passing over it in my bookshelf. But I realized it was Letter to a Christian Nation (his response to critics of the former) that I read. That's never happened to me, although I have double-purchased books because I'd forgotten I already had a copy.

charlou

22nd January 2012, 07:21 AM

I have Robert Hughes' epic The Fatal Shore on the go, and just starting Hitch 22.

Mr. Mellow

22nd January 2012, 07:24 AM

I just picked up Hitch 22 at a used book store. Looking forward to it.

Adenosine

22nd January 2012, 12:41 PM

I have at least a hundred books I want to read but I never give myself the time. I think I need to consciously unplug from the net for a few hours a week and read a book.

I found Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy in a dump shop so I want to read that. I got the entire set of Kafka's novels from the Salvos, same place I found Voltaire's Bastards by John Ralston Saul. An Iranian friend I helped in class gave me a copy of Anna Karenina so that is near/at the top of my list.

I've started Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale twice and haven't gotten into it but I'd like to. My awesome cousin gave me Geoffrey Robertson's Crimes Against Humanity for Giftmas and lent me John Pilger's A Secret Country two years ago.

And I have a dump shop copy of Jeffey Archer A Prisoner of Birth for fluff reading. I really need to get back into it. As a teenager I was reading one to three books a day, as an adult three to ten a week, now I hardly read at all. I read the first bunch of A Song of Ice and Fire on my commute last year but that's about it. Too many scientific journal articles nowadays.

Mr. Mellow

12th February 2012, 10:25 PM

Just finished The End of Faith, and found it a challenging read. My vocabulary and ability to grasp concepts on first read were bowled over by the man's erudition, but nothing that a dictionary and slower, more careful reading couldn't overcome. The book walks through familiar arguments, examples and consequences of the clash between reason and belief, including an interesting chapter on the nature of belief (and its relationship to actual factual shit). He also lays out his ideas on how good and evil can fall under the purview of science (which I think is what he deals with in his latest book, The Moral Landscape). I was thrown by the last chapter, which is basically a pitch for a sort of rational spiritualism through meditation, describing how western science and philosophy fall short of and have largely ignored ages-old, empirically verifiable and repeatable techniques, from eastern traditions, for achieving higher states of consciousness... or something like that. I'm not saying it's woo, because I have practiced meditation and know what it means to be only in the moment, etc. - I just didn't see it coming, and it seemed to take a little steam out of the book, as if to say, "I'll trade you my spirituality for yours, because mine makes sense and yours is bat-shit crazy." Agreed, but not what I expected. I really need to read the book again, because most of it has gone *poof* already. If I'd read it for a book club discussion, I'd feel sorely unprepared.

I was planning to read Hitch 22 next, but Sam Harris' book put me in the mood for exploring roots. So, I've started, The Closing of the Western Mind - The rise of faith and the fall of reason, by Charles Freeman. I'm sure I'll find it challenging because I'm woefully ignorant of history (among a woefully long list of other subjects). I'm not sure I'll be able to breeze through this one, either. My brain decides for itself when and to what extent it is willing to cooperate, so we'll see what sticks from this one.

rudeigineile

12th February 2012, 10:38 PM

I vegged out and re read 'The Seagull' yesterday, one of my favourites. I finished 'Alice in Quantumland' today it was amusing at first but kind of a one note joke.

http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Quantumland-Allegory-Quantum-Physics/dp/0387914951

Mr. Mellow

25th March 2012, 02:03 AM

(I also posted this on RatSkept)

I just finished The Closing of the Western Mind — The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. A well-researched and enlightening look into how the Greek intellectual tradition was squashed and forgotten by a schizophrenic (my characterization) church, which gained doctrinal and political control through imperial patronage and mutual necessity. It puts the rise of Western Christianity in political context, and walks through the machinations of manufacturing an orthodoxy that eclipsed reason and suppressed learning for centuries. The book examines pivotal events and people, from Plato to Gregory the Great, but includes a chapter on Thomas Aquinas for contrast.

Most enlightening (besides a buttload of things I didn't already know about how Christianity is just made-up shit) was the drama surrounding the Council of Nicea, summoned by Constantine I, where all sorts of fun things were invented or decreed, like the Trinity, and a plethora of heresies. He expands on this in his AD 381, which I am keen to read.

I've had almost no formal education in history, so it was a bit of a slog for the unfamiliar names and hundreds of end notes, but Freeman's writing otherwise made for pleasurable reading. Freeman is, afaik, an atheist, and he doesn't beat around the bush as to the impacts of Christianity on reason and learning. However, he does not polemicize. I would sooner recommend this book to any Christian willing to read it, than I would Dawkins, Harris & Hitchens. Like I did with all of those books, I felt a strong sense of, "geez, how could any religionist continue to believe after reading this?" but without the the accompanying anxiety I feel when I know I'm about to piss one of them off by recommending a book.

MSG

25th March 2012, 08:14 AM

I just read Tim Flannery's Here On Earth (http://www.timflannery.com.au/node/161), which is characterised as an argument for hope. I read his 2004 book The Weather Makers (http://www.timflannery.com.au/node/64) and it's one of the few books that I would recommend to anyone to read, but which I could never go back and re-read it. The picture it painted the impacts of human-induced climate change scared the living crap out of me, and despite his best efforts, the new book hasn't convinced me to become an optimist.