respectful shorts

The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

2012-02-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, Greenwich, CT, Fawcett Books 1962 304pp. ISBN: 0-449-23125-9

“One great trouble-I suppose it is the fault of the American public as a whole-is this desire for a quick and easy way of doing something without any consideration of the consequences.” Rachel Carson

Fifty years ago Rachel Carson wrote a stunning book that shook the political sensibilities of the nation that has lasted to this day. It also started a genre of “expose” books and other media such as Michael Moore’s documentaries. It was my first read of the book.

When the subject of ecology really hit the runway about 40 years ago it meant little to this young man. The Viet Nam War and civil rights were the primary political subjects on this mind. One day a few years later I read about the people who bear the brunt of ecological problems-the dross of a consuming society. It changed this mind and over the years a strong consciousness about how we live developed.

Simultaneously a growing philosophy led me away from the political and scientific fringe and into the first standard deviation. Carson’s book stays in that realm most of the time. The book is a combination of sound scientific journalism and alarmist anecdotes causing some cognitive dissonance while reading the book.

Taking in reading The Silent Spring, one can see how the theme works its way into other environmental problems and that is perhaps what makes it controversial today. The same arguments against the human responsibility for global warming are made nowadays.

Symbioses are the fabric of life. In nature nothing exists alone all of it requires species equilibrium. Flora and fauna require checks and balances in order to continue. We are all part of a sinuous food chain that requires surviving together and moderating each other. These are premises that are widely held by environmentalists and the author.

There is a paradox however when she discusses one solution to mass insecticide spraying by introducing invasive insect species. That may be an excellent solution to the devastation of spray but it runs in opposition to the notion of natural equilibrium. That is getting ahead of the story however.

Carson’s primary intent in this book is the gross overkill of insecticide spraying, how it came to be, why we let it and the results. Carson makes an excellent point about the evolutionary process works with insecticides. Nature really does select those of a species who can continue to breed. That would be those who survive insecticide remedies and create a new generation. Since the insect world has rapid generation it does not take long to become immune from a current “solution”. This keeps the insect and the chemist pretty active as they live in the Red Queen System. The faster the predator runs the faster does the prey.

The chemical industry is a powerful lobby and has been since Carson’s time. They understand the Red Queen System and sing “ca-ching, ca-ching” continually. They realize the value of continually upgrading their serums to life’s constant plagues. But were they plagues and were they successful in their endeavors?

The first answer is easy. Any Madison Avenue worker worth their salt has realized for a long time that creating a false need along with its solution is the essence of sales. So creating an image of the Japanese Beetle as a disastrous foe to agriculture segued the way to over spraying in the Midwest in the 50s.

The second answer is also pretty easy since we have had a hundred and fifty (or more) years of experience with it. The powers of suggestion that are created by advertizing have been a finely honed tool. The commercial world recognizes its skill at creating imaginary needs and packaging them with very specific verbiage to make the public believe in the need. Americans put a lot of trust in the clever words of the commercials that they watch and that gives industry a lot of sway.

Without the dreaded word regulation, all of industry could use their allies on Madison Avenue to pretty much dump on the populations anything they want. This is a major point that Carson wants to make. The chemical industry wants to have the world accept their products and the government does not want to regulate them. Therefore Americans and to a greater extent third world populations get to be testing grounds for new products. In Carson’s time it was insecticides and since it has included chemical warfare.

Silent Spring is perhaps the first book with mass audience to address ecology. In the last fifty years there has been a plethora of books emulating the style. They ask similar questions about what Carson called biocides. What are the long term affects of exposure to various insecticides? How do we estimate the lasting success of any given remedy? How do these chemicals interact with other processes? These are not concerns of the chemical industry or admen but they are powerful questions that Carson asked.

She was not advocating the end of insecticides as any reader will know. Rather she suggested directed eradication and education of those who suffer from the results of spray. She was not anti-recreational sport hunting/fishing. These are some of the suggestions made by those who would belittle her efforts in this book. She campaigned for regulation, moderation and education. Those are hard to disagree with unless you are running as a Republican in 2012. If that describes you then you already realize that spinmeisters can make any case you want them to but it takes reading Silent Spring to understand what Carson had to say.

She did not always do it adequately either. Though she began with lots of reasoned scientific information she also represented the problems of insecticide over use with countless anecdotal incidents. She was apt to use alarmist language and these two took her powerful statement a step back from its intent. That does not relieve the responsibility of the government from the problem.

The chemical companies and their toadying politicians will continue to deny with incredulous veracity, that the industry requires regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency was essentially created as a result of this book but politics has rendered it to be a paper tiger. The worst thing anyone can utter in this day is the need for more regulation but in terms of ecology, imagine the lives of our next generations-sure they will do some adapting but how adaptable are our species?

Despite political propaganda, Carson encouraged responsibility in the use of insecticides not the obliteration of them. She encouraged a managed plan of insecticide use that educated the public. She showed a genuine desire to protect all species from becoming testing grounds for hungry chemical industry that still today is under regulated.

Chronology of Science by Lisa Rezende

2012-02-12T07:46:00.000-08:00

Chronology of Science by Lisa Rezende, New York, Checkmark Books 2006 506pp. ISBN: 0-8160-7025-3

This is a thorough textbook on historical events of science. It is structured in simple timelines with short vignettes of description designed for a high school classroom discussion of scientists and scientific events. It is an overview that takes us from 5000 bce to January 10, 2006. The last cited event was the announcement that Woo Suk Hwang was discovered to have dishonored science with his fabricated genomic research.

I mention that detail because in informing young people about science, it is important to stress the ultimate integrity of scientific research. If the results cannot be duplicated they are to be tossed out. Likewise it is critical to have students recognize what science is and what it is not.

The book is informative in the sense that a field guide is. By that I mean there are not lengthy details but interesting briefs that can inspire further research for genuine details. She follows here text with an appendix on units and measures, excellent further reading and internet resources and a very convenient glossary.

I have no idea how well used the book is but it certainly merits classroom use.

One City’s Wilderness by Marcy Cottrell Houle

2012-01-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

One City’s Wilderness: Portland’s Forest Park by Marcy Cottrell Houle, Corvallis. OR, Oregon State University Press 2010 254pp. ISBN: 978-0-87071-588-4

I now pronounce me an expert on parks and field guides. After all I spend countless hours every week at home and during travels in parks I look primarily for birds and secondarily for all material that found itself there naturally. I photograph nature and take this data home to study it with one or more of the 39 Field Guides in my den. I love parks and field guides and so I am an expert.

Well enough about me. It was a pleasure to get the details of Portland’s huge Forest Park in the conceit of a Field Guide. Having never been to Portland, this book allowed me to fantasize about a walk on any of the 29 paths in this 5,100 acre park. The conditions on the trails are quite divergent both in ecological conditions and rigor. She details the flora and fauna that can be found in each mini environment so a rugged hiker or a bird watcher can determine which will suit them on any day.

The book has photos and checklists for the student or list maker and they are helpful for those who want to take notes on the ecosystem for data collecting or simply the joy of learning. It also has didactic sections informing the reader of the history of the park (it is not that old) and its geology.

There are some value-added features that help make it an enjoyable read. There are sidebars that inform the reader about trail names and the people they are named for. In addition to the detailed stories of the trails individually there is a fold out map of the entire park.

Next summer when I am again on the West Coast it seems that I will have to make a side trip to Portland so that I can experience Forest Park first hand.

Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku

2012-01-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku, New York, Doubleday 2011 380pp. ISBN: 978-0-385-53080-4

“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world”. Arthur Schopenhauer

Kaku states his life goals (understand all physical laws of nature and describe it simply, then see the future) and makes his speculations about those in this new book. He has a boyish style and while refreshing from a popular reader’s vantage it is filled with some hard to understand shortcomings. He is delighted with the project of meeting with a large number of scientists and futurists and projects that enthusiasm well. Guessing what the future may look like has been a popular genre for many years. I remember the popular magazines of the 50’s with their images of maglev travel and robotic housemaids for example. Of course speculation of the future is risky business since one is mostly wrong yet when we look at life today and remember back even as little as 25 years ago, it is amazing at what is available today that was not then.

Kaku grabs a couple of conceits to make his own points. They include the fact that we historically underestimate the rate of technological progress. He regularly references Moore’s Law about the rate of computer speed (technological expansion) and the four forces of nature (gravity, electromagnetics and the weak and strong forces).

He speculates on the next 90 years in 30 year increments so that the reader has a sense of the development of technology. He takes a conservative estimate about the lengths of our evolution mainly so that he does not sound like a lunatic. There is a cautioned temperance throughout the tale; we will not be habituating Mars for instance. He also mixes in some political philosophy regarding the results of the ease that technology will provide us. There will be usurpers and laggards but they are a standard deviation away from the story Kaku wants to present. There is some cherry picking of information too.

Any physicist who would suggest future events cannot ignore computer innovation and Kaku does not fail the reader in this regard. Cyber technology will be the path that makes life elegant for humans and it does so by curing disease as well as finding the causes for physical entropy amongst us so that we can live extraordinary lives for a very long time. So there will be hand held MRIs and cancer will have been tackled to the largest extent.

Artificial Intelligence and robotics are essential ingredients to any book like this. He sees a clear role for the same but points out (I think correctly) that while AI can be useful for rote roles, the lack of pattern recognition renders that unable to match human intelligence. Computing a Chess victory and assisting in the safe evacuation of a train wreck are two different matters. Self awareness and projecting the near future are ingredients that AI simply will not have.

He discusses the environmental condition of today and the models that suggest that the rate of polar melt (as only one example) will increase. He does a great job of presenting a likely positive feedback loop regarding the release of methane gas from the decay formerly sealed in by polar ice caps and its effects for global warming. He describes conditions clearly and then ignores them to continue with his speculation.

He provides us with the details of Ray Kurzweil’s predictions but as they were read a question was begged, what lends any credence to Kurzweil’s suggestions? How did he become an authority? Was it simply by being the author of many books?

Kaku laments the decline of math and science literacy amongst American students. This reader agrees whole heartedly with his entire description and laments as well.
Yet his description of a success story leaves a lot to be concerned with. He describes Singapore as a success story and in a dark way it is. The city state has made incredible strides towards a scientifically literate society but first at the expense of human rights but the item that really made me slap my forehead was when he described the culling process used to filter the right students into the right scientific education-teacher suggestions. What could possibly go wrong with that plan? It does not seem to be paranoid to wonder if cherry picking students for exceptional education could be very subjective on the part of teachers worried about job status. Kaku did not mention it but it is not a stretch to imagine that like everywhere else, the sons and daughters of the elite will be found to be the superior students.

His understanding that nations have to protect and nurture their technological resources more than they should be selling them rings true to this reviewer. The wise make use of their resources by improving the society not by making a profit from them. It is hard to imagine that being our local goal as we hear the harping and keening of the Republican hopefuls during the debates right now. While we “Drill baby, Drill” and our kids devour Cheetohs and Coke we really ought to be thinking about an important resource-the next generation and what is to become of them.

“The saddest aspect of society right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom” said Isaac Asimov. This quote that Kaku chose to include rings a chord in me. Our technological advances tend toward those that can make people wealthy-not everyone but those on the right side of the innovation. We want Ipads and Iphones and huge Hi-Def televisions and we want cures for disease only when it affects us on a personal level. We want extravagant games to play on computers and we want computers to support them. We want technology to buffer us from nature.

I reached despair while reading the last chapter about a day in the life of an engineer in 2100. I am so glad that I will not be here to see it. Kaku could have made the book a lot more integral were he to have provided a chapter on natural history as the century unfolds. It was all about technology not wisdom and not about the lives to be expected by those who live on the left side of a Bell Curve. To that end the book provided the value equivalent to the Tofflers and the Gingrichs efforts-silly speculation in the guise of an informed account.

The book is an enjoyable read if one wants to imagine a science fiction of technological marvels. It feeds the voyeurism that has been a fun popular culture event for a long time. I imagine that Parade Magazine or Reader’s Digest would love to review the book.

The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History by David Hackett Fischer

2012-01-17T15:26:00.000-08:00

The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History by David Hackett Fischer, New York, Oxford University Press 1996 536pp. ISBN: 0-19-512121-X

It is difficult to say that a book about western economic history could be a vibrant and compelling book but it will be said here. Fischer does a fine job of telling a complicated story in reader friendly way despite the very academic structure of the book. It is designed much like a journal article but is very long. Here is how he does it. About half of the book is simply the description of flux and stability in markets over an eight hundred year history of the western world. While footnoted intensely the student can review the notes at the end for direction and clarity. Nearly half of the book is reference material in the form of appendices. These subplots are mini stories in and of themselves. Those of us who have written our last post grad theses will cherry pick the ones that spark an interest.

Fischer writes of four “waves” of economic disequilibrium initiating in Europe in the 1200s and later immigrating to the new world. The book was published in 1996 so it does not include the dot.com bust of the early 21st century and of course the crisis that exists now. It would be interesting to read his take on current events.
He has a subdued leftist bent in his writing while attempting to remain objective.

Since pure empiricism is a myth, he comes close and modulates some of his musing regarding the more subjective aspects of the tale. There is no doubt however, that Fischer recognizes the consistency of the rich growing richer at the expense of those with less resources. When he lays out the conditions that create the waves, they are difficult to argue against. That is if you know your history and are able to examine without presupposition, ruling out the potential policy makers that are debating for Republican candidacy right now.

Fischer reminds us that disequilibrium incited by economic waves is more the rule than the exception. Most of our western history exists with conditions of unstable prices, wages, interest rates etc. Our periods of equilibrium are brief and essentially are just the incubators for the next flux.

The first wave occurred in the 13th century and was the most devastating. It involved a positive feedback loop that threw the entire problem into a chaotic, nonlinear miasma that only drew to a close with a Malthusian logic. It lasted more than a century and included a population explosion thus a greater demand for goods. This created inflationary rising of prices. The poor got extremely poorer and while the nobility hoarded foodstuffs, the yeomen were eating their dead. Crime rose exponentially as did political insurrection. These are social ills but there was more to this positive feedback.

Several years had extreme weather conditions often year to year. These included very cold temperatures debilitating harvests. Other years had heavy rains ruining the storage of what crops that could be reaped. Then a series of plagues including the infamous bubonic plague befell Europe. During those times the powerful had means to escape the worst suffering and those without the means died in vast numbers. Here is where Malthus comes in.

This nonlinear and chaotic mess devastated populations and did the classic economic thing. Prices dropped as demand dropped and disease dissipated (there was no left to kill) and gradually equilibrium returned (only to spawn the larva for the next wave).

All told this was a pretty horrible time to live in Europe even if you were rich and powerful. There were some advantages once equilibrium returned. Some lessons were learned and they ameliorated future waves but…
The ingredients of the waves all existed when the next one occurred. Societal knowledge however made horrific conditions less so than the first recorded wave.

Fischer makes a pretty compelling case and we could suppose that a historian from the Gingrich camp would present the conditions differently the book offers a perspective that is worth contemplating. No one makes worthwhile decision based on one read so those interested in understanding this phenomenon deeper can make great use of the extensive notes and appendices. This reader is too tired to do that but plaudits should go to Fischer’s effort to present his side of the story.

Unity and Culture: The United States 1877-1900 by H. Wayne Morgan

2012-01-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

Unity and Culture: The United States 1877-1900 by H. Wayne Morgan, Baltimore, Penguin Books 1971 175pp. (ISBN: 0142012434-current #10)

Morgan takes on quite a bit of American political history in not so many pages. He presents American politics in sort of a Burkean conservativism. It is philosophical idealism that suggests that the largest numbers of American voters and leaders want what is best for the country and their fellows. It suggests that the way to do that is with solid values. He does describe the fringe thinking and the screamers presenting propaganda rather than rational social ideas but they are more incidental to the mainstream than anything else. Essentially it is Morgan’s notion that people trend toward rationalism and team building. He might be right about this but it is often tough to believe when one witnesses the excessive and radical desires of both sides of the political spectrum.

Morgan juxtaposes political history chapters with ones describing American’s artistic whims. Though he describes popular culture media he really focuses on high arts and their symbolism and value to Americans.

The book presents some very curious challenges to thinking about our history. Because it is such a short book his ideas are laid out but not fully covered. He was unable to make convincing statements either about politics or art. He simply made suggestions and they were compelling but not convincing. If you are interested in his ideas his bibliographical essay is a valuable tool.

All together I enjoyed the book and saw it as thought provoking but it failed to tell us much about either unity or culture. It just makes the reader think and may make them delve into some of his suggestions more deeply.

The Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

2012-01-04T16:33:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare is so readily available on line for free that it is tough to see a reason for purchasing a book and certainly he is not awaiting royalties.

The Twelfth Night was written as a play to celebrate the end of Christmas and while it was not about the festive season I chose this one due to the season. That is not why I chose to read Shakespeare again however. I was inspired by the recent article by Douglas Wilson. He discussed an issue that was close to me and that was Abraham Lincoln’s experience with the great playwright. It seems that Lincoln fairly scorned watching Shakespeare’s plays but loved reading them. I like Lincoln and am always impressed with his decision making it is about Shakespeare that I cannot agree. There is no reason for anyone to care right?

Well I love Shakespeare and often read plays by him but unlike Lincoln, I gather more by watching than I do by reading. After reading Wilson’s article (see link below)in the American Scholar I thought to take some serious time reading very slowly one of the Bard’s plays and try to imagine it from Lincoln’s perspective. I failed.

The Twelfth Night was one of his comedies and it had the intrigues, egoistic pomposity and twists of several of his plays. Of course it all came to a happy conclusion at the end. Simplifying it this way is by no means an effort to minimize Shakespeare’s work. I am convinced that all popular stories either in books or visual presentations are derivative of the Bard’s efforts. As a reader though, I feel ill equipped to write a valid criticism after reading one of his works. This is more a short essay about me and Shakespeare than a book review.

I think it is time for me to look at an opportunity to go see The Twelfth Night performed.

Here is Wilson's article.

Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York by Oliver A. Rink

2012-01-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York by Oliver A. Rink, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press 1986 284pp. ISBN: 978-0-801-49585-4

New York City and the land from the Delaware Valley is rich in history that emanated from a Dutch presence back in the 17th Century. The Dutch based names of natural and built environments from Philadelphia up through the Hudson Valley are numerous and that gave this reviewer the wrong impression of Dutch influence in the founding of places like the Delaware Valley and New York City in particular. Rink dissuaded me of these notions with his scholarly history of Dutch New York.

The Dutch envisioned colonization in the new world that would be a symbiotic relationship between itself and this new world. They were a powerful nation with a lot of wealth but also with a lot of wars to keep their power but that also sapped resources. Henry Hudson the Englishman who sailed under a Dutch flag, impressed his mentors with tales of teeming abundance of resources thus opportunities that prevailed in this new world. The powers to be jumped at the chance, and various businesses and alliances came to be including the West Indies Company. The design was to populate this new world as quickly and as often as possible so that nationalists not only would grab a foothold on this new territory but also they could usurp the natural resources (primarily furs) as intensely as possible.

Well that all may have been well and good but they needed leadership and political control over the region in order for this dream to come true. They were successful at populating the area because they offered incredible incentives for their population to make a new life in the Americas. Who jumps at this sort of a chance? You already know and history has proven that it is the young who sally forth for new opportunity and the established who aim to control and profit from it.

So people flocked across the Atlantic to establish a new life and to prosper as the opportunity presented itself. For the young it meant farming, trapping or mining for the most part. For those sponsoring them it meant grand revenues and self aggrandizement as Patroons in this land. People came to work hard and to establish themselves but they were restricted by various elements throughout the tenure of Dutch dominance. The ever present whimsy of the natives proved to be calumny at best and death at worse. Changing laws and taxes offered instability and the climate-one sold to them as nearly tropical was not so. It simply was not that easy to make one’s fortune in the new world as it was advertised.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Dutch success in America though was its own doing. The leadership-the Patroons or Barons that were sent to oversee the conditions on Manhattan and Long Island were essentially bereft of organizational or social skills and viewed their power as a sign of ability. So pomposity, drunkenness and greed led the yeomen who established lives in the new world. The English who were opportunists could see this.

Approximately seventy five years of haphazard existence in what would become New York rather than New Amsterdam came to an end. In 1664 the English defeated the Dutch and gave them pretty magnanimous privilege for a defeated nation in this new world. The Dutch experiment however was complete. The history that this reader imagined was not the one that occurred…at least according to Rink.

Well, it is much more complicated than the vision just presented but all of the details are in the book. One book does not make for a master and the colonization of Manhattan is a curiosity for me so Rink’s book was a good starting point. It is well documented so resources are available for reference. It was written for the academic which my own Masters in History would qualify me for but it also is a pretty enjoyable read for the interested parlor historian.

Keith County Journal by John Janovy

2011-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Keith County Journal by John Janovy, Jr., New York, Saint Martin’s Press 1978 210 pp. ISBN: 0-312-45124-5

“Study nature, not books.” Janovy tells us several times through this memoir. It is hard to disagree with the sentiment though Janovy has published a large number of natural science books over many years. Taking his suggestion to heart can be done while reading his or other natural historians stories. These blog pages can tell you how much this reviewer reads books such as this but also is a firm believer in seeing nature in its naked form.

Janovy tells us many things from a style that is more likely to be found in an Audubon Magazine than a scientific journal. It is a series of personalized chapters told largely from his experience. At the same time he addresses subjects that are making the major academic, peer reviewed publications. He is simply telling us non-scientists what is going on behind the scenes.

Some examples include the non-linear life of the termite wherein it is the colony that is the organism more so than the termite. The tight division of labor renders the individual unremarkable and the evo-devo of the group that is to be examined. He talks about life in microscopia and nematode adaptation and tracking the fields of Keith County Kansas in search of empirical stuff that happens all of the time outside of our offices. There is all of this great stuff occurring where we so often do not look and it happens all the time. We just need to look for it.

Study nature not books Janovy tells us, “’People are Strange’ of course is an easy explanation for some of the things we have experienced in Keith County, but in reality, even though we participate in some circular races, especially where science is concerned, the termite country of Keith County has taught us that people are not so different from the other forms of life on this spaceship.” We are all in this together he reminds us.

Janovy tells us several stories but they all suggest that we need to observe, we do not need to have vast experience and we do not have to make new discoveries-except for ourselves.

On the Nature of the Universe by Lucretius

2011-12-28T15:05:00.001-08:00

On the Nature of the Universe Lucretius R.E. Latham Ed., Middlesex, England, Penguin Classics 1951 262 pp. ISBN: 0-14-044160-9

As an epicurean atomist, Lucretius found himself with few contemporaries-at least vocal ones. Atomism was a material belief and suggested that other cosmologies and histories were defined by authority rather than simple material fact. Lucretius needed no power figure or sacred text to comprehend how the world works.

The book was written about 2100 years ago, before anyone conceptualized a scientific method or a value of experimentation. Lucretius relied on logic (however flawed) to determine “the nature of things”. While he did not trust other authority figures he took that mantle on himself in this all encompassing view of how stuff works. In six books he took on geology, meteorology, quantum physics, sociology and more. He had lots of interesting ideas and some of his stories were downright delightful (sexuality) and others gruesome (the plague that swept the western world during his time).

Lucretius while a materialist did have a somewhat vitalist view of nature. He saw the mind and spirit as interconnected and composing of a single substance. The difference between he and Bergson however is that Lucretius saw this intrinsic spirit in humans to be as mortal as their physical body.

This translation by Ronald Latham was done in the much more readable prose style rather than the more common poetic translation of this work. Written prior to experimentation still holds some valid understanding via a logic (however flawed)
Lucretius book offers several insights into the logical thinking of so long ago. At times it is humorous-check his sex advice out. What it does tell us is that people of 2100 years ago had about the same interpretations of the world, fears and joys as we do today.

Annals of the Former World by John McPhee

2011-12-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

Annals of the Former World by John McPhee, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2000 696 pp. ISBN: 0-374-51873-4

This Pulitzer Prize winning example of creative non-fiction took over thirty years to complete. It was read with brio and the last chapter was interrupted on several occasions as the reader flew over the Cascades, Tetons and Rockies in order to have a 40,000 foot view of some of the American geology that McPhee wrote of.

The book is massive and filled with minute details that while bogging the book down at times, pretty much explained the evolution of earth accurately and well. Geology is such an expanding science that McPhee’s book is already a tad out of date but the base of information that he laid out is quite the foundation.

Thirty years ago while camping at Assateague Island I place my keys in the sand at the base post of my tent. I had no idea that they would not be there a few days later. It was a relief to find them about six feet away and six inches deeper into the sand. I learned a simple lesson, one this non geologist needed to know. The earth shifts and it does so quickly. I taught this to my daughters when they were young by placing a nickel on the ground near one of the plants in the garden and we would guess when it would disappear from sight-it was never many days.

This was one of the lessons that could be learned from McPhee’s book. Others include stories about how we come to understand plate tectonics and so recently at that. Many of us as elementary school children noted the potential puzzle pieces that appear on a one dimensional map of the world. We know them as Gondwana and Laurasia. We learn how certain rocks found in Africa made their way to Massachusetts. Volcanoes and earthquakes are other tales told in this book; there are more stories than can be discussed here.

While the book was written by a journalist (who embedded himself with a variety of scientists), for non scientists, it was written as a creative endeavor. Its main flaw was its length that included some repetition and the lack of a glossary for the hundreds of words used that would be unknown to the avid amateur.

Those are small complaints and the book can double as a reference tome. The Pulitzer Committee knew what they were doing when they awarded that prize to McPhee.

In the Salt Marsh by Nancy Willard

2011-12-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

In the Salt Marsh by Nancy Willard, New York, A Borzoi Book 2006 52 pp. ISBN: 0-375-71053-1

I bought this book on line and a bit rashly. In the course of accumulating books on Salt Marshes I bought a poetry book. Well it was my gain as accidental as it was. I enjoyed the poetry to the extent that I am able. Willard largely wrote nature related poems and she has an eye and a sense of what is going on that I appreciated. She also could put words together far better than I ever could.

Serendipity may describe my coming across the book. I’m glad I did.

The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove

2011-11-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. New York, Ballantine Books, 1994 561 pp. ISBN: 0-345-38468-7

In the late 1990’s a co-worker suggested this book to me but since I read few novels and had never read a science fiction book, I disregarded his suggestion. A decade later having some interest in the Civil War (as seen through readings about Lincoln) I came to be interested in finding this book. Asking several sci-fi fans if they knew of it and doing some internet research I found it and read it.

It is pretty light reading and was an enjoyable time spent but I read it with a lot of skepticism. Like much of popular novels the good guys and bad are immediately understood. Moral distinctions are readily at hand. That is to be expected and is really pretty boring. Turtledove kept to that tradition.

Essentially it is a contra factual replay of the Civil War and its aftermath whereby South African neo-Nazis were able to time travel back to 1860s America and re-determine the results of the War Between the States. Unfortunately how they came upon the tool of time travel was never discussed. They came back to provide the south with AK-47s which allowed the better armed and undermanned South to bring the Union to its knees and ultimately concede that the Confederacy would become its own nation. The neo-Nazi plan was as intrepid as it was evil and soon the powers to be in the Confederacy came to realize their intentions. They were ideas that were not in conjunction with their own.

All the good guys in the south were only so because they wanted the rule of States Rights to reign and were only marginally concerned with the issue of slavery. The good guys came to the game with notions of racial superiority but it was tertiary or less to their desires of States Rights and drawing back from a Federal government. Turtledove’s depiction stands in the face of the fact that Confederate states declared in their rationale for cessation. In real life the states seceded for the sake of slavery and States Rights was a subterfuge for the real issue that caused the Second Revolution-slavery and secondarily white supremacy.

Americans need to quit kidding themselves about this. The South was built on racial superiority and even those who were not slave owners (most of them) held that they were superior in every way to the men and women who worked their fields. They were in favor of maintenance of this rule. This was not some sort of missionary task to upraise imported and the descendents of imported people from a savage continent. It was usurping the labor of different people from a different culture.

In Turtledove’s depiction, the non slave owning Confederate soldiers came to realize that slaves and freed blacks actually had a lot to offer a new nation. They wanted to actively employ blacks to make their Confederacy a more viable nation. There is not much evidence in the real world that there was much of this going on. In examining history we might want to look at the makeup of the Klu Klux Klan that arose a few years after this novel ended.

The author depicted characters as changing their racial understandings upon witnessing small events and heroism of the African descendents in their midst. That is a little tough to accept. Turtledove lionized Robert E. Lee as a racial liberal with a progressive emancipation plan. It was difficult while reading the book to accept that. Lee determined to lead the Confederate Army of Virginia to extricate its freedom from the Union in order to continue the legacy of slavery. Most of my own life I have not held Lee in the esteem that has been his laudatory legacy. However I have only known Lee as an important military figure who chose the avenue of slavery defense. Turtledove certainly maintains an allegiance to the Lee myth and while reading the book was soured by the description of the South’s liberality.

I was chastened by doing some internet research on Lee. Of course the literature of this iconic figure is immense and I limited my research to around a hundred pages so that I could get a grip. Lee definitely had a far more liberal stance on race than men of his times. He did free the slaves of his father in law in 1862 but it was determined by the Will of the man dead for five years. Lee did think there was a future of possibilities for the African descendant though he did not favor suffrage. However there was some logic to this in that Lee felt that the newly freedman had not enough understanding of government to make rational decisions about the rules of law. So I rethought my superficial understanding of Robert E. Lee and though my new understanding is still pretty superficial it did reveal to me that Turtledove only marginally fictionalized the figure he idolized in the book. Lee was pretty progressive for 1860s southerners.

So The Guns of the South was thought provoking as well as an intriguing adventure story. I only wish he had devoted some effort towards describing the machination and details of how the neo-Nazis found a time machine.

American Nature Writing 1994 John A. Murray ed.

2011-11-18T15:01:00.000-08:00

American Nature Writing 1994 John A. Murray ed. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1994 229 pp. ISBN: 0-87156-479-3

Murray edited a list of twenty four essays (mainly) that were from individual sensibilities about natural experiences. The essays were by and large quite good but Murray’s own introduction nearly made me use the book for fodder for the chimenea.

Murray started things off by depicting our roles in nature as both spiritual and moral. These may play a role for many inspired woods walker but he took them to the self righteous and politically correct ends. That may hold for some but not all. I am not in that camp at all. Nature is exhilarating, beautiful, unbounding, curious, dangerous and many more things but it is not proof of a supreme other. Loving nature as I do, it never crosses my mind that I am of a moral fiber above those who do not care about it. I’m not above the creatures and plants either.

Fortunately the essays and poems that followed rarely took on the morally superior tone that was in the introduction. I read old favorites such as Barry Lopez and new favorite, Annie Dillard and many writers who I had never heard of. They typically wrote with a zeal about their own experiences either bygone or current. They wrote from different aspects of the natural environment from mountains to shores from sand to trees. They wrote about people they knew and admired and what those others did in, for and about nature.

The natural world holds a great sway on me. My own experiences are never new to anyone but myself. My discoveries have all been found before. Since they are new to me though, I have in front of me an endless amount of wonderment, guesses and novelty. When a new event unfolds in front of me sometimes I merely bask in its curiosity and at other times I feel compelled to research what I have found.
The writers who filled this anthology did it largely as I do. Nature and wonderment; what a great door prize of life.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

2011-11-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. New York, Perennial Classics, 1974 288 pp. ISBN: 0-06-095302-0

There are several ways of writing about how one sees the natural world. Sometimes it is done in a systematic, methodical way similar to a textbook. It could be done like those of Berndt Heinreich who explores the woods with a childlike zeal but with a clear academic way of understanding. There is Dillard’s approach which combines a well read informative understanding of science but is written with more personal ardor. Nature is its own spirit as we see from this book. Understanding it to the extent that we can is a good thing but since we will never fully comprehend the intricacies of the natural world we ought to accept its beauty for what it is. Like she said, “Beauty of the birdsong-it is a cipher, an unbreakable code. How good is nature at being natural”?

It ought to be stated right off that this book reflects a lot about this reader and his affinity for several of the same things that Dillard discussed in her essays. She examined different sorts of water under a microscope readily at hand as do I. She recalled naïve childhood beliefs and understandings of how things work that matched my own pretty regularly. Reflecting on symbioses I like to use the phrase “we are all in this together-all the flora and fauna”. Dillard said the same thing when she declared that, “We’re all in this Mason jar together, snapping at anything that moves.” Lastly on this point several years ago I made the effort to write about how the Starling got to America and how it proliferated. That is a portion of one of Dillard’s essays. Needless to say, this sort of routine consideration of the same things made this reader feel a genuine affinity for the book.

Though the author is clearly well versed in the science behind much of her musing, it was not a design of academic training or professional pursuits. She is a writer with MFA credentials. Clearly she displayed a genuine amateur or “Citizen Scientist” interest while writing many of the essays. They are not all about the actual science however. They are about her observations and how she feels about them.

Tinker’s Creek is embedded in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains out west of the coast. It is an extraordinary location and beautifully suited for the hikes that led Dillard to her observations and scientific experiments (as simple as they were). It also allowed her the musings that were personal. Nature has a way of doing that to those of us who consider it beautiful in and of itself.

Now as this review concludes it must be said that the largest difference between what Pilgrim has to say and how this reader thinks is that when the book was read the reviewer was more than twice the age of Dillard when she wrote it. It took me half a century to come close to thinking like Dillard did in her mid twenties and of course she was able to express those thoughts far better than this old man. Lastly, this book published nearly 40 years ago is readily available it does not sit on “seconds” shelves but proudly boasts its spine in book stores all over the place. That’s pretty cool.

The Flamingo’s Smile by Stephen Jay Gould

2011-11-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1985 476 pp. ISBN: 0-393-30375-6

This compilation of previously written articles was informative and interesting and at the same time uninspiring. It was well organized with some thirty essays subsumed under eight categories. The articles told us a lot about the history of science and about the author. Every article informs the reader about its content be it the insidious wasp planting parasitic eggs or the wretched circumstances of Carrie Bucks misdiagnosis by doctors during the wave of eugenics that swept America’s intelligentsia. His insistence that evolution is the lynchpin of all biological science research is factual and would be unquestionable amongst a thinking culture-one that he did not write for. There are thirty articles and this review will not address each of them. Suffice it to say that when dealing with that number some are better than others. Each provides some kernel of information or a ream of it depending on what the reader may be looking for.

In addition to his routine insertions about the efficacy of evolutionary principles in scientific research, Gould has a couple of other points to make that are worth mentioning. Imagine that we are looking at an issue from the perspective of a bell curve. Rather than look at the extremes for interest and research we ought to spend more time looking at the center. The extremes provide more interesting stories but by Gould’s thinking tell us less about the phenomena-whatever it is. We will learn more by looking at why normalcy prevails in the curve than we will by looking at the whys of the best and the worst of the population.

Secondly and related to the first, we often need reminding that evolution, adaptation, symbioses works for the species not the individual. The single most powerful example of a species does not tell us about the population. If that were so then Genghis Kahn whose DNA is found disproportionately amongst the world’s population would be the paragon of human evolution. Rather he suggests that we need to examine the state of the species when attempting to make evolutionary assumptions.

All this is good. The book informs us of many things but it is measuring and mechanical; it is more of a fact finding mission. It reads more as a scientific sermon than a reflection on natural history. A good book on natural history ought to be more of a memoir or diary than a lecture. Other scholarly works are able to do this-provide solid science with their zeal for the things they study. Other literary essays on natural history use science to supplement the author’s ardor about their subject and many have been addressed in previous reviews in these pages. They are so much more interesting than what felt like a textbook.

Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters

2011-10-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective From the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi (A Summary Workshop) Steve Olson, Rapporteur. Washington, DC, The National Academies Press, 2011 123 pp. ISBN: 978-0-309-21527-5

This short is a culmination of the proceedings of The Gulf Coast Project-which was the name of the book’s title. Members participated from the private, public and fields including clergy. The design was to understand what social and physical resilience to catastrophes is and how it could be assessed based on the Katrina Hurricane in the Gulf States. Prepare, plan for absorb and recover from was one part of the answer. Adaptation is the other answer.

The report was a bit too much of an apologia and back patting for the genuine efforts of the New Orleans civic and community. The evidence of New Orleans ability to bounce back requires seeing it in two lights. First of it was to “come back” from a major disaster that rendered it for some time to be as a third world habitat. From that very low bar, almost any progressive action appears to be a grand success. Secondly the shift in population to different locations including out of state rendered it less populous and easier to service in terms like education and emergency services. A tertiary question that came to mind was what percent of the many that died during those days, would have been the ones in dire needs of the resilience.

Ultimately the report was of little value to this reader not simply due to the gliding over of demographic facts or the self congratulatory nature of the reports but because the many reports suggested common sense protocol to disasters. They stated what seems to be self evident. Government, business, civic and cultural groups all need to work in harmony to make resilience work. The end product was heavy on definition and description but weak on providing real results.

Upon completing the book I had no reason to imagine that New Orleans would be resilient to another such hurricane. The wetlands are not repaired, the civil engineering projects waylaid and the political infrastructure unchanged except in rhetoric. It is hard to be optimistic about New Orleans or any other American municipality being prepared for resilience mainly because that requires long term planning and effective action. Those are not apparent traits within our geographic or political boundaries. The book did little to convince this reader that as a nation or any of its cities, we are resilient in the face of disasters.

We are however adaptive. That notion is particularly relevant in nature as well as in socio-cultural terms and they are quite different. In the social milieu adaptation means accepting a lesser quality of life-making due with less and that is the clarion call of American politics today.

A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau

2011-10-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau. New York, Basic Books, 2005 210 pp. ISBN: 0-465-09294-2

“What does it take to make a great scientific theory? Two elements are crucial. One must have an insight into which problems are ripe for resolution, and one must have the craft-or invent it-to solve the problem one has had the audacity to recognize as solvable.” This statement by the author sums up his estimation of Einstein’s descriptions of relativity (general and special). It also describes the evolution of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem.

Both men found themselves theorizing in Austria during the period when Logical Positivism was the philosophical trend of the day. Briefly this method held that the only answers philosophy could provide were those rooted in empiricism. Science could answer empirical questions and all else was at best mental gymnastics and at worse queries designed almost like sabotage to confuse thinkers. Positivism took on some strident forms and many of the aspects of this thinking can be found still today.

Neither Einstein nor Gödel subscribed to that philosophy though they were instrumental as a physicist and mathematician, to its formulation. Einstein saw the material world as one that was nearly malleable where more than one explanation could be correct and Gödel viewed pure mathematics as ultimately not solvable. This ran against Hilbert’s Formalism as well as the Carnap’s pure empiricism.

There is no room here for the details but Yourgrau spells them out in the book. It is not beach reading. Though short it is deep with both mathematical construction and philosophical queries. It requires the reader to go back and reaffirm what they may have understood a few pages early-or readjust based on what they thought they had read.

Both protagonists lived during perilous times and under arduous conditions. They were both heralded in their younger days and maintained their notoriety into dotage. Having endured the early days of the Nazi Regime they were able to get out of Europe and find themselves in the relative (no pun here) calm of Princeton, New Jersey in the intellectual Eden of the Institute of Advanced Study. In this think tank where invitees were brought together there were few demands. What a great job. The greatest intellects of the world could come together and discuss things. It was here that two eccentrics could come together and disagree on a daily basis. Their contrapuntal discussions made them fast friends. What a life!

The author wrote this book laden with philosophical details but presenting his own theories about life through the thinking of two of the greatest minds of the 20th century. It was rarely easy but a reward to complete the book with some new insight into both of these odd men.

Sand Dunes and Salt Marshes by Charles Wendell Townsend

2011-10-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

Sand Dunes and Salt Marshes by Charles Wendell Townsend. Gloucestershire, UK, Dodo Press, 2009 (original 1913) 191 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4099-8473-6

“There are many facts in nature that are difficult to understand, and it is far better to admit ignorance than to accept an untenable theory.” It is with this emphasis that the medical doctor Charles Townsend approached his avocation as a natural historian. He does it well in this nearly 100 year old book that describes the science and ecology of the Cape Cod area of Ipswich; the land of sand dunes and salt marshes.

Townsend shows us something about the evolutionary ecological mindset of enlightened people of so long ago. He wrote this book before so many of the east coast’s salt marshes fell to seaside villas and sports arenas. He was still involved with a land that was essentially pristine. It is true of course those salt marshes have been prey to new development long before 1913 but the rapine became exponential after his time.

It seems that Salt Marsh writers deeply love the place they describe as much as they want to describe its environment. While science is certainly used to describe the flora and fauna, the geography or the climate, authors often write with fervor and with memories that make it difficult for the reader to imagine cold science. The writers love their place. Townsend was no different. Sand Dunes and Salt Marshes detailed the conditions of those places but it was clear that he did this with zeal. The book is written as if it were two monographs one being the sand dunes which he distinguishes from the second part-salt marshes. He uses a lot of personal memories, social history and photographs to make his case.

Sand dunes are a continually evolving phenomena that are never the same for long. Townsend describes the changes that are dramatic as seasons change and storms ravage. They are always there however. Townsend’s perspective in this description is more geological than any other science though he does describe what little flora exists in this tumultuous condition. He informs us that nature will take its course and the humans who disregard it will suffer the consequences. For instance farmers whose land borders dunes would be prudent to erect fences and those that choose not to suffer devastating acreage loss after a storm. You can’t fool Mother Nature he might have suggested.

I enjoyed and learned a lot about the dunes but it was the salt marches that I bought the book for. He did not tell me a lot that I had not read before but I have been voraciously consuming current writing about this ecological condition. He reminded me of the birds that habituate the area as well as the crabs, periwinkles, butterflies and other fauna. Yeah I have read about them and experienced them much like he wrote about them but he wrote about them so delicately and thoroughly that it was impossible not to be enamored with his descriptions. Perhaps more importantly he wrote this a hundred years ago.

I came away thankful for having discovered such an interesting book and discovering Dodo Press which is dedicated to reprinting old out of print books such as Townsend's.

Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson

2011-09-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson by Thomas Jefferson (Koch, Adrienne and Peden, William eds.). New York, The Modern Library, 2004 691 pp. ISBN: 0-375-75218-8

This book is a pretty extensive representation of Jefferson warts and all. It seems that today all political loudmouths as well as more sane pundits want to claim Jefferson as their own. Since the Constitution (which Jefferson was neither a participant nor an advocate) and its making are loudly professed and so little understood by our elected officials, I thought it best to go to an original source in order to understand the thinking of a national leader from the beginning.

What I found was that while Jefferson stood firmly against the state dictating anything religious, he was nothing close to an atheist. He also demurred from the slavery issue as often as he could. His own history as to slavery is difficult to understand but ultimately he did not free slaves. His relationship to Sally Hemmings has become popular lore (actually it was presumed during his lifetime) as was his desire for freedoms of the people, there is no reason to imagine him to have been anti slavery or imagining that there was a place for an integrated society. More than once Jefferson decried slavery yet he did not will his own slaves their freedom even upon his death.

In short, Jefferson was a man of many seeming contradictions. He was a great thinker, a scientist (to the extent that he could be at the time) and he was a driving force in the quest for American independence. One cannot say a negative thing about his role in the building of this nation. Yet he was a venal man always in a quest for riches. The American revolutionary leaders were not anarchists or Trotsky like revolutionaries. They were men (with the help of their women) who sought a relatively mild change from English law and jurisdiction to an American one. The American revolution was closer to teen age rebellion than what went on in Haiti a few years hence.

This book is filled with letters and political writings but what I want to focus on more is the only full book Jefferson ever wrote which is included in this large book. That is Notes on the State of Virginia. . In 1780, Jefferson was given a list of 22 “queries” by French politician François Marbois. Jefferson despite being an intense Francophile, was zealous in informing his friend of the superior qualities of this new nation. The queries were responded to as chapters of this short book.
In this brief response to Marbois, Jefferson used his extensive knowledge of his own state as well as his knowledge of archeology and paleontology to answer some of the material queries. He likewise was informed on the history and ethnology of the region which helped him answer others. He relied on the information of several other local experts to answer still other queries.

There were a few subjects that I thought to mention in this piece. Jefferson was a self taught scientist who believed that empiricism trumped belief when analyzing the material world. He also felt that he had enough proof to establish the veracity of the biblical flood. He had a belief in a deity but was adamantly against government involvement in religions nor the requirement that an individual profess a faith in order to be relied on. “ ..it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him.”

He remarked without bias that there was a law that every man must have arms but realistically knew that was an unrealistic requirement given the costs and the number of farmers eking out every way they could, bare sustenance.

Like many of the landed and educated class he understood the inherent evils of slavery, feared the potential of revolt and realized that slavery would likely endow future Americans with internecine strife. Essentially like his peers, he did nothing about it.

Notes on the State of Virginia was an interesting perspective of a very knowledgeable man about his environment, history and a philosophy of the future. He was a proud defender of his native land. He was far too complex a thinker for any political ideologist to claim him as their own. He had many faults but being an unthinking partisan was not amongst them. He would not be speaking at a Tea Party Town meeting despite his fear of big government. Like the Tea Party members of today, Jefferson was against the forming of the Constitution.

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

2011-09-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. New York, Broadway Books, 2005 416 pp. ISBN: 0-7679-1373-6

“The forest of the Amazons is not merely trees and shrubs. It is not land. It is another element…its inhabitants are arborean; they have been fashioned for life in that medium as fishes to the sea and birds to the air. Its green apparition is persistent, as the sky is and the ocean. In months of travel it is the horizon which the traveler cannot reach.” H.M. Tomlinson

What timing to read this admirable book. I had just completed an awful book and felt the ennui one feels upon viewing too much television. Millard simply did a marvelous job of writing about a reckless venture by the fairly vainglorious ex president. She couples it with some excellent history and a deep understanding of science and evolution. Scattered throughout this history of science biographical piece are her deep understanding of adaptation and its role in diversity. There remain today some one hundred years after her story, vast discoveries of adaptation in the Amazonian rain forest. Just imagine the discoveries prior to the roaring 20s.

She portrays Roosevelt as a very complex man. One this reader knows very little about. He was certainly not one dimensional. He also was not adhering to convictions that were once held as he experienced things that made him change his mind. He had the arrogance and will of an imperialist and he had a soft spot for the underdog. One thing held certain in this book was that he was stubborn.

Having lost a presidential election that would have been an unprecedented third term though not contiguous either in years or with party, he set out for a new grand adventure. This would reinforce the manliness that he strove to be characterized by. Taking a trip down the Amazon where mosquitoes, snakes, rapids and natives all could kill you was perilous. They could do this either individually or with the aid of circumstance.

It started off as a sanctioned trip with a plan developed with the help of the Natural History Museum in New York. Supplies were haphazardly gathered with plenty of luxury items taking up space where essentials could have gone. The crew was made up without serious consideration for their skills and too much from sentimentality. The gravest mistake was to take the option of traveling down the River of Doubt-the under explored tributary of the Amazon. Roosevelt needed to be the first (more or less) to explore this route and in his vanity imperiled many men including his son Kermit. He nearly died in two ways doing this. He re-injured a leg would that could kill him with another infection or he could commit the noble suicide required for the one who might endanger the party to keep him going.

Millard describe the dastardly cowardice of one of the crew, the swelled headed egos of Roosevelt (as well as his heroics) and others in the crew. She also described the yeoman like perseverance of others. She was at her best when describing the utter nobility of Candido Rondon the stalwart liaison from the Brazilian government. By her description he was fierce, loyal and determined. There would be no killing of the native population along the Amazon regardless of how threatening they may become. There was honor and respect above all else for Rondon.

Likewise the esteemed naturalist George Cherrie was described with honor. It was he and Rondon who really made the journey one that Roosevelt and his son could survive. There is no mistaking Roosevelt’s ruggedness-this was not merely an image he expounded. He was however fool hardy in imagining what he could do (as was his son Kermit). He could not have survived this trip without the aid of Rondon and Cherrie.

The book had many elements that made me dive into it as often as I could before completing it. It was written like an adventure story as that is what it was. It also provided plenty of interesting sidelines about adaptation found in the unique environment of the Amazon. It was another story of natural history that I cannot get enough of.

2011-09-25T03:46:00.000-07:00

Baseball: The People’s Game by Harold Seymour. New York, Oxford Press, 1990 639 pp. ISBN: 0-19-506907

The late Harold Seymour wrote three tomes on American Baseball history. He churned out nearly 2000 pages that took over 30 years to complete. I read the first two many years ago and this one has sat on my shelf unread for about 20 years. A visit to Detroit this summer found me in a swell of rabid baseball fans with the resurgent local team and I admit to getting caught up in the frenzy. As I browsed the book shelf for my next read I grabbed the dusty and moldy smelling paperback that I bought in 1991.

I waxed nostalgic at first, remembering the first two of his trilogy that were read shortly before going to graduate school in history with the intention of writing about what I called “Prole Sports”. Seymour comes at his social history from a left leaning perspective and while he writes in an entertaining and riveting style, his history is done well. This book came out long after my thesis was complete but it would have lent itself well to my research.

This third Baseball title is all about the baseball that we essentially never see anymore-amateur and semipro. That is with the exception of college baseball (with the irritating “ting of aluminum bats) there is little amateur ball left. We do see some resurgence with the nonaffiliated minor leagues serving essentially as semipro ball and “over 40 (and 50 and 60…)” year old amateur leagues but they pretty much have no popularity in our culture. I am glad they exist though if only a reminder of the days of yore which of course were before my time.

Seymour writes about “town ball” that excited locals to beat their proud chests as their team opposed the other locals who did the same. He discussed the rise in prison baseball teams, college teams, women’s baseball and the segregated amateur black teams. He writes with gusto and from a socially conscious perspective. Lastly he has pretty much been the sole author of this sort of history.

However it is not a book without flaws. It’s over 600 pages of history are filled with details that are too minute and arcane to be meaningful. This reader grew so weary when going through the many number of women’s colleges and the number of players and the pros and cons of this venture that he started to glaze over paragraphs. Unfortunately I got to the point of wondering whether some chapters would never end. In addition, Seymour segued between several chapters with a repetition of points that the reader had just seen.

Ultimately I enjoyed the book for its unique social history and Seymour’s perspective but I think he could have completed the task in about 400 pages.

Stiff by Mary Roach

2011-08-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. New York, W.W. Norton and Co., 2003 304 pp. ISBN: 978-0-393-32482-2

It is difficult to describe a book about human remains as delightful but that is what I am going to do. Roach uses several angles to describe what can happen to our remains. Sometimes it is our choosing to become crash test dummies, organ donors or be frozen. Sometimes it is not our choice should we meet our demise in some forsaken place where what is left goes undiscovered for awhile. Undiscovered by humans that is because certainly the worms that crawl in your snout will find you.

Roach treats the reader to some medical history including whacked out theories of anatomy, as well as naïve theories that while proven wrong were pretty good for their day. She got down and dirty in her research using libraries for the ancient stuff and meeting with people who have ghoulish jobs in the eyes of most of us.
Human remains really are used as crash test dummies, remains sometimes are left in a sequestered field so that their decay can be analyzed for forensic value. Remains are cremated, buried and frozen and mulched. Bodies have been snatched and heads have been transplanted. Roach was there for first hand experience.

The book provides plenty of science as well as history. She informs the reader with little jargon (I did have to look up about eight words). She spent plenty of research time in labs getting the details for her book and describes the people and the science behind their work in layman’s terms.

Actually she uses terms that are not simply plainspeak. She uses terms that generally bring a smile to the readers face for its humor and occasionally made me laugh out loud. It was really a good mix of information and style that certainly kept me reading.

So tales of cadavers can be delightful at least when Roach does the writing.

The American Creation by Joseph Ellis

2011-08-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic by Joseph Ellis. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007 283 pp. ISBN: 978-0-307-26369-8

Ellis walks us through the early part of the nation building that got us here today. He explores facts a bit but they are less interesting to him in this book than the emotions and personalities of the founding fathers (with the help of their wives quite often) It seems that these icons of rational enlightenment actually were far more human than the images that have lived on long after they died.

Much of his material is gleaned from letters and diaries kept by the likes of Adams and Jefferson as well as those addressed to other lesser names in our post natal history. What he reveals is the personal and emotional struggles that men like James Madison went through as they agonized over the making of the Constitution. Not long after this successful event endured its making, one fraught with bitter dissension Madison viewed it as a grave mistake. He fought to undo what he had worked so hard at doing.

Just about everyone wants to cling to the founding fathers as their guide to political nobility. The right wants to lionize these figures for creating the Constitution. They claim it as their own. The tea party wants the legislative body members to site the Constitution when proposing new enactments. The left wants to venerate the founders as political radicals and the Constitution as the first of its kind. My periodical Church and State emblazons images and quotes of the founders to suggest the heroism of their stand for a separation of religious activities from governmental activities. The quotes are well chosen but it is clear that this magazine wants to claim the founders as icons of their cause. Everyone wants to claim the founders as on their side-whichever side that is.

What has become clear to me and Ellis reinforced it with this book, is that the founders were just like you and I. They were venal humans who saw the best interests of the country from the perspective of what was best for them personally.

That is not to say that they were not noble. They were. They created the foundations of a nation that for better or worse has become a world leader. They should be commended for that despite the warts. The warts we see today are of course the vestiges of slavery that took 90 years to go away after the revolution and certainly racism lingers 150 years afterwards as well. They took the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith to heart because his notions of how capitalism works, was brilliant in 1776 when it was published. Adam Smith’s announcement on capitalism is not what exists today despite the over usage of his great book The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith was for regulation of industry, it says so right in his book. Partisan political maneuvers regarding Smith are designed with the understanding that you will never read Adam Smith.

Bastardizing the notions of the founding fathers and the philosophers that led them to their roles is a common practice in America today. Using them as iconic heroes is a tool of just about everyone running for political office regardless of their politics.

Ellis humanizes the founders by exposing their fragile egos and personal intentions. These were great people who fought for a new nation with a new theory of politics and social life. They ought to be lionized but they ought to attain heroic stature when we know something about who they were and what their expressed intentions were. Nit picking quotes and representing falsehoods about their characters will perhaps win a propagandizing politician the votes needed for office but it will not make a statesman of them.

Ellis represented these figures as truly human with the means to be errant as we humans are. He did it well.

The Fossil Hunter by Shelley Emling

2011-08-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Who’s Discoveries Changed the World by Shelley Emling. New York, Palgrave McMillan, 2009 234 pp. ISBN: 978-0-230-1034

Emling writes about a little known paleontologist of some 175 years ago. Unknown that is, to those of us who have little historical knowledge of the field. As it turns out Mary Anning had left a considerable legacy to other researchers and collectors of fossils. The tributes to her and the consultation sought from her by leading naturalists of the have left her imprint on the entire field. The tongue teaser “She sells seashells…” was written as a result of Mary Anning’s efforts.

Anning had a large number of obstacles that stood in her way to becoming something of a household name. She was a woman and an uneducated one at that. She was poor and plied her trade far from the scientific literati. Too many of the more famous naturalists of the day gave her no credit after she sold her findings to them. This was not always the case but it occurred more than it should have. She did have her benefactors and they made sure to provide financial rewards to her.

Anning rarely left her sea side home and did little more than collect specimens. Initially they were fossils to sell to wealthy tourists and it was barely a livelihood. As her skills improved she became adept at finding larger pre-historic fossils, dinosaurs in fact. She not only learned when and how to search but she also perfected the delicate digging to pry them from the ground where they have existed for millions of years and finally to clean the specimen.

It was good if flawed book that kept this reader interested though often wincing. In order to personalize the story of Mary Anning, the author took a number of novel-like liberties. She would suggest the emotions that were felt by her heroine as well as quoting conversations. Since she also told us that Anning was a very poor writer with spellings that were understood more to her than any reader, it seems implausible that there are records confirming Emling’s assertions. The author provided ten pages of reference material including some original source material but did not use them to specify these incidents.

Troubles notwithstanding, it was good to read about a naturalist who was integral to blazing a scientific trail.

Big Bang by Simon Singh

2011-08-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh, New York, Harper Perennial, 2004 532 pp. ISBN: 978-0-00-716221

Singh describes the development and history of the universe through a series of sequential scientific observations that lasted for about 2500 years. They included Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus and Kepler to name only a few of the early players in this story. They set the stages for understanding how the universe came about. All of that accumulated information and lore did little to actually explain these origins.

By the 19th century there were enough tools available, less religious repression and more trustworthy theories. Early in the 20th century came Einstein with explanations of the speed of light and this field of study began to zoom. Singh writes a series of events and proofs that converge to essentially prove that the universe came about as a result of the Big Bang. This event occurred a finite period of time ago approximately 14 billion years ago.

Some of the theories included the Dopler Effect that showed that stars were not static in space but in fact were fluid. Later Hubble’s theories such as redshift further proved that the galaxies were continually moving further out into what appears to be limitless space. There is much more to it of course and other important factors came into play but ultimately astronomers backward engineered what they knew about the speed of light, the celestial movements away from a core and developed what they originally called the Dynamic Evolving Model. The popular term “The Big Bang” stuck with the public’s imagination when it was used by gainsayer, Fred Hoyle to mock the theory.

Hoyle’s own theory of a steady state universe has some adherents but overwhelmingly, the Big Bang is the lead theory about the origins. Singh does a more than creditable job of presenting the theory. It is concise and readable for the non-astronomer. In fact it is a pretty riveting read.

Singh tells the story and throughout the book provides us with specific updates as to the efficacy of the theory based on the information known at various times. He does this in the form of a graph that shows the pros and cons of this theory versus its popular counterpart. Ultimately he makes it pretty hard to disagree with him. He also gives us that bonus that always wins points-the Glossary. Lastly he adds a very interesting three pages of quotes from famous intellects describing “What is Science”.

As laudable as the book is I do have an objection. I have distrusted Kuhn’s notion of paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions. It seems that when we explore these further we find these revolutions to have a long sequential history of change that leads to the “revolution”. Often it is in fits and starts and two (of the many) reasons that made theories to appear dormant included the Inquisition and the lack of tools to further observe. When science and philosophy were free to imagine and experiment (I would include the socialist realism repression as a form of inquisition) the doors became open and what appears as a revolution is merely the culmination of years dedicated service to a scientific cause. It is the convergence of various theories into one. In this case it is the Big Bang but Singh represents it in Kuhn’s terms as a paradigm shift. I maintain that it did not come out of nowhere as a brand new testable idea.

The Meaning of Evolution by George Gaylord Simpson

2011-08-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

The Meaning of Evolution (The Revised Edition) by George Gaylord Simpson, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967(originally 1949) 368 pp. ISBN: 978-0-300-00229-4

As part of the Dwight H. Terry Lecture series, Simpson came up with this textbook on the evolution that he knew. He was one of the leading scientists in the promotion of concept “The Modern Synthesis” which was pretty profound thinking during his day. Briefly, this method of studying evolution was classic science using sound hypothesis to develop laboratory and field testing in order to assay the original idea. Ultimately the thinking would either be correct, require tweaking or be discarded. In The Modern Synthesis, there is no room for the impracticalities of subjective thoughts. Simpson spoke with disdain about such imperatives as vitalism (unseen mystical forces existing within all matter) or finalism (an ultimate objective of all life forms). His fashion was crusty which this reader enjoyed. He was not one to pussy foot around his objections. He freely used the words stupid and absurd when discussing ideas that others tried to wedge into the evolution discourse.

Simpson wrote this book as an advocate of the Modern Synthesis and how that framed his and many others thinking about the methods of evolution. It was very much like the original outlay made most famous by Darwin but it included understandings that developed after Darwin’s time. Primarily these would include genetics which were unknown when the Origins of the Species appeared in 1859.

The Meaning of Evolution was written before before Crick, Watson, Franklin etal., discovered the structure of DNA and the rapidity of innovation that ensued once that was known. It was not a tool in possession of the Modern Synthesizers. Armed with that knowledge E.O. Wilson provided the wildly contentious Sociobiology or “New Synthesis” in 1975. This did nothing to negate Simpson’s methods and it is likely that Simpson would concur. He was working with less tools and with a smaller library than Wilson did later.

Another few aspects of the biological sciences have met with widespread positive results and that is the concept of epigenetics (the non genetic influences on development). Evo-Devo is a popular term for investigating the changing and adaptive role that genes play as an organism faces changed realities. For instance genes that typically play one role can play a different one should the initial one no longer be needed. There are Hox Genes that regulate the extent of the influence of various genes.

Science in Simpson’s eyes is an ongoing and self regulating process. It is not (ultimately) governed by authority because the hypothesis has to face the rigors of continual testing. This was a good historical read on where evolutionary science stood many years ago. There are few who would not consider Simpson an iconic figure (his own specialty was paleontology) but most understand that what was current thinking in 1947 is not so today. Neither would Simpson.

The Fellowship by John Gribbin

2011-08-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Fellowship by John Gribbin, Woodstock, NY, The Overlook Press, 2005 336 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59020-026-1

I keep reading John Gribbin’s books because he never lets me down. This 2005 book essentially is about how the Royal Society came to be. Not so much the political or financial aspects though they are given cursory mention. It is about the events that occurred in the western world that lent themselves to the minds of those who ultimately became one of the greatest scientific institutions of all time.

Gribbin is cocksure that the method for doing good science is linear and reductionist. He disdains notions such as scientific revolutions and sudden paradigm shifts in favor of ideas that either build on each other to create new theories or die out as they cannot endure the test of time. He sets out to prove it in this sequential tale of endeavors, discoveries and the people who came together for collaboration for the consensus that became the Royal Society.

Naysayers have a lot of ammunition when they make post-modern claims that science is all about rich white men who take the works of their underlings to develop the discoveries, equations and inventions that made them famous. The reality however is that those with the wherewithal to present their data and have it withstand scrutiny, testing and time are the historical winners. It is a harsh reality. Fortunately Gribbin does tell us about lesser known scientists and their contributions. Fortunately too is the growing numbers of writers who are doing the research and publishing histories of many of the ground level and field workers who are part of the spine of the science that exists today.

The Royal Society began its days on November 28, 1660 at Gresham College. The founders where the scientific elite of the day but they were only able to start it due to the conditions that prevailed. They had to be at the end of Inquisitions, plagues and imperial wars. They were not free from those but those conditions were coming to an end. That was the result of the greatest Western philosophical jamboree called the Enlightenment.

Starting with Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, thinking began to change. People with ideas began to be freer to express and explore notions that were not bound to authority. Philosophers and naturalists had a less taut rein allowing them to ignore “facts” that had been based on biblical inerrancy and explore ideas from a different perspective which would be empirical. No longer would the guidance of knowledge be authority such as religion or folklore. Now knowledge would be revealed based on firsthand experience. That could only come from experimentation. It was with this that a new age a science took root and blossomed into what it is today. The new scientific way of thinking was meant to use science for the betterment of humankind.

I am not sure if the scientific method could be tagged directly to development of the Royal Society but about 320 years ago they established one forum for that to be a mainstay. The method is not a narrative open to all sorts of ideologies and beliefs. It is a structure that will stand the test of time when a theory no longer answers the questions that it raises it fades to extinction. No Post Modern argument against it can prevail.

It is true that Gribbin discusses the all stars of scientific history at the expense of their lab assistants but the best of those assistants became the giants of the next generation. That is really how it works. Geniuses are born but their new hypotheses are borne of those that already have traction.

Gribbin again presents a good, readable history of an aspect of science and it ought to be read.

Faust in Copenhagen by Gino Segre

2011-07-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics by Gino Segre. New York, Penguin Group, 2007 310 pp. ISBN: 978-0-670-03858-9

It seems that I cannot get enough of the history of physics as it evolved from its classical style into the quantum theories. In this case the author, pedigreed in the field having a father before him and himself a quantum physicist, names seven of the greatest physicists of the 20th century as the main cast of this book.

There was the father figure Neils Bohr who tailored the path of so many great theorists and experimentalists into Nobel Prizes and fame that will last for ages. The enigmatic energy driven, Werner Heisenberg could visualize a concept and put it to math later as an explanatory device. Wolfgang Pauli the often cleverly derisive pundit could see in a theory what few others could, including ones that were hopeless from the onset. Quiet and distant Paul Dirac, worked alone and communicated in a style that confounded many. Max Delbruck took his understanding of quantum theory into his new profession as a microbiologist not so differently than what Francis Crick did years later. Lise Meitner the rare female physicist lived in academic penury for too long and then encountered the Nazism of the era when she had at long last got her own lab. Finally there was the fatalist Paul Ehrenfest who while brilliant ended his own life in the despondency of being caught in the political savagery of Germany in the 1940s.

The story is interwoven with biographical insights about these characters and it surrounds the annual meetings in Copenhagen and the struggles of the emergent quantum theories. It reminds us that physicists while perhaps too nerdy in their vast understanding of complexity, had intellectual wit. They collaborated on a skit that linked their meetings with Goethe’s’ Faust. The book is littered with both quotations of the book as well as the sketches from the faux drama created as a form of relaxation in the midst of extreme physics and mathematics used to explain the theories that evolved from the grand meetings.

Most of us will never understand the complexity that these thinkers could derive in their discussions nor the mathematics that explain them. We can if we are willing, acknowledge that great minds accomplish great things and we all reap the benefits.

Since science has a built in fail safe mechanism that faith does not, ideas that do not work die out and ones that do survive to breed the next generation of new thinking. Those who trust science to answer material questions can rest easy that scientific minds are not conjurers because when they are wrong they will be proven wrong fairly quickly. Having “faith” in the material reality of science does not answer metaphysical questions but it sure can make us healthier if we choose to let it.

Huey Long, Father Coughlin & the Great Depression by Alan Brinkley

2011-07-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

Huey Long, Father Coughlin & the Great Depression by Alan Brinkley. New York, Vintage Books, 1983 348 pp. ISBN: 978-0-394-716282-0

Both Huey Long and Charles Coughlin were prominent media figures during chaotic economic times and ones that loomed with threats of the European war fronted by Hitler and Mussolini. One would not be in their cups to liken those times with the current peril of failed finance and wars raging all over the world including our combat presence in those.

Brinkley published the book in 1982 as the Christian Right was still in the embryonic stage of rearing its new forceful head. Our current militia was showing its fangs to protect rich kids who failed to get into good medical colleges thereby finding their way to Granada where the beaches are lush and the academics less riveting. Brinkley was not writing a book comparing the depression mindset to the tea party mindset but a reviewer could easily see it that way.

Prior to reading the book this reviewer had a vague (and negative image) of Huey Long and a more knowing familiarity with Coughlin. As the author points out however, Coughlin’s style on his media broadcasts changed over the years and admittedly, only his last demonic radio years were the impression left on me.

This highly regarded history book informs the readers about how each character came to their apex and denouement. Both relied heavily on the times, the hot medium of the radio and their own demagoguery. It was a perfect match at a time when mass audience was looking for answers to real problems and not finding them in the status quo of American politics. Both figures provided high falutin notions for a cure that were vague and changeable. They sounded good and they attracted listeners and followers who were less willing to dig into the answers for solutions but to put their faith in the mediated figures who expounded them.

Their followers were not typically poor illiterates and more in the case of Coughlin, were people who had quite a stake in the conditions of the day. They were people who had obtained a middle class life both in income and in status. They had a lot to lose and too often were losing it.
The comparisons between these two movements and the current tea party nonsense are hard to miss. Tea partiers for the most part have their ideological biases but they are not a bunch of Klansmen as a whole. They want answers to things they do not understand and like the followers of Long and Coughlin, are feeling like victims.

This is where the Glenn Beck’s and Michelle Bachman’s can come to the fore and offer false solutions and their minions as those of 75 years ago, do not have to think for themselves. Solutions are ready made and put into the package of slogans. They can create straw dogs successfully because their followers are looking for them.

In the 1930s by and large, the president was successful with his plans. Certainly there were failures within those years and it is commonly held (I am not sure how accurately) that the Second World War actually got us out of the Depression.

Notwithstanding most scholars of the era credit Roosevelt with overall success. It is not so today and therein lies a huge difference. Obama is not leading us out of anything. A few years ago a political cartoonist provided this line from leadership, “Starting tomorrow, everything will be the same”.

It seems that the hope etc., that were to emerge with an administration that was not Bush would bring never occurred. In fact everything is the same. It is not totalitarian as tea party members would suggest. It is not leading that way either. At the same time the current demagogues like their predecessors from this book would have us believe that they have the answers. None of them did or do.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

2011-07-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed Americaby Erik Larson, New York, Vintage Books, 2004 441 pp. 9780375725609

This was a pretty intense read. Larson wove such a good history of the famous Chicago World Fair of 1893 that it was difficult to discern it from a novel. I’ll say more on that later. Essentially he intertwines the lives of several key players in the creation, display and completion of a late 19th century event that put Chicago on everyone’s radar screen as a prominent factor in America’s socio-economic screen.

The book has been wildly popular and since it is so well written it is a relief to imagine that there are those who will take time to read a popular book that actually can be informative rather than another piece of political propaganda or self-help book the likes of which lead all best seller lists.

Larson provides perhaps too much intimacy in delving into the lives of such characters as the serial killer H. H. Holmes or the preeminent Frederick Olmstead or the civic planner Daniel Burnham or the psychopathically delusional Pendergast or all the others. Larson paints the picture of the World’s Fair and its impact on America largely and the world too.

In the course of entertaining the reader with the wild tales of the events and individuals that made the Fair happen or who dramatically impacted the history of the event, Larson took some poetic license. He often provided intimate details of conversations and descriptions of behaviors or tics that were surely never recorded. The author had to make some leaps and while it made the book spellbinding it interfered with its historic veracity.

All criticism this reader has of Devil in the City is overwhelmingly surpassed by the author’s masterful story telling.

Descartes by A.C. Grayling

2011-07-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Descartes by A.C. Grayling, London, Pocket Books, 2006 352 pp. 978-1-84983-338-7

In what little I know of Descartes’ life, I have found him to be an enigma. His strong defense of Catholicism in spite of his equally ardent philosophy of empiricism is one such example. As Grayling pointed out, he would even explain a lack of scientific understanding as one of the mysteries of a benevolent God. His empiricism can be seen in the four rules of observation. Never except anything as truth without solid evidence is the first one and speaks for itself. Despite this he conjured up an explanation for a deity.

In addition to Descartes empiricism he was very deeply interested in both mathematics and physics. We still use much of his vernacular today, especially mathematical notations. While much of his science has failed to stand the test of time they were not ludicrous when he first came to his conclusions. There is no denying that Descartes was a polymath but it is his philosophy that anyone who went to college is familiar with (or who know the joke about him disappearing from a bar by misspeaking).

Grayling presented his case about Descartes well. He used a lot of original material to make his argument and he told the story in a very readable way. His two appendices also helped to explain how he came to the conclusion that he did. He brought to life the intrigue of spydom and Descartes’s possible involvement. He likewise described the mysterious Rosicrucian cult leaving as many questions as he had answered.

A question that still haunts me about Descartes that Grayling did nothing to quell was whether this vain and self centered philosopher was so defensive of the Holy See less out of deeply felt beliefs and more out of self preservation. He took his magnum opus (Le Monde) off the table at about the same time that Galileo was given his lifelong sequester for publishing his own book denying an earthcentric universe. He also was clear on how and why Bruno died. Since amongst the alleged apostasy was homosexuality, Descarte had to be more strident than usual in deflecting the published attacks on him. He was adamant that two of the Inquisition’s lethal indictments were heterodoxy and homosexuality (there more of course) could never be pinned on him. He was successful to that end.

There are far too many interesting things about the book and it’s subject to attempt to do in one short review so I will leave it at that.

Chrysalis by Kim Todd

2011-06-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd. Orlando, FL, Harvest Book, 2007 330 pp. ISBN: 978-0-15-603299-5

This is an unsung book found in the seconds rack where it never belonged. My own minor financial advantage notwithstanding, the book deserves a more rightful place in the science section of the big block stores. Todd presents a biography, evolutionary adaptation theory and some social history in one book. She does it pretty well too; the prose is lyrical and fluid and maintains the interest of the reader throughout.

Her subject named in the title was a worthy subject for several reasons. She lived during the 17th century and endured the sex role distinctions of the day to be quite a pioneer. An artist turned natural historian, Merian observed the metamorphism primarily of butterflies and moths but also examined other species. She found herself with her daughter in the Amazon studying the flora and fauna of that region at the cusp of the 18th century. She was unaccompanied by any husband or brother. This was very rare indeed.

Merian’s artwork itself is exquisite and while she rarely ventured her own suppositions about the details of how metamorphosing worked, she was well read in the literature from places such as the Royal Society. Her status as a woman and an uneducated one at that rendered her work of little importance to her scientific peers though many used her artwork for examples.

Many of her works exist today but she is little known in the field of natural history and Todd deserves kudos for writing about them. To tell us the story of Maria Merian Todd had to verse us in the history of science, evolutionary thinking and some details of how metamorphosis works. These selections of topics are among my favorite and it made this read all the more enjoyable. I was not ready to put it down when it ended. My largest criticism is that it was not about 200 pages longer.

The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock

2011-06-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock. London, Penguin Books, 2006 222 pp. ISBN: 978-0-141-03535-2

Lovelock is relentless in his desire to improve the physical world that we live in. He thinks that to survive the climate change that is occurring, drastic changes have to be made as to how we live. It is not enough to sensibly drive sensible cars or recycle our things. At the personal level our best efforts are not enough.

Lovelock suggests several things that will drive the liberal moralist mad. He advocates the use of nuclear energy as well as the genetic modification of food. These two notions alone get him castigated but he makes some good points here. As a nation we have reviled nuclear energy due to accidents that have occurred many years ago. The results of those accidents were miniscule in relation to life at large. He thinks that we are collectively throwing the baby out with the waste water.

I tread lightly on agreeing with him regarding GM foods but he is right to say that we have been genetically modifying our food for about 140 centuries now. These two issues are difficult ones to deal with as they stand against the assumptions of most liberal thinkers. For several years I have been thinking about the need for the re-introduction of nuclear energy as an earth saving fuel source. I am not knowledgeable enough to advocate it but I do think it needs to be looked at very hard and by genuine scientists rather than polemicists from either court. The same holds true for GM foods. We absolutely have to abandon the large scale agri-business in the standard form as well as the organic big farms.

Lovelock introduced the metaphorical Gaia concept as a way to understand the earth. He wants us to think of it as a living breathing organism. It is a system of many parts all relying on others to complete their functions. While we understand that his term Gaia is a trope, it is a good way of imagining our earth and the interaction of life and events. Lovelock takes us down a non-linear path to show how positive feedback loops in the environment can quickly takes us into a geothermal maelstrom. He uses many examples but one will suffice here. The polar ice caps reflect the sun being white and all. As they recede due to melting, less sun is deflected and more heat absorbed. This changes water currents affecting hurricane conditions as well as transferring heat to places heretofore unknown creating drought conditions. The point here is that these are not zero sum games. The effects of climate change are more than the sum of their parts. We do not yet know what the effects will be in total as we careen towards worsening conditions.

Whether we agree with Lovelock’s solutions we do need to recognize two things. The climatic conditions on earth are not a politicized hoax they are real and are affirmed continually by science not by ideology. We also cannot take a knee jerk reaction to his suggestions and need to take the time to respond after some intellectual exploration. It is easy to become shrill either about this notion of global warming or his nuclear solution for instance. Rather than reacting from preconceptions we need to examine how we come to conclusions in order to determine if they are right.

The End of Nature by Bill McKibben

2011-06-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

The End of Nature by Bill McKibben. New York, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1989 195 pp. ISBN: 0-8129-7608-8

McKibben wrote this book long before Jim Inhofe’s trainers told him to use climate change as a propaganda tool. The end of nature is not about the end of nature of course; it is about our changing understanding of what nature is and our experiences with it. In 1995 when the book surfaced, McKibben was warning us not only of the changing environment (in which he was amazingly prescient) but also our impressions of it.

It is not so simple to joke about the salvation of snail darters ending some grand construction project. There is a tremendous cascading effect resulting from the destruction of one species and there are debts to be paid. It is not so simple to imagine that we will adapt and survive unaffected. It is not so simple to imagine that our great grand kids will never experience the wonders of flora and fauna that are nearing extinction today.

The problem is twofold and presented in a reasoned fashion by the author. First off we really do have a major ecological problem that cannot be fixed by human adaptation or scientifically redesigning how we live. I suppose it could be solved were we to accept some sort of Soylent Green future. The science is overwhelming in proving that earth is taking a great hit by human consumption. This place is not exceptional in some sort of divine plan and there is no magic or grace that is going to turn things around. Without concrete plans and governmental policy (yes including the dreaded regulations) our future generations are going to be living life in hazmat suits.

McKibben personalizes this problem well by speaking as a person encountering the issue but it is not with some sort of Wendell Berry post modernism. He cites scientific research (which often means reductionism) to make his case. He assuages those readers who require new age non-linearism by making good use of Chaos Theory. The effects of species loss are not a zero sum game. We do not know the lengths to which one species dying out will fully bear out. We do know the results in total but we do know that snail darters will not die off and everything else will be the same.

Secondly and this has been addressed many times by authors writing after 1995, what is going on today affects our understanding of nature and our awe of it. Today people have little knowledge and less concern about where their food comes from for instance. We want our travel experiences to match our home experiences rather than teach us about new things; about life in other places including cultures and environment. In the near future our travels may as well come from slide shows because we are less likely to go outdoors and smell wet leaves or hear the shrill call of a bald eagle.

There will be no end to nature but if we do not control our negative impact on it there will be no nature that we can understand or enjoy and McKibben did a good job of presenting his case and he did it about a generation ago.

Infamous Scribblers by Eric Burns

2011-06-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism by Eric Burns. New York, Public Affairs, 2006 467 pp. ISBN: 978-158648-428-6

Burns, book on early American journalism rounds out and details the scurrilous nature of that trade. It is a subject that is well known to all who take an interest in either history or the media. To Burns credit he did considerable research and discussed the details and motivations of contributors to the nascent new world newspapers.

The fact is that the print media was a clear reflection of the wide views of the American people. Burns breaks his many chaptered book into three broad categories the first having to do with the role of authority. Publishers reflected their philosophies regarding monarchy, republicanism and democracy. This was a tumultuous time with loyalists, revolutionaries and churchmen finding voice in the publisher of their choice.

When the war began very few newspapers survived but the individual political stridency continued as before. At times mobs would storm the print shop as they did before and after the war. Burns like so many other historians point out, these events were relatively rare. Vitriol was found primarily in the caustic word and those words were not meant to be truthful as much as they were meant to propagandize.
Once the war was won and the celebrations ceased a new battle arose and began with the secretive Constitutional Congress and lasted long after the Constitution was adopted. In a nutshell it was the fight between Federalists who favored the Constitution and the anti-Federalists who were well, everyone else. The reasons for taking sides are far too numerous to note except to say that there was essentially a newspaper to editorialize on every one of them. These were contentious times.

It really is important to note that these conditions of the partiality of the media did not end 200 years ago. It is a rare media outlet that concerns itself with objectivity. Burns himself spent many years working for Roger Ailes at Fox News. He had plenty of firsthand experience with shrieking sensationalism pointedly designed not to enlighten but to propagandize.

That being said, it is not reflected in Infamous Scribblers. Burns told the story of many factions without apparent editorial politicizing.

Sippewissett by Tim Travers

2011-06-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

Sippewissett: Or, Life on a Salt Marsh by Tim Traver. White River Junction, VT, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006 250 pp. ISBN: 978-1-933392-78-3

This was an enjoyable book. Traver apparently views the world in a way very similar to my own. He values those long walks in a natural environment more than most everything else. His daughters for instance are an example that take precedence over life outdoors. These are easy things to relate to.

This book is ostensibly about life, memories and ecology as it relates to the Massachusetts’ salt marsh Sippewissett. Those of us who are tyros when it comes to salt marshes get some instruction in an understandable way. We learn about the grasses, birds and other life but we learn a lot about Traver. It is very personalized as he relates events and people that were important to him as he grew up in the marsh.

The book is broken into twenty four essays that are only marginally sequential. It is written as if while musing, Traver remembers an event or wants to opine his views. This is not to say that he is sentimental or finger wagging, quite the contrary. Traver is confident that the battle to save swamp marshes will come from science when it comes to the ecology. The people and culture though require something less reductive than that.

When I received the book in the mail the other day, I set aside my current reading to browse it. I hardly put it down. The essays that I found to be the best were the ones on birds, microbes, fences and daughters to be the ones I enjoyed the most.

The Image by Daniel Boorstin

2011-05-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel J. Boorstin. New York, Vintage Books, 1987 (original 1962) 317 pp. ISBN: 978-0-79-74180-0

Having first encountered The Image in 1978 it was a delight to spot it for sale a local discount book store. My intention was to see if the book read 33 years ago (and published 49 years ago) could stand the test of time. It did.

Boorstin lived until 2004 but did little to update this 1962 book. He did not account for the internet or cable television or the many new ways of advertising yet his premise stays intact. He covered them using two concepts to be described next.
Pseudo Events are activities created around events in order to hype a human interest in the event. These are chaotic circumstances that are borne of advertising promotion and become events in themselves. At the end of this review an example of an obvious pseudo event will be presented. Pseudo events promote the potential event that is to occur. They also can carry on afterward as well. Examples might include the promotion of a movie. Trailers and advertisements become as compelling as or more so than the movie itself. The consumer is often told that there must be something wrong with them if they are not on the bandwagon and anxious to see the movie. In the last ten years two such movies come readily to mind. Seabiscuit and the author of the book in which the movie was built were plastered all over the media with various heart wrenching twists such as the author’s disease and the rags to riches story of all characters involved with Seabiscuit. A few years later we were told as often as possible that we would be pariahs were we to avoid the movie Ray about Ray Charles.

Pseudo events also include such antics as we have recently witnessed from Charlie Sheen and previously by such iconic humans as Brittany Spears or Michael Jackson. Celebrities are the human form of pseudo events and essentially are about people who mainly are famous for being famous. When these figures start gracing the covers of every grocery store checkout line magazine they begin a tenure that lives a life often of several years. When the celebrity nature of these characters begins to fade there is sure to follow some sort of felonious escapade in some cases or the adoption of a third world infant in others. Celebrities have to ensure their fame or infamy routinely.

Boorstin goes on to describe several other avenues of American life where by events and conditions are hyped to such an extent that people are willing to suspend skepticism and accept what is going on as if it were reality. Often this tendency is at a great cost to the vox populi as they sacrifice their well being for a believed cause that is actually a pseudo event.

Boorstin uses a concept of the Graphics Revolution to describe how these factitious situations occur. Of course this Graphics Revolution pre-dates the Information Age but the premise is the same only now the ease of obtaining information (factual or otherwise) is exponentially greater than it was as he penned this book. The more information consumers are bombarded with, the harder it is to grasp any veracity and the easier it is to seek out “facts” that simply correspond to what we already believe. This is not for Boorstin, a political dilemma. Liberals and conservatives alike, typically accept the propaganda that suits them and discard the rest.

It is the author’s contention that the purveyors of pseudo events (who have a lot to gain by their success) and those that purchase the products of the events (who have little to gain) are cohorts. That they feed into each other. If this were the case it would be win-win for all. To some extent this is valid in that there are countless foot soldiers that assist in the advertisement of pseudo events be it the efficacy of acupuncture (not scientifically relevant) or the support of Michelle Bachman (not rationally relevant). They have nothing to gain by their zeal but will be steadfast in their support.

It is my own sense based on historical and philosophical research, that there is no quid pro quo between the creators of pseudo events and adherents of those events. One side has a lot to gain and the other only some empty emotional gratification. It is difficult to imagine for a moment that there is not a long standing cultural hegemony involved that manifests itself in advertising.

Long before we needed gasoline or pornography, the people in power learned that they could stay in power by sublimating the masses. Marx called religion “the opiate of the masses” but really there are too many opiates to enumerate here. The more the citizen is filled with emotional false beliefs, the more they can be controlled. It is that simple.

Pseudo events are controlling phenomenon and Boorstin’s notion that we are complicit with the generators of pseudo events has some meat but not for the reasons that he proposes. We are as a society not simply assuaged by false ideas. We are as a whole stupid. Long ago we tossed aside enlightenment ideas such as verification or skepticism (more accurately we have had those concepts re-defined for us by the makers of pseudo events so that we imagine that we are critically thinking) in favor of imagined maladies with their cures. For about two hundred years Americans have relished their collective anti intellectualism in favor spitting contests.

Boorstin like me, thinks that were we to attempt rise above the idiocy of pseudo events it would require a genuine skepticism and a desire to root out facts as well as learn from past events. In hyper propaganda terms we would be flip floppers; we would be learning from our mistakes and those of others and we would understand that our long held beliefs are subject to scrutiny. We would adopt new viewpoints based on changing information. Well I am not so naïve as to believe that will happen. We are a fat dumb and happy nation and we would not want it any other way.

Below is a copy from journalism’s Politico (which I read daily). It is a great example of what Boorstin refers to as a pseudo event:
POLITICO Breaking News (May 13, 2011)
-------------------------------------------------

Mike Huckabee will announce on his Fox News show on Saturday night whether he plans to explore a run for the Republican nomination for president, his executive producer said.

In a statement provided to POLITICO through a Fox News spokeswoman, "Huckabee" executive producer Woody Fraser said, "Governor Huckabee will announce tomorrow night on his program whether or not he intends to explore a presidential bid. He has not told anyone at FOX News Channel his decision."

For more information... http://www.politico.com
POLITICO Breaking News (May 14, 2011)
-------------------------------------------------

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced he would not run for president on his Fox News television show Saturday evening.

Huckabee kept even his closest advisers in the dark about his decision going into Saturday's show.

He was seen as one of the stronger Republican candidates going into 2012, thanks to his high name recognition and appeal to the Christian conservative base and beyond. He won the 2008 Iowa caucuses and placed second in delegates that year.

For more information... http://www.politico.com

Who's Afraid of Schrodinger's Cat?

2011-05-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Who’s Afraid of Schrodinger’s Cat ?: An A-Z Guide to All the New Science Ideas You Need to Keep Up with the New Thinking by Ian Marshall, Danah Zohar and F. David Peat, New York, Quill 1997 402 pp. ISBN: 978-0-688-16107-3

The writers have taken on a big task. The book was designed to make a convincing argument for getting our minds away from deterministic thinking and reductionism. On the surface this sounds like another new age attack on science but that is not really what the authors are trying to accomplish. They attempt to tweak our thinking by giving readable descriptions of the changes of scientific understanding of how science works beginning with the revelations provided by quantum theories and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Theory (and many other notions sprouting during the last hundred years).

It is the author’s contention that we ought to look away from pure classical reduction of ideas and enter the realm of non-linear thinking. The use the Uncertainty Principle as the guidance to guarantee that we cannot be sure of anything; therefore all ideas have some plausibility. They avoided obvious absurdities and stuck to scientific endeavors to make their case. That proved interesting and the reader can learn a considerable amount by reading the digest like little chapters presented in alphabetical order. They cannot learn details in these 2-3 page presentations but some may spark a curiosity that lead the reader to further research and a deeper understanding. The book is a bit of a “Cliff Notes” of several hundred scientific ideas.

Good intentions aside the book is fraught with problems. First of all it was written fourteen years ago and much has happened since then in the realm of physics and some of its sub plots like artificial intelligence. This is a minor issue and certainly not the fault of the authors.

Structurally the book was awful. By taking these several hundred ideas and presenting those in alphabetical order may have been their clever ploy of getting us to sense their premise-which we ought to be looking at the non-linearity of natural events by experiencing the non-linearity of their book. I conjecture only here but their method was nerve wracking as we jumped from subject to subject and back again.
The authors, in their effort to provide lots of information quickly also practiced some intellectual laziness. They told us the same stories that have been told in other works as if they were novel ideas. They borrowed from original sources with an alacrity that suggested plagiarism. Far too many examples have been found in other books; this added to this reviewer’s annoyance.

To make their case, the writers had to use a lot of redundancy. So many ideas regarding the quantum world or super conductivity (to name only two) have overlapping definitions so we had to read some of the same definitions and anecdotes several times throughout the book. It was tiresome and looking at my notes one could see that the last quarter of the book presented nothing remarkable to jot down.
Their intentions were legitimate though perhaps overzealous. Natural History has ensured me that there needs to be more than determined reductionism to understand the complexities of events. There needs to be a use for linear as well as nonlinear problem solving. While there are no quarrels from this quarter as to that need, neither way of thinking ought to override the other. Linear thinking alone can make for rigid analysis of events though personally it seems that about three quarters or more of all solutions will come from that method. Nonlinear thinking is required as an intellectual exercise and can prove valuable to problem solving but also if it becomes a regiment reduces itself to a post modern helplessness providing no value.

There is a lot of information in these pages and while ill provided, can be beneficial in a scientific and philosophical way if one has the patience to drag through the entire book. It seems from this desk that the reductionism and determinism borne out of classical physics will continue to stand the test of time but as the agent for a Grand Unified Theory will require some serious analysis from the non-linear “other side”.

The Fruit Hunter by Adam Gollner

2011-04-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession by Adam Leith Gollner, New York, Scribner, 2008 279pp. ISBN: 978-0-7432-9694-6

I had expected more of a natural history of fruits when first picking this book up. I had hoped for more science and history but there was a dearth of both. The largest number of pages is devoted to descriptions of fruit aficionados. He nearly lauds the quirky characters that bring invasive species to their locale and who illegally poach fruits and horde them. Gollner may have found these monomaniacs as fascinating but I could not share the view. It is hard to root for self centered egoists fulfilling their passions like eleven year old boys collecting baseball cards.

He does devote a long chapter to correctly bewailing the results of agribusiness efforts vis a vis our dining tables. As consumers we are offered bland, woody substitutes for tree ripened, farm victuals. These items are not up to the task of travel and so are plucked green and gassed in food warehouses for fast “ripening”. They look great and taste awful. The author also discusses the over processing and packaging applied to fruits in order to make them presentable alternatives to real food. Unfortunately this subject has been addressed routinely and by writers much more authoritative on the subject.

Despite his political commentary his chapter fell short of thoroughness. About one sentence was devoted to the 19th century fruit entrepreneur, Luther Burbank. The only mention of Cesar Chavez was to comment that the author rented an apartment previously lease to the farm organizing icon. There was no statement at all about the skullduggery of the grape interests in recreating that fruit into raisins (along with its huge marketing campaign) while their grapes were being boycotted for the sake of the workers.

Ultimately Gollner did not write a good food book and he only wrote a so-so book. It was intellectually lazy and self aggrandizing.

Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

2011-04-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel by Michio Kaku, New York, Anchor Books, 2008 329pp. ISBN: 978-0-307-27882-1

Kaku has written several popular science books and has quite a name in the field of physics and mass media. This is the first book of his that I have read and it provides a different perspective than most of the other books that I am familiar with.

Other historians of physics either take themselves too seriously or not seriously enough. Kaku comes in right in the middle. There are advantages to that. In this case Kaku uses science fiction as his method of exploring the current state of physics and how it came to be. He asks us to explore ideas that currently seem impossible; as if they were the creations of a science fiction author. Having read a lot of physics history and never a science fiction book, I came to understand what is going on better than all of my other readings. It is not because Kaku brings new information to light. There were few things that he discussed that I have not come across in other books. The difference is that using his easy going lighthearted method of information giving, Kaku makes his subject lively and interesting. In sum he does a good job of bringing the often confusing events in this complicated science to an understanding.

There is a downside to this style though. Sometimes historic facts and quotes are used so flippantly that they need to be scrutinized. On several occasions I found what he was purveying to be questionable as I read otherwise in other books or articles. He may be right but if it is an important point it ought to be dealt with more seriously rather than commentary. It is just good policies to make sure that your statements are understood correctly.

Another issue I take with the book is his concept that many things that we have come to know were assumed to be ludicrous at another point in history. This is a bit of a tautology of course as the whole point of science is its need to be constantly re-proven or gainsaid. Science is a continual process and actually never “proven”. It would make sense that a physicist from 1860 could not imagine the strides of quantum physics for instance. They did not have the tools or the accumulated knowledge to imagine what would come to be understood.

His defense of String Theory made a serious point. To date it is not testable and yet we take for granted that the Sun is made up mostly of hydrogen without ever testing that. The latter is more a very intelligent guess based on things that can be tested. I had to re-think my own position on the veracity of String Theory. It is counter-intuitive and never been tested but that may change.

However, we need to understand when and where to take a concept and devote resources to it. How long should we be excited by String Theory if it does not provide us with anything more than a deep mind game? It seems to this reviewer that all ideas are not equal. Good ideas are in almost all cases, the fruit of other good ideas and I would like to see String Theory become more than an exotic curiosity. Certainly Kaku must have limits on what is worth believing to be possible. I just came away from the book unclear as to where that line might be drawn. His routine references to that the goof ball New-Age, Rhine Research Center may weigh in on is unsettling. I am willing to broaden how I understand science but it needs to be rooted in other real scientific information rather than the potential of pseudo science.

The Dry Storeroom No. 1

2011-04-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey. New York, Alfred A. Knopf 2008 335 pp. ISBN: 978-0-307-2636209

Richard Fortey has a pretty decent way of making his case. He tells a story about the makings and inter-workings of England’s great Natural History Museum. He does this using wit- providing us with delectable and racy bits of information about historical characters who have haunted the back stages of this venerable institution. He does this by taking us on a tour of the various departments and telling us about the science behind cabinets and the scientists who gather the information for research and presentation. He improves the reader’s vocabulary by careful erudition using words that precisely define what he means but not currently in most of our vocabularies.

He has a couple of very specific points to make in this book and drops them off several times throughout the chapters. One is the importance of taxonomy. It is the mainstay of all lab work as the researchers must talk about the same species in order to make their work testable. He informs us of the history of systematics starting of course with Linnaeus’s binomial method. That has been tweaked and snarled during the last three hundred years but it remains a historical feat because it got science starting to use common nomenclature for understanding species. Be one either a cladist or a splitter, they need a common understanding of what is studied or they are only talking to themselves.

Taxonomy is sort of a life force and will continue to be refined as technology such as genome projects, photography and discovery of new species continues in the headlong drive that it currently is in. The more we know the better equipped we are to more precisely define the species that we have something to say about.

Fortey is an evolutionary thinker. This aspect of science originally came to us through the biology of Darwin but our understanding has expanded and deepened as we understand the other sciences better. To render us safe from harmful microorganisms we must know the chemistry of their life cycle and the evidence all points to concepts such as selection and fitness. If the virus has nothing to enter and mass produce itself it will not last long. The virus has an innate notion of adaptation or death. The geological world likewise is not static. We have more than enough evidence of earthly changes such as tectonics, tsunamis and lava flow to understand that the earth is always in the process of righting itself and getting comfortable.

The author like me is an adherent to the concept that all of us species are in this world together. However remote my own relationship is to a one celled creature found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, there is reliance. An impact on the lifecycle of any one thing impacts the same on another and so on. It reminds me of the cartoon image of the smallest fish about to be eaten by the next largest and so on. The cartoon is poignant in its simplicity yet it tells the same story to us that Fortey does. There are consequences to our actions as they impact any other species and to the greater extent we have awareness of this fact, the better we will be at making conscious decisions as we act.

As a self effacing writer, Fortey makes his case very well and in an entertaining way. There is a lot to the book that will be left off the review. His humble way of presenting the Keepers of the “BM” as the Natural History Museum is known both current and historically keeps the reader interested. His writing of science, history, biography as well as his personal intentions is done for an interested but less technical audience. He did not convert me to become an advocate of the value of a Natural History Museum. I was already there. I came with some academic and professional background in archiving; an experience that taught me of the workings of a museum. No, this reader has long been in love with collections, and the backstage research that lends itself to the scientific world-one that the visitor will never see.

Fortey has had a pretty good forty years at the BM and his enthusiasm and pride of that is well told in this book.

A Thousand Mile Walk by John Muir

2011-03-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf by John Muir, New York, First Mariner Books,1998 (originally published post mortem 1916) 218 pp. ISBN: 978-0-395-90147-2

I have spent many days reading the direct words of some of our most famous naturalists during the last few years. One thing they all seem to have in common is an understanding that every organic thing is dependent on others and that they create a chain leading to us. We are dependent upon every living thing though that reliance may be so remote as to be unrecognizable. That is if we imagine it to be so. In reality we humans are really only good at being humans. We cannot do everything and have to rely on other species to do what they do best-be that species. Symbiosis is my favorite word and the naturalists that I have read support me on that notion. That includes Muir.

His version of the glories of nature is more primitive and innocent than others that I prefer far more. He wallows in the splendor of nature yet he basically never asks a question about it. He does not query any aspect of nature and it is because he understands nature as the result of an authoritative divinity and its will. Once that is established there really are no questions that require an answer. Everything is laid out in a systematic way.

That is troubling since Muir did not live that long ago. While he truly reveled in nature he only gave us broad descriptions of the flora and fauna he is delighted with. He never cited other naturalists suggesting that he knew little about them. I imagine that his naturalism was a personal and hermit like contemplation that really does not offer society much that is worthwhile. Were he an esthete during the year 1000 I may find his perspective more understandable.

This story of his travels described the mountains, trees and water in broad terms. It was hot in Florida and in California, (oddly dropped into a book about the Gulf) the Sierras proffered the most beautiful flowers. It was as if described from an airplane. He did recount his dealings with people though again from a perspective of about 40,000 feet. He felt that the people of the south were less industrious than those of the north due to their slave tradition. He often described his meetings with the newly freed slaves and they were essentially negative except when the “negroes” were “well mannered”- taking off their hat in his presence as an example. His attitude of superiority may have been considered progressive in his day more than a century ago but I think it tells quite a bit about this noted figure.

As an iconic historical man, Muir has inspired (for whatever reason) a great many people to think about our relationship with our living peers and so he deserves a lot of credit for that. I think that his influence is more coincidental than it was his intent.

Darwin's Sacred Cause

2011-03-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Darwin’s Sacred Cause:How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution by Adrian Desmond & James Moore. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2009 485 pp. ISBN: 978-0-547-05526-8

The year 2009 was a great year for all published Darwin things. It was after all the bicentennial of the man’s birth and as many as possible wanted in on the cash cow that was Darwin. There were the naturalists and scientists who wanted to attach their name to Darwin and there were the foes who imagined that they could undermine what is now an established fact-evolution. This reader was delighted with the number of new titles as he is sort of a Darwinophile. Yet two years ago he shunned this book. In part it was due to having more to read than necessary and in part because he detests the association of Darwin with sacred causes. Darwin was a pure empiricist and of course he was a human as well. His information came from proven data rather than heartfelt emotions. Like the rest of us he selected facts based largely in what he believed to be true.

2009 passed without Sacred Cause being read here but the glory of a discount book store and a need for a Darwin fix (after the 2009 glut) the book was picked up at a bargain price and devoured as quickly as a full time employee can read such a book.

The authors present a case for Darwin’s personality that has been touched on by many authors and dived into as an academic enterprise by few or none. It was the first I have come across to discuss his very emotional drive to end slavery. The authors claim that his anti slavery sentiment drove him forward towards his magnum opus The Origins of Man and more importantly towards his later work The Descent of Man. They take this bio-history on with some extraordinary notes to make their point. While this is not a well known part of the image of Darwin, the authors make a pretty good point.

Darwin lived and loved amongst people whose political drive was anti-slavery. They came to understand the events in their own country where the brutalization of colonial holdings were aimed at the African slave and were devoted to stopping the trade. This included seamen hijacking slave ships in the high seas and releasing their human cargo. It included mass anti slavery demonstrations in England and closely watched developments regarding the slave trade and the coming internecine bloodshed across the Atlantic.

Darwin was attempting to build a strong scientific case for the unilarity of human development and was doing this while being opposed by pseudoscience developed as a counter theory to show that there were several “species” of humans. That faux theory essentially suggested that humans were divided into many species and came to be through a plural evolution that was regional. This “science” supported by many renowned men of the field, was to give credence to a notions that races of men were separate species. It suggested that cross breeding of these would lead to a weakening of the stock and that the ability to continue breeding was impossible.
Essentially the suggestion was not about all races of man but black and white (read slave and master). The literature was rife with the impossibility of generations of mulattos and weak on the feasibility of interracial mating in the South Seas.

It was obvious that the pseudoscience of racial plurality was designed as a political ploy to agitate for the continuance of slavery and to add a scientific element for efficacy. The science of the day also came with a morality. The Christian had a duty to take care of the African who was of an inferior race. This was wholly repellant to Darwin as he had firsthand experience during his Beagle days watching with horror as slave owners brutalized their subjects for no better reason than to show who was in charge.

According to the authors, Darwin’s science was swayed by his abhorrence to slavery and he set out to prove that slavery had no basis in species pluralism. We all came from a single fruit rather than one growing individually in different geographical strata. Polynesians, Africans and Norsemen all had the same root and of course this notion has been solidified by science during the last 150 years.

This drive to prove the unilarity of the human species while over proven, even today has its deniers. Today it is left to a fringe of racists who care nothing for scientific fact. During Darwin’s time that pseudo science had a rapt audience which made Darwin’s troubles worse. Slavery was an extremely hot issue and its pros and cons came from many angles.

Many used Darwinian evolution in a misconstrued way to “prove” that slavery was best for bestial races. The notion of plural evolution of different races was very popular and was a favorite of pro slavery causes. Darwin’s anti slavery sentiment also was in sway with the devoutly religious cohorts and he was unhappy with that.
The way to end slavery and human discrimination in his mind was to scientifically prove that all humans came from the same naturalistic source. In the end he was correct but Darwin sought not only a scientific basis for this but a moral cause as well. Unlike the authors I would not have chosen “Sacred” as part of the title because it implies divinity. Darwin’s emphasis and his emotions were scientific and material. They were not to involve anything blessed though he was a cohort of many who did. His bulldog Thomas Huxley defined it more clearly to this reader.

The many races of man held different anthropologic places. It was Huxley who did not value the races equally at his point of time. Some were more savage than others and at face value inferior to others. It was safe to broach the notion that a savage sub-Saharan Africa or Tierra Del Fuegan was not the civilized equal to an Englishman. The real point of both Huxley and Darwin is that humans start from the same basis. They derived similarly and their personal straits borne of their environment. For Darwin this was sexual preference.

Today, many years hence we know that there are nuances beyond Darwin’s emphasis on amour. He made a great case and it has lead to a century and a half of tweaking. We can use Darwin’s premise as a starting point because it is a sound one but we are not trapped by the knowledge of his day.

The authors have really represented a period of history and its machinations well and the book is very thought provoking. They represented an aspect of Darwin that only us Darwinophiles even imagined. They make their case through detailed notes and bibliography and cannot be refuted without another whole book. Other than a screed from some media demagogue, I suspect it cannot be done.

Krakatoa

2011-03-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester, New York, HarperCollins 2003 416 pp. ISBN: 978-0-06-083859-1

It took fits and starts to complete this book. Having only experienced the author from essays in The New York Times I was naïve to the verbosity that Winchester can provide. His digressions from the point and side trips to places and events seemed at best only marginally related to his topic. Taking several attempts to wade through the first 70 or so pages this reader settled into an extraordinary book. The crescendo increased my vocabulary both in geological terms as well as archaic words that only find definitions in dictionaries that cater to those seeking the meaning of archaic words. Thankfully they exist.

Well I was less impressed to the buildup than the remaining story but I got over it and found that Winchester tells an interesting tale of a phenomenon that began to occur some 127 years ago and the saga is not really over. He uses a couple of perspectives to make his case. First and foremost is the science of geology. Winchester guides the reader through a course not only in the facts of tectonics and their relationships to Volcanoes (and much more than can be reported here) he also provides a history of the science that brought us to our current understanding of those tectonics. Many readers already know at least vaguely that tectonics was not really comprehended until about 50 years ago. It is a Johnny-come-lately theory that owes much of its currency to World War II.

Winchester also does a lot of social history in the book. He is less adept here though I tend to agree with his notions of the religious fanaticism that was coincident with days the time after the events that rendered the island of Krakatoa a thing of the past. The problem is that he uses much more conjecture here than when he describes scientific events.

Well he is wordy guy; he likes to delve into situations and apply personal history (his college adventures doing natural history including tales of ribaldry) as well as deeply studied geology and history. Once I was able to get over the rather ponderous verbiage and simply dive into the story I was quite pleased. Part of that story included the scientific advantage of studying the new Krakatoas that sprung from volcanic activities to understand whether anything survived the explosive days of 1883 that obliterated the island. The question remains unanswered. Most of the new Krakatoas that emerged faded quickly as the oceans currents washed away the new sediment of pumice too fast for study.

However three small islands withstood the oceanic rigor and have survived. The questions that scientist initially were interested in was the new speciation from these virgin would produce. Sadly the thrill of inquiry was brief as societal demands and uproars of nature in the area prevented continual research. There came a lot of interesting questions all unresolved. I could go on but it would be better if you read the book. It is worth the effort in the long haul.

2011-03-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy by Robert Hazen and James Trefil, New York, Anchor Books 1991 294 pp. ISBN: 0-385-26108-x

This was a pretty good book to read. It was informative and the prose relevant and compelling. The intention of the book was important. It was informative and had the right references and graphics to enhance the words.

The other shoe drops now. It failed in its mission. The lack of scientific literacy in the US has been on the minds of scholars for some time and it is a genuine problem. Americans are typically confronted with the binomial option of understanding the world as a natural phenomenon or from the authoritative biblical accounts of history and nature. Polls and studies have been rife during the last 20 years showing that something like 50% of Americans deny the efficacy of the theory of evolution in favor of biblical accounts. Reliance on the authority of religious interpretation for explanations of life and nature is pretty much consuming about half of our population. Those believers are not wont to hear another story.

We also have one statistic after another indicating how our youth are lacking in scientific basics. They want technological convenience but not at the expense of understanding where it all came from. The graduate students matriculate back to their native China, India and other points south and east to ply their scientific knowledge where it is appreciated. Americans are looking for an easy way to comfort either physically through less rigorous course work or emotionally via less rigorous thinking.

The authors were not wrong in their desire to heighten scientific literacy. It is crucial to our national well being. The comforts of manufactured snack food, high tech computer devices and applications seem to have fed the younger generations with quick fixes and diabetes. The comforts of biblical explanations to reality have assuaged another large part of our citizens. In the end we are left with a population of fat dumb and happy people. The authors wanted to do their job to alleviate this.

Here is why they failed. They wrote a book that requires some scientific literacy to understand it in the first place. In a sense they were preaching to the choir. This book provides no value to a fundamentalist or to someone void of scientific knowledge. A better effort would be to exploit the basics of the Scientific Method in grand detail. That would perhaps garner a convert or two along the way. The authors expect the reader to understand science at a level far above the beginner. I suspect that the reader who finishes the book has an understanding of science that could use some refining and additional information. It is difficult to imagine that a reader who has been afraid of the details of science would finish the book and come away with a new understanding or inspiration to delve into scientific methodology.

The second problem is not a fault of the authors but the book is 20 years old and so many things have change in that time that it is a dated book. It is not worthwhile for a young skeptic to pick it up today and expect to learn about the scientific illiteracy that exists today. It is too bad there is not an updated release with an additional chapter to rectify the 20 year gap.

112 Mercer Street

2011-03-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

112 Mercer Street: Einstein, Russell, Gödel, Pauli, and the End of Innocence in Science by Burton Feldman and Katherine Williams, New York, Arcade Publishing 2007 243 pp. ISBN: 978-1-55970-704-6

It should be noted that the primary author, Feldman passed away four years prior to the publication of 112 Mercer Street, the final product is a result of the efforts of Katherine Williams.

The address of Albert Einstein in Princeton New Jersey during the Second World War is the superficial setting for this science history. The four famed scholars met periodically for conversations that were never recorded. What went on during those meetings can only be speculated on like the Denmark meeting of Heisenberg and Bohr in the early 40s. Michael Frayn took on the latter event in his drama Copenhagen but the authors of this book do not suggest any particular discussion or results of such. That the four men met was significant only in the level of material knowledge and superstardom these men carried with them.

Einstein needs little introduction though the book provides some insights into his life and thought. There is not a lot of new information here since he was and is such an iconic figure. Bertrand Russell is known to philosophers and science historians more than the lay reader. We learn about his transition from mathematician to philosopher as well as his sexual adventures and financial insecurity. Kurt Gödel the brilliant yet emotionally fragile mathematician was terrified outside of the world of numbers and of philosophy. He was nearly unable to take care of himself and lived a world nearly delusional with paranormal beliefs as well as being paranoid about food. The authors indicate that he basically starved to death in the end for his fear of being poisoned. He viewed doctors as foes bent on his destruction. Gödel was also highly esteemed for his mathematical genius. Lastly Wolfgang Pauli was one of the most important physicists of the first half of the 20th century. He was taciturn and able to deflate egos with aplomb. Pauli is given credit for the very discrediting line “It is not even wrong” to dispel any concern that the idea had merit.

These personalities set the stage for a short history of material thought during the war years. The authors also present lengthy descriptions of personalities such as Nils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and J. Robert Oppenheimer to discuss the development of nuclear weapons and the arms race first between the US and Germany; later between this nation and the USSR.

Physics and its explainer, mathematics held a 100 year hey day from the mid 19th century until the post war west. The amount of discovery and theories was teeming and as one new idea built on another the field expanded rapidly. Some seemingly obvious theories had short life spans as the numbers of scientists working to verify them shrank exponentially. There were too many very smart young people (though still a man’s sport physics was increasingly hearing from women and no one could exclude the twice Nobelist, Marie Curie when describing the phenomenon)eager to dive into the experimentation that would solve or negate the theories of their mentors. Newton’s theories were held sacred for two hundred years but many others only held high status for a few years during that century.

At the end the authors suggest that perhaps there is nothing left to verify in physics. Perhaps all that is left now is theoretical physics and its inability to be lab tested. This reviewer lacks any credentials to qualify as one who could enter this debate yet opinions are free. It seems to me that for string and super string to become formidable they require some rigors of lab work. It seems to me that the more widely known work in physics innovation is restricted to more adaptable cell phones and HDTV. There is value to that. In fact there is incredible if unsung work being done in physical (material) biology as well as in outer space where people like Carolyn Porco are getting incredible data from RAW images of Saturn’s moons. Physics has not come to an end. It simply does not have big results right now like the A Bomb did 65 years ago. The public just gets a comic book image of the field by the very popular string theories.

Galileo, a play by Bertolt Brecht

2011-02-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, New York, Grove Press, 1996 155 pp. 978-0-8021-3059-3

I read this play with trepidation. As a youth I admired Brecht and his leftist post modernism but time takes a toll. It is no longer acceptable to “manipulate the truth as a weapon” as Brecht suggests in his appendix. Over the years it has become obvious that Brecht was an apologist for Stalinism and while that fervor may have waned it still occurred. For Brecht, propaganda was a good thing and I find that difficult to reconcile with my understanding of what ought to be done. Left-wing post modernism forgives itself for traipsing away from truth in order to influence people. It is an anti scientific approach to history.

The introduction was provided by Eric Bentley who felt pretty closely about the drama as me though maybe for different reasons. He was harsh towards the playwright based on some pretty obvious reasons. Brecht was inflamed with a Marxism that becomes self righteous. It is as if there are moralities that ought to assure one never cede their beliefs. The duality of capitulating and standing ones grounds speaks to the frailty of post modern thinking. One cannot be relativistic in many cases and positivist in others. That is another argument however.

Bentley finds fault in the drama for different reasons than my own. He cites the tractability of Brecht in his interpretation of Galileo’s abjuring the very science that he studied, knew and propagated. Indeed anyone taking the time to read Galileo’s renunciation of heliocentrism would wonder from whence it came. Galileo was a proud man, adulated for his intelligence and a sensate human. He liked the good life. One would wonder why his renunciation was so boot licking. That is if they did not consider the extent of misery the Inquisition put heretical thinkers through. It would confound anyone who was not aware of Galileo’s devotion to his daughter or that fact that at age 70 he was nearly blind. It would baffle those who do not understand that both Bellarmine and Urban VII did not want to persecute the iconic Galileo but had their horrid inquisition to attain.

It is clear to me that this abjuring on Galileo’s part was a political compromise. I
I think that neither of his antagonists wanted bad things to happen to Galileo. They may have even understood and accepted a heliocentric universe but were unable to make that public. In my own research I have come to the conclusion that the renunciation by Galileo was bargained so that all could save face.

Bentley did not suggest that nor did that Brecht feel the same. My conclusions come from Brecht’s own biography. Like Galileo Brecht had strong statements to make to the world and that was his communist sympathies and his German heritage during World War II. One may compare the Inquisition to Hitler’s reign pretty well. Each was pretty scary and one would not want to run afoul of the powers. Brecht certainly did not as he found himself in Los Angelos for the war years. He could empathize with Galileo’s Inquisition court appearance because he faced the HUAC panel and abjured Marxism and communism vehemently. He was appreciated by the committee members for his testimony.

Neither Galileo nor Brecht was able to stand in the face of their accusers and each melted quickly and certainly. Bentley did not suggest this but I will. Brecht’s play was about himself not about representing historical reality. Brecht was Galileo and this drama was an apology. It explained Brecht’s performance in the time of trial.

Alas, all of those polemics on my part; hardly a detail of the play itself. I enjoyed reading it. Brecht was a post modernist but he was one of the earliest of them. He did not rise to the extremes that we have seen in the last thirty years. He was able to describe scientific thinking clearly and in a favorable way. He did politicize it because a post modernist could not do otherwise but he reminded us that science actually paved the way to a more enlightened philosophy. It also paved the way for a better and safer world for all of us. Brecht presented that. He also presented Andrea Sarti who reveled in the world of Galileo when he was pure in his thinking. The same Sarti was chagrined by Galileo’s capitulation. It was purity of youth along with the emotional zeal on the part of Sarti. When he came to visit Galileo deep into his house arrest he was older and wiser. He could forgive the man who had betrayed the young Andrea’s youthful ardor.

There is much written about Galileo as a scientist, gourmand, proud thinker and experimenter. Many more will follow. As a play, Brecht did a decent job and when we remove the politics that underlies Brecht’s endeavors and Bentley’s criticism the play represents how scientific thinking works pretty well.

A Summer World, Bernd Heinrich

2011-02-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

Summer World: A Season of Bounty by Bernd Heinrich, New York, Ecco Books, 2009 253 pp. 978-0-06-074217-1

I always enjoy picking up the Audubon Magazine to read the naturalist, Bernd Heinrich. He is rich with prose; he makes you want to be wherever it is he is writing about. He has combined his naturalist instincts with his science background and it becomes very readable as he knows how to communicate to people who just love the woods and everything in it. As E.O. Wilson says on the back cover blurb, “This lovely book,…” He says more but I like those three words to describe A Summer World. One almost smells the musty wet leaves lying on the ground while reading his passages.

Here are a couple of reasons why this is such an enjoyable book. Heinrich discusses wildlife from his kitchen window. Most of his book details events and beings in his yard(s). He spotted interesting events such as Red Eyed Vireo’s decorating the nest with pieces of wasp nests. Then he questioned why they might do that. The questions centered on adaptive benefits to such an action. Was it protection from a predator that may imagine the object was a wasp nest and they would suffer the consequences of approaching it?

To that end he did some cleverly designed though fairly primitive experiments. He concluded that it was probably decorative. Perhaps the portion of wasp nest was designed to prove to females that this Vireo was a good romantic choice. This is interesting to me as a reader because Heinrich was not trying to write an article for a scientific journal. He was showing us amateurs how to examine wildlife events and surmise some possibilities as to why they occur.

Nothing is proven. The questions asked and the curiosity inspired, all lead not to answers but suggestions and further questions. This is the essence of scientific inquiry and Heinrich provides it without the academic virtues of the likes of a Chi Square analysis. Anyone can read his book. Having ultimate answers negates questions and in the world I live in that is pretty banal. We always need new questions.

Heinrich writes about several of my favorite topics. Adaptation, mimicry in nature and symbioses are amongst them. There are reasons why one butterfly would look like another or a Coral Snake and a Mexican Milk Snake could be mistaken for each other. We do not always know why. In fact we probably never will know why but we can surmise and do experiments that give us realistic suggestions about why. Those lead to more questions and more experimentation.

Heinrich is clear about an important issue especially as we expand our cities into exurbs. Those species that are driven off of their territories either by extinction or by moving into nether regions are important to us. Every time we change predations and natural territory of one species it affects another and that includes us. We are all in this together, all of the flora and fauna, in this together.

Jeffery Toobin's The Nine

2011-02-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, New York, Anchor Books, 2008 452 pp. 978-1-4000-9679-4

“Our constitutional history has been a quest for workable government, workable democratic government, workable democratic government protective of individual personal liberty.” Stephen Breyer

As Toobin points out the operant word here is “workable”. All who wrote and or worked to ratify the Constitution recognized that it was not a perfect document and that there was a future of new citizens. They included the unborn future generations, the immigrants who moved to these shores and the people of the territories yet to become states. The founders knew they could not predict the future and that the Constitution needed to be a plastic vehicle; it had to be flexible.

That being said, the reader will take a ride through Toobin’s view of the Supreme Court during the last 30 years or so. That would include the nominations and hearings that led up to the Court as it was in 2007. He discussed the thinking and logic behind many of the important cases during that period. This would include the 2000 Presidential election and what amounted to law making.

Were readers looking for a political slant to Toobin’s representation they would not find it here. He makes a case for his opinion of what the framers of the Constitution had in mind especially in terms of the fluid nature of the articles and amendments. He also shows us how justices understood what the creator’s of the document meant. They were not always the same.

There is a lot of personality in Toobin’s book. He makes all of the justices very human. We typically know the Court by the staid imagery of pondering judges and when we read a decision it typically is very dry. In fact these people are a lot like us. Within their building are parties, practical jokes and friendships. Clarence Thomas makes an effort to get personal with all the staff-the cooks and the janitors. Sandra O’Connor held exercise classes. The justices get angry, sad and rueful.

Toobin does have opinions of the justices for instance that Scalia essentially never rendered a significant decision. His writing and personal style often caustic, but essentially he stuck with an arid reduction of the Constitution as words that had to be taken only by what they said-no interpretation. He describes a reticent Thomas who during one recent season did not ask one question during over 100 hearings. He talked about O’Connor being so disillusioned by the decisions of George Bush, a man she was nearly gushy about during his first campaign.

It seems that every pundit and politician has a grind against judicial activism as if decisions could not come with any personality. Ultimately what “activism” comes to mean is the decision that they do not agree with. We only like our activism and we re-dub it as judicial prudence. President’s select their choices based on how they will extend the legacy of that President. They will essentially be doing the bidding of that leader and their party. That is why judges typically resign during the term of a President of the same party as the one that named them.

Toobin makes his living writing about the Supreme Court and it is obvious from his in depth story. His writing style is alluring making it an easy to read yet informative book.

The Great Equations

2011-01-31T07:43:00.000-08:00

The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg by Robert P. Crease, New York, W.W. Norton, 2008 315 pp. 978-0-393-06204-5

While continuing on this unlikely path of understanding formulas and its philosophical essence I uncovered Crease’s book. Perhaps it should have been the first on the list of readings encountered and completed in the last few months. As a philosopher he is in print quite often and I have read many short pieces over the years and while appreciating those, have taken on a book for the first time.

So here I am, a reader who took the bare minimum of math to achieve the degrees that I have and in the last trimester of life, taking on subject matter that that was repugnant to me in my youth. It was a minor contingency in my pre-middle age. I needed to understand square footage area of rather oblique shapes in order to buy enough drywall to cover a house I was re-building. To that end I went to a used book store and bought a high school geometry book and discovered a little about myself. I was not so terribly dumb about math but I was certainly under-tutored. This gave me a better understanding of math.

Reading plays such as Proof and Copenhagen led me to understand the joys of mathematical discovery. Today I understand the value of math but do not have the ability to follow it and probably never will. The history of proofs and equations however are of grand value to an historian of science. Crease presents them well and while he uses actual equations that may look like alien mosaics to many, the book can be read and valued by the non-mathematician. The reader does not need to know the meaning of those symbols from that perspective. Upon completing the book one can understand the importance of their discovery though. New proofs are as important to our well being as discovering penicillin for instance as it propels thinking in new ways.

For the capable few, the Eulers, Maxwells and Plancks who descend on us every so often, there is a reminder us lay people that there is an objectivity at work that impels thinking into the future and all the while it deprives us of rationally accepting authoritative answers. There is a continual challenge for improvement and discovery. Answers to life’s persistent questions are not solved by the fictitious Guy Noir but rather by a continuum of thinking and improving on what we know today. The good things about life are not in continuing stasis. I would not have it any other way.

So Crease discussed all that while presenting one formula leading to an equation after another as we progress through history. He personalizes the characters to make it an interesting read and explains the value to society as one equation surpasses the last. It is a continual reminder that notions like “flip flopping” are good things. While we errant humans prefer to hold on to our concepts and beliefs, those of us who can understand the importance of cumulative knowledge recognize that we need to change our minds when confronted with a contradiction to our current knowledge. Crease reminds us of this routinely in a generous way. He has not written a book to chastise the ideologue or the reductionist for that matter. In his gentle way though, he is telling us of the intellectual and philosophical aridity of holding on to notions when they have died. They died because they no longer could hold up to the test of time (or equations).

In describing the events and people who have changed equations he has informed and entertained us. Throughout the book Crease has added what he calls “Interludes” or personal asides which are more philosophical in nature. They are his opinions about events and their results. They are as valuable if not more so than the details of new proofs.

Readers do not require extensive mathematical backgrounds to find this book worthwhile. I can attest to that given my own history. Crease writes about important stuff and his opinions about it in a very readable way.

Henry Bates and the Amazon

2011-01-27T16:03:00.000-08:00

The Naturalist on the Rivers Amazon by Henry Walter Bates, London, John Murray, 1863 491 pp. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2440/pg2440.html

An amateur and cohort of Alfred Russel Wallace, Bates spent 10 years exploring the flora and fauna of the grand tributary system of the tropical Amazon River. The fauna includes the many and diverse peoples that he met there. This 1864 edition was editorially pared to be more of a travelogue than a scientific representation of his findings. It was a marketing decision between he and John Murray the erstwhile science editor.

He brought back to England with him, nearly 15000 specimens of which about 8000 were new to the eager scientists who awaited them. Unlike his peer, Wallace, Bates sent his specimens back in doses and on different ships while Wallace lost the bulk of his collection in a shipping disaster.

These 19th century Naturalist accounts were very popular reading and Bates was assured some fame as a result. There were exciting tales to be told both about his experiences and his surmising as to their meaning. Unlike Russel’s Malay Archipelago or Darwin’s Voyages of the Beagle, there was far less scientific speculation in this edition of The Naturalist and it is unfortunate.

Bates developed quite a name for himself in a couple of evolutionary niches. The descriptions of scientific insight were found here and there but were treated fairly miserly. Specifically, Bates focused on adaptive deception and mimicry of animals and plants in order to survive in some cases, prey in others and of course romance for the issue of a new generation in others.

Bates was probably the preeminent Lepidopterist of the 19th century and his works describe some reasons for imitation in butterflies. They include deceiving predators into imagining that one species tastes like another that is considered foul by predators, allowing that species to go about their business be it feeding or mating. He described species that could blend in well with their background and therefore lay in wait for a naïve dinner to cross their path. He showed how a less virile male might imitate another macho version of the species to hoodwink a potential partner.

Bates was one of the leading proponents of evolutionary thinking. He traveled to exotic places with Wallace. Darwin wrote the introduction to the book. His other writings and lectures attest to his deep interest and study on adaptation so briefly suggested in this review.

The book itself was entertaining thought perhaps too long as some of his stories became repetitious. He had a different take on the humans he met than either Wallace or Darwin. His assessments of natives bordered on racist though they are being read in the context of a reader 150 years after the fact. There is no evidence in his writing that he ever treated anyone with unkindness but he did use a lot of disdain in describing cultures. He also had sort of a tiered method of understanding peoples and natives were the lowest of the tiers.

He did not discuss religion except to note the festive holidays that occurred routinely to celebrate one saint or another. He also mentioned on several occasions the folk beliefs that were abound and teemed with superstitious nonsense. This was insightful from a social history perspective as he acknowledged the emotional value of these various beliefs and their boon to the people at the same time mentioning that as a source of answers, they do not solve real problems or questions. They just make people feel better.

All told I enjoyed reading Bates’ account of ten years in the equatorial Amazon but wished it were heavier on the side of his scientific opinions rather than the popular travelogue that this edition was.

Probability notions...Real ones

2011-01-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, New York, Vintage Books, 2008 252 pp. ISBN: 978-0-307-27517-2

Years ago I was at Thistle Downs in Cleveland for the first and only time. While there I ran into an old racetrack friend from Detroit and that should have indicated to me a notion of randomness but that was not on my mind at that time. The system at the track that day was to have us bet on one live race and then a simulcast race. This was new to me but I paid little attention to it. I made my configurations leading to a bet using what I determine to be pretty rational criterion. I look at weight changes, morning workouts, five recent races etc. in order to determine my bet. Off I was to bet 5.00 to win and 5.00 to place on horse something or other. As they headed around the final turn and my horse took a healthy lead I kept hearing other fans shouting and rooting for a horse that had a different name and different jockey yet wore the same number that I had bet on. I was at a loss; perhaps people in Cleveland were speaking a different language than I. Well it paid off at 11-1 so I happily cashed in my tickets and pocketed the winnings. Shortly thereafter I discovered that I had made all of my decisions based on a horse that was in the very next race-the simulcast one. This is the sort of tale that Mlodinow would have told in The Drunkard’s Walk had he known about it. He would also have told you that my horse in the simulcast race did not finish in the money.

I bought this book having a different impression about what it was. I imagined that it would focus on Chaos Theory from a mathematical perspective. I was not totally wrong as Mlodinow addressed that but it was more a history of mathematical theorems and the lives of those who discovered and reported them. It included the important variable of randomness.

It is a book about how to understand probabilities and the effects of randomness on them. It is a tale of curious events that send a thinker off on a tangent that led to remarkable results. It is an inspirational concept reminding us of the many times that a great thinker gave up on a concept due to a random event that presented a difficulty that appeared too insurmountable to overcome in their quest . He tells us to soldier on despite the chaos that throws us off track; we should not worry about what might have been.

In order to do all of that Mlodinow weaves a historical tale of mathematical theorems and how they transpired and what they mean. He also re-defined for me, many statistical concepts that I understood so well nearly 40 years ago. I could see how eroded my perceptions of the meaning of Chi Square Analysis had become via the lack of use. I had thought I was pretty adept at statistical understanding as well as the misuses of it in popular terminology and usage. Mlodinow humbled me and yet invigorated me to get my understanding in order.

Well it is a good book on the history of math and probability and it is well told. He used an easy going style with curious insight not only into the characters and events of math history but added a lot personal touch. He also has a discerning and clever sense of humor. The major downside of the book was its brevity. I read it in two days and was a bit disappointed when it was over.

A bit of Thomas Jefferson

2011-01-01T03:55:00.000-08:00

Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson edited by Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., Wheeling, IL, Crofts Classics, 1979 94 pp. ISBN: 0-88295-120-3

I am a firm believer that when you want to use sources to make your case you need to go to the actual source rather than an authority figure who cites them for you. To that end I review this nearly pamphlet sized book that was bought at the gift store at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial at the Mall in Washington DC.

Mansfield opens with a 42 page introduction that has some value in his interpretation of Jefferson but I was more interested in reading Jefferson. Sometimes introductions are worth more when read after the actual text.
He selected some of the basic political writings like the Declaration of Independence and the Draft of the Kentucky Resolution as well as his first Inaugural address. Mansfield included several queries from Jefferson’s only book- Notes on the State of Virginia and many letters to famous and less famous early Americans.

It was in the letters that I gained the most insight into Jefferson. He like so many of the founding brethren (with exhaustive help from such sisters as Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison to name only two) understood the many perils of nation building. Though he was not instrumental in the making of the Constitution, he had much to say about its strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly like many of his peers he recognized it as a flawed document but one that would work. The importance of its passage weighed far heavier than its perfection.

Some of the letters that while pretty formal revealed a grouchiness about human nature and the need for a republican government to protect Americans on a national level. The states would give them their own local independence. He also extolled the virtues of agriculture for the American independent man- leave manufacture to foreign countries. He did not however think of human society in its natural state as a good thing. He saw the need for a civilized society with a government that acted out the will of the people in an enlightened and guiding way. Americans would worry about their farms and their families and have trust in their representation to do the right thing.

In this brief selection of Jeffersonia we did not see much discussion of slavery or the looming question that plagued most of the founders-the inevitability of a fractured union over the issue of slavery. There was much about human independence and the vigorous American making himself useful through hard work and resourcefulness. There was also much about human nature and its self interest. This posed as it should, some cognitive dissonance for Jefferson.

That Mansfield selected the items that he did and introduced them at the level that he did reflects more on him than on Jefferson. It is as if he takes Jefferson out of context. There is nothing wrong with that. This book was designed to be little more than a pamphlet- a morsel of Jefferson and it was Mansfield’s prerogative to select as he did. I do think however that we get a very small view of a very deep thinker as a result.