qebo's 2012 non-fiction

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qebo's 2012 non-fiction

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1qebo
Bearbeitet: Jan. 1, 2012, 2:55 pm

2qebo
Bearbeitet: Dez. 26, 2012, 7:46 pm

January
#01: Scientific American - July 2011 -- (Jan 11)
#02: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson -- (Jan 15)
#03: The Devil in Dover by Lauri Lebo -- (Jan 23)
#04: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan -- (Jan 29)

February
#05: Scientific American - August 2011 -- (Feb 18)
#06: The Creation by E. O. Wilson -- (Feb 22)
#07: Universalism 101 by Richard Trudeau -- (Feb 26)
#08: Scientific American - September 2011 -- (Feb 29)

March
#09: God's Philosophers by James Hannam -- (Mar 9)
#10: Scientific American - October 2011 -- (Mar 18)
#11: The Riddle of Amish Culture by Donald Kraybill -- (Mar 26)
#12: The Leafcutter Ants by Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson -- (Mar 30)

April
#13: Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy -- (Apr 8)
#14: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick -- (Apr 21)
#15: Scientific American - November 2011 -- (Apr 30)

May
#16: James Tiptree, Jr. by Julie Phillips -- (May 2)
#17: Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes -- (May 19)
#18: The Tree of Life by Peter Sis -- (May 20)
#19: Starry Messenger by Peter Sis -- (May 20)
#20: White Bread by Aaron Bobrow-Strain -- (May 24)
#21: The Man Who Planted Trees by Jim Robbins -- (May 29)

June
#22: Scientific American - December 2011 -- (Jun 5)
#23: Drawing from Memory by Allen Say -- (Jun 7)
#24: Plants: A Very Short Introduction by Timothy Walker -- (Jun 8)
#25: Scientific American - January 2012 -- (Jun 15)
#26: The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis -- (Jun 20)
#27: Scientific American - February 2012 -- (Jun 30)

July
#28: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey -- (Jul 7)
#29: Scientific American - March 2012 -- (Jul 9)
#30: Scientific American - April 2012 -- (Jul 16)
#31: Noah's Garden by Sara Stein -- (Jul 17)
#32: Scientific American - May 2012 -- (Jul 20)

August
#33: Stokes Butterfly Book by Donald Stokes and Lillian Stokes and Ernest Williams – (Aug 25)
#34: Super Cooperators by Martin Nowak and Roger Highfield -- (Aug 27)
#35: The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto -- (Aug 31)

September
#36: Scientific American - June 2012 -- (Sep 6)
#37: Scientific American - July 2012 -- (Sep ?)
#38: Darwin's Ghosts by Rebecca Stott -- (Sep 24)
#39: The Mystery of Metamorphosis by Frank Ryan -- (Sep 30)

October
#40: Fifty Acres and a Poodle by Jeanne Marie Laskas -- (Oct 13)
#41: Scientific American - August 2012 -- (Oct 15)
#42: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch -- (Oct 19)
#43: Milkweed, Monarchs, and More by Ba Rea and Karen Oberhauser and Michael Quinn -- (Oct 19)
#44: Scientific American - September 2012 -- (Oct 20)
#45: The House of Wisdom by Jim Al-Khalili -- (Oct 26)

November
#46: The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs -- (Nov 6)
#47: Scientific American - October 2012 -- (Nov 20)

December
#48: Future Perfect by Steven Johnson -- (Dec 1)
#49: Thank God for Evolution by Michael Dowd -- (Dec 6)
#50: Scientific American - November 2012 -- (Dec 9)
#51: Scientific American - December 2012 -- (Dec 14)
#52: On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin – (Dec 26)

Relevant items will be linked to or cross-posted in:
2012 75 Books Challenge
2012 Scientific American
2012 New Yorker

3qebo
Jan. 1, 2012, 12:43 pm

Guess I should start a new thread. I'm still two reviews in the hole from 2011, intend to fix this but maybe not immediately or I'll fall behind in 2012...

4cameling
Jan. 2, 2012, 4:24 pm

I'll be watching for your review of The Warmth of Other Suns, Katherine. I've been eying the book and considering it for one of my purchases this year.

5karspeak
Jan. 2, 2012, 4:56 pm

I really enjoyed your 2011 thread (I lurked), and I'm looking forward to your 2012 thread!

6Linda92007
Jan. 3, 2012, 3:17 pm

I missed a chance not long ago to hear Isabel Wilkerson speak and definitely want to read The Warmth of Other Suns this year. I'll be interested in reading your review.

7qebo
Bearbeitet: Feb. 19, 2012, 10:55 pm



#1: Scientific American - July 2011 -- (Jan 11)

Phew! I finished reading this last week, but it took hours to document... which I'm doing because (a) it forces me to read carefully and (b) it is then available as a memory refresher.

8qebo
Bearbeitet: Jan. 21, 2012, 5:41 pm



#2: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson -- (Jan 15)

This is a book about three people who represent thousands, who originated in three southern states and migrated to three northern and western cities, during three decades. The author interviewed over 1200 people, and selected these three for the continuity of narrative and the range of experience. The structure of the book is spiral, cycling through each person, round and round, Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, Robert Foster, with episodes at stages along the way: childhood to adulthood, decision to leave the south, travel north or west, arrival in an unfamiliar city, construction of a new life. Brief historical and sociological notes are inserted for context.

Ida Mae Gladney was from Chickasaw Co, Mississippi, and migrated to Chicago in the 1930s. At age 16 she married a sharecropper on a cotton plantation, where she lived in a wood shack with cracks in the ceiling, and made dresses from flour sacks boiled until the print faded, because she couldn't afford dresses made from the cotton she picked. Sharecroppers owed planters, planters owed merchants, merchants owed banks; "the entire system was built on credit". At the end of each season, the planter deducted the "furnish" from the sharecropper's half of the production. If the planter was dishonest, the sharecropper could not complain, and could be trapped eternally in debt. One day some turkeys disappeared. A cousin of Ida Mae's husband was accused of stealing them. A group of men tracked him down, dragged him into the woods, and beat him with chains. The turkeys wandered back the next day.

George Starling was from Eustis, Florida, and migrated to New York in the 1940s. His grandfather was a cotton sharecropper. His father had gone into construction, but when the depression hit he resorted to day labor in orchards. George began college but was called home to earn money. In a snit, he married a woman that his family didn't approve of. Fruit pickers were assigned to rows by lottery, and jostled for the best rows. The procedure was to position the ladder, climb the tree, clean the branches, to the satisfaction of the foreman, who could arbitrarily send a picker back to retrieve a lone fruit at the top of the tree. Fruit pickers were paid by the box, and had to accept the amount whatever it was, maybe nor maybe not what had been promised. George began organizing the fruit pickers to negotiate for higher pay. He was successful. Then he got wind of a plot to give him a "necktie party".

Robert Foster was from Monroe, Louisiana, and migrated to Los Angeles in the 1950s. His father was the principal and his mother was a teacher at the "colored" school, at less than half the salary of their counterparts in white schools. He showed a talent for science, but blacks were prohibited from entering the public library, and prohibited from attending the local college. He went instead to Atlanta, and married the daughter of Atlanta University president Rufus Clement (who ousted W. E. B. Du Bois). While his wife remained with her family, he went to medical school in Nashville. He could have returned to Atlanta, where "I saw blacks living like people ought to live", but did not want to be forever enmeshed in his wife's family. He could have returned to Monroe, where his brother also was a doctor, but black doctors were prohibited from practice in the local hospital, so his brother carried a bag of medical supplies to the homes of patients, and Robert had in mind a more glamorous life. When Robert mentioned to a white shopkeeper that he was leaving, the shopkeeper, oblivious to the constraints, wondered why. "One set of people could be in a cage, and the people outside couldn't see the bars."

And that's the benign version. In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled, in Plessy vs Ferguson, that "separate but equal" segregation was constitutional. Laws for "separate" covered every possible situation where black and white people might commingle. Every four days from 1889 to 1929, a black person was hanged or burned alive for stepping out of place. Migration from the south began in notable numbers after World War I, when immigration from other countries decreased. "The North needed workers, and the workers needed an escape." Migration proceeded along train tracks and highways, and was supported by practical matters such as shelter and financial assistance, so southern towns reconstituted in northern and western cities. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington opposed abandonment of the south, but people didn't necessarily listen. The south fined recruiters from the north, and captured people who tried to leave. It was best to sneak away, informing only close family and friends, and not until the last moment. Food had to be carried because it couldn't necessarily be purchased on the way. Hotels, in the most civil scenario, were so sorry that the Vacancy sign was left on when the last room was filled. The north was not a haven of freedom and prosperity and moral purity. The rules were more subtle and difficult to discern, so lines could be crossed by accident. Typical wages for blacks were lower than for whites, rents were higher, jobs and housing were restricted, rejection could be violent. Children got caught up in urban ills, and grew away from family ties and traditions. Children sent south to stay with relatives were in danger, unaware of expected behavior. (Emmett Till was one.)

The author follows each person through detailed descriptions of journey and settling, then leaps to the 1960s and again to the 1990s, when she began the interviews. The book would be stronger, I think, if the last 100 pages had been more tightly edited. I also felt the absence of direct voices. Every so often a snippet of quotation appears, but mostly the stories are told and interpreted by the author. The result seems... diluted, not quite as concentrated or compelling as it could have been. Still, these are relatively minor criticisms of a thoroughly researched and memorably arranged book about an era of significant social change.

9Linda92007
Jan. 21, 2012, 7:26 pm

An interesting review, qebo. I like your description of the structure as "spiral". It would be interesting to know why Wilkerson chose to not make more use of direct quotations, given the enormous amount of effort she devoted to interviews. I am looking forward to reading this once I have finished Slavery by Another Name, assuming that I don't get stuck on the library's waiting list!

10markon
Jan. 21, 2012, 9:34 pm

I also appreciated the notation of the "spiral structure," and your pointing out the different decades of migration - that was something I missed when I read this last year. I've recently read 3/4 of Coming of age in Mississippi, a memoir by Anne Moody, which covers her adolescence and early 20s in the 1950s & 60s. If you're interested in a narrative voice following on the heels of Robert Foster. Moody manages to finish college and is involved in the civil rights movement towards the end of the book.

I also thought is was interesting that Wilkerson makes an argument that migrating African American families exhibit similarities to families of immigrants in that the generation born and raised in the new location does not have the connection to extended family & cultural traditions that their parents exhibit.

11qebo
Jan. 22, 2012, 10:29 pm

9,10: Oh dear, I've added both books to my wishlist, and I have no idea when I'll have time to read them. I want to focus on American history this year, and I hope to cover a range, and I can see that each topic could easily occupy the entire year on its own.

12qebo
Bearbeitet: Feb. 29, 2012, 10:42 pm



#3: The Devil in Dover by Lauri Lebo -- (Jan 23)

An acquaintance was reading this, and I wanted to refresh my memory. I followed the trial at the time, in part because I'm interested in the issue, and in part because it occurred rather too close to home for comfort.

In the summer of 2002, a Dover PA school board member was disturbed by a mural depicting human evolution seen during a tour of classrooms. Shortly before teachers returned in the fall, the janitor burned the mural. The science teachers noticed immediately. Meetings followed, with teachers reassuring administration and board that they were sensitive to religious faith and adhered strictly to the textbook and state standards. In the summer of 2004, the tension went public at a school board meeting. Another school board member had reviewed a proposed textbook and found it to be "laced with Darwinism", so was seeking an alternative that balanced evolution with "creationism". This was reported in the local newspaper.

Who contacted whom is not clear, but later that summer, school board members talked with the Thomas More Law Center. At a subsequent public meeting, the word "creationism" was not uttered. A vote was held on a recommendation to supplement the standard biology textbook with Pandas and People, which advocated the supposedly scientific theory of Intelligent Design. The recommendation was voted down. Mysteriously, before the fall term began, a box of Pandas and People, sent by an anonymous donor, arrived at the school. Meanwhile, the school board and science teachers had been negotiating a curriculum change. The teachers made concessions, but balked at including mention of Intelligent Design. The school board inserted it anyway, into a statement that was to be read to students by teachers, informing them of "gaps" in the theory of evolution, and the existence of books in the library describing an alternative theory of Intelligent Design. On the day of the statement, science teachers and some students walked out of classrooms, so the statement was read by administrators. Some parents and teachers contacted the ACLU.

Dover became a test case. The Thomas More Law Center was founded in 1999 with a mission to fight the culture war in the courts, and had been watching local events around the US in search of an intelligent design case. Richard Thompson, one of its cofounders, became the lawyer for the school district. ACLU lawyer Vic Walczak and National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott contacted lawyer Eric Rothschild, who agreed to assist with the case pro bono on behalf of the parents and teachers. The case was named Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, for a parent of a directly affected student. The judge was John Jones, endorsed by Rick Santorum and appointed by George W. Bush, who had both expressed support for "teaching the controversy". Among the witnesses for for the defendants was Michael Behe of the Discovery Institute, the originator of Intelligent Design. Among the witnesses for the plaintiffs was Kenneth Miller, coauthor of the standard biology textbook. Among the documents presented were excerpts from drafts of Pandas and People, most significantly the drafts written before, and revised after, the 1987 Supreme court case Edwards v. Aguillard ruled that it is unconstitutional to include creationism in a public school curriculum.

Anyone who has seen the NOVA documentary Judgment Day will know the gist of the story, and the result of the trial. This book intertwines the formal trial with the drama behind the scenes. The author is a local newspaper reporter, who grew up nearby, knew people on both sides, and was painfully aware of the antagonisms and accusations that divided the town for a year, personally aware, as her involvement strained her relationship with her fundamentalist Christian father. She takes a clear stand: Intelligent Design is a fraud. This is not "balanced" journalism, deliberately. It is responsible journalism. Also a page turner.

13msf59
Jan. 23, 2012, 10:12 pm

I loved your review of The Warmth of Other Suns. Good job. I just finished a couple days ago. It is such a terrific book but I agree with you on the last 100-150 pages. This needed heavier editing. Every time I felt it should have ended, it went on for anther 50 pages.

14qebo
Jan. 24, 2012, 7:30 am

13: Yeah, seems she had so much information, and she'd gotten quite attached to the people she interviewed, and if she didn't include everything in this book, then where would it go?

15aulsmith
Jan. 24, 2012, 8:14 am

12: I followed the newspaper stories of this case on the web and read the judge's entire decision, which was extremely lucid and well-written.

16qebo
Jan. 24, 2012, 8:30 am

15: Oh, thanks, I didn't know there was a wiki format of the decision. Yeah, it is thorough; he did not leave loopholes for the ID people to slip through in the future. I followed it on Panda's Thumb.

17VisibleGhost
Jan. 25, 2012, 12:36 am

Going backwards in time, Summer For the Gods is on my shelves somewhere (unread). Enjoyed your review of The Devil in Dover.

18aulsmith
Jan. 25, 2012, 8:43 am

The differences between the background of the Scopes trial as portrayed in Summer of the Gods (actually more of a publicity stunt than a religious controversy) and the motivations of the people surrounding the Dover case is very interesting in terms of changes in American culture in the last century.

19qebo
Bearbeitet: Feb. 7, 2012, 8:46 am



#4: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan -- (Jan 29)

This book, about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, is a cautionary tale of self-inflicted environmental catastrophe, and a humbling tale of awesome endurance.

The Comanche migrated into the southern plains in the 1700s, after acquiring horses, and hunted bison for food and shelter. By the 1830s, white settlers were arriving. An 1867 treaty was intended to reduce conflicts, but was not strictly followed on either side. Soon after, white hunters appeared, and killed bison by the millions for the hides, eliminating the basis for Comanche survival. The Red River War of 1874-1875 was essentially the end. The Comanche were sent to reservations in Oklahoma. By 1880, what had been 30 million bison were nearly extint. The US Geological Survey wrote: "The High Plains continues to be the most alluring body of unoccupied land in the United States."

The first stage of transformation was cattle. To pay for a capital building, Texas offered 3 million acres of grassland in the panhandle. In 1882, a syndicate of investors bought the land and formed the XIT Ranch, stocked with 150,000 cattle and fenced with barbed wire. But the land was "tormented" by fires and floods, tornadoes and blizzards. Bison are "the greatest thermo-regulators ever adapted to the plains", and can endure temperature extremes from -30 to 110 degrees. Cattle, in comparison, are fragile, and the winter of 1885-1886 nearly destroyed them all. And with grazing land available for free all around, prices dropped too low for profit.

The second stage was wheat. There was not enough rain for traditional crops, but poor conditions can be remedied by good marketing. The syndicate of the Texas panhandle distributed brochures in Europe and in American port cities, created demonstration farms with windmills to pump water, and offered free train rides to see. A real estate company in the Oklahoma panhandle (an artifact of politics) advertised lots on paved streets lined with businesses and trees. When people arrived, they found... nothing. The company was convicted of fraud, but many people stayed anyway, and the town grew. By 1900, the best land available through the Homestead Act had been taken, and land that remained was marginal, but the opportunity to own was compelling. In the first 30 years of the century, dozens of towns were founded in the region. The farmers were referred to as "nesters".

The wheat that could be grown in such harsh conditions was "turkey red", brought on ships by Volga Germans, who had been recruited by US railroads in "selective ethnic shopping" for immigrants. Along with the wheat came, by accident, the Russian thistle, known in the US as tumbleweed.

Fortune was with the farmers, for awhile. Rainfall was higher than average. Horsedrawn plows were replaced by tractors, significantly decreasing the time to plant and harvest crops. By 1929 wheat production was at a record high, and prices dropped accordingly. The "suitcase farmers", transients who had anticipated quick profit, abandoned bare land. The farmers who remained, committed to the land, plowed more land to plant more wheat. The wheat boom was in trouble already when the Depression and drought hit simultaneously.

The first dust storm occurred in 1930. Such a thing had never been seen before, and it didn't have a name. A cloud of dust rolled through with the wind, produced sparks of static electricity, hurt like sand paper on skin. As dust storms became common, they were classified by visibility. In 1933, the panhandle region recorded 70 dust storms at the most severe level, with visibility no more than 1/4 mile. The direction of the storm could be determined by the color of the dust: black from Kansas, red from eastern Oklahoma, yellow-orange from Texas. A dust storm could trap children at school, so some parents stopped sending them. Mounds of dust piled against fences clogged with tumbleweed, blocked doors to houses, covered roads. Storm or not, dust was everywhere. Dust crippled machinery and cars. Dust got into hospital surgeries and equipment. Dust got into houses. People put wet sheets over windows, taped seams around doors, stuffed rags and newspapers into cracks, covered standing water so it wouldn't turn to mud, covered door knobs with cloth to reduce the static shock. Dust got into animals. Chickens and cattle and horses died, and autopsies revealed stomachs clogged with dust. Cows wouldn't let calves nurse and couldn't be milked because their udders were so sore. People put vaseline in their noses and masks over their faces, and covered baby cribs with wet sheets, in an effort to stave off the respiratory illness "dust pneumonia", which caused coughing and chest pains and nausea, and could be fatal, especially for infants and the elderly. In 1934, a dust storm spread 350 million tons of dust over a region 1800 miles wide, extending beyond the east coast to ships at sea.

Drought was normal. But drought in the past had occurred in a region covered by prarie grass, a tough perenniel, whose roots held the ground in place. When the land was plowed, the roots were removed, so the prarie grass did not return. The wheat was a "weak annual", and could not survive with half the average annual rainfall. About the only plant that would grow was tumbleweed. The land was bare, and wind blew it away, "great strips of earth thrown to the sky". Cycles of prarie fire were normal too, and cleared out pests. No prarie grass meant no prarie fires, and with drought came higher temperatures. The ecosystem was out of wack. Birds and snakes disappeared. Bugs multiplied, crawled on floors and walls, centipedes and black widow spiders and tarantulas. Grasshoppers swarmed and ate what little was growing, and wood posts and clothes. Rabbits multiplied too, and people convened for rabbit drives, herding them into fenced areas and clubbing them to death. 100 million acres of land, centered on the Oklahoma panhandle and extending into four surrounding states, had been stripped.

Enter Hugh Bennett, who "knew more about the crust of the United States -- from close personal inspection -- than perhaps any person alive in the early twentieth century", and was hired as director of the Soil Erosion Service in the Department of the Interior. He had been writing about soil since the 1920s, and had been frustrated by the wheat boom, believing the government to be encouraging "habits against nature" with a bulletin proclaiming soil a "resource that can't be exhausted". Said Bennett, "I didn't know so much costly misinformation could be put into a single brief sentence." A government report now agreed: the Homestead Act of 1862, when applied to grasslands, was "almost an obligatory act of poverty", breaking the region into small allotments, and requiring a portion of each to be plowed.

Bennett was given relief funds, but he had to convince Congress that the problem could not be fixed with temporary crisis intervention; it was entirely man made and would need sustained and considered effort to repair. He timed his presentation perfectly. In 1935, as a dust storm rolled across the US, he kept track of weather reports, awaiting the moment when the dust reached Washington DC. Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act. President Roosevelt issued an order to buy back land that had been given to homesteaders, a "stunning reversal" of government policy. How, though, could the land be regenerated? How could the soil be held down long enough to plant seeds? Even with water, did the soil contain enough nutrients to support plants? A corner of Kansas was dedicated to experimenting with a variety of plants. Bennett created soil conservation districts, and negotiated contracts with farmers to "manage the land as a single ecological unit". Roosevelt dispatched crews with a plan to plant a swath of trees as a wind barrier from North Dakota to Texas. Ideas were proposed: Bring back the Indians. This did not happen. Tap the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground reservoir. This did happen, it is now being drained faster than it refills, and is predicted to dry up within a century. Eventually, the government bought back 11 million acres and established national grasslands that behave as nature intended. The damage has not been completely undone.

So you want a review, not a summary? The summary is because it matters, and so I won't forget.

The outline above is simple. The story told in this book is more detailed and more personal. The author drew information from government reports, newspaper and magazine articles, memoirs, and interviews with people who had been children at the time. The arc of hubris and devastation made for compelling paintings and photographs and a documentary (produced in 1936 and available online). There is an LT list "Books That Made Me Cry", with the usual suspects: Charlotte's Web, Flowers for Algernon, Little Women. This book made me cry. The catastrophe was so utterly out-of-control self-inflicted, and the people who lived through it were so incredibly stoic and resilient and resourceful.

To be a bit petty: the book might have benefitted from another round of editing to organize both author and readers. It is arranged loosely chronologically, but with facts scattered about, so I sometimes had trouble connecting the dots. The historical overview is mixed together with different people in different places, and no bold labels other than chapter headings, so if a question arose I was unsure where to look for an answer. This is merely a minor complaint. A sign of an engaging book is that I want to know more than it could possibly convey in 300 pages.

20banjo123
Feb. 5, 2012, 8:14 pm

Great review! The Worst Hard Time is now on my TBR.

21sgtbigg
Feb. 6, 2012, 10:55 pm

I have The Devil in Dover on my tbr pile. After reading your review I'll be moving it closer to the top.

22rebeccanyc
Feb. 7, 2012, 6:05 pm

Sounds fascinating!

23qebo
Bearbeitet: Feb. 19, 2012, 10:56 pm

24qebo
Bearbeitet: Feb. 29, 2012, 10:01 pm



#6: The Creation by E. O. Wilson -- (Feb 22)

"Science and religion are the two most powerful forces of society. Together they can save the Creation."

This short (175 p) book begins with a letter to a Southern Baptist Pastor, a fixture of E. O. Wilson's childhood in Alabama, with a plea to set aside differences and find common ground to save the biodiversity of earth. "You are well prepared to present the theological and moral arguments for saving the Creation. ... I will now lay before you and others who may wish to hear it the scientific argument." And so he does, addressing the hypothetical Pastor briefly in each chapter, but speaking as a scientist. I would have preferred a dialogue, a demonstration of this common cause. And yet Wilson can be religious in tone, more so than usual in this book.

Humanity went wrong in the neolithic, he says, a bit hyperbolically, or evoking religious imagery. "We strayed from nature with the beginning of civilization roughly ten thousand years ago. That quantum leap beguiled us with an illusion of freedom from the world that had given us birth." ... "We have been trying ever since to ascend from Nature instead of to Nature. The consequence is both bewildering complexity of scientific knowledge, and dangerous ignorance of the biodiversity that sustains us.

The effects of our presence are summarized by the acronym HIPPO, and fleshed out with statistics and examples:
H : habitat loss
I : invasive species
P : pollution
P : population
O : overharvesting

What to do? He outlines a program of biology, "broadly applied" and "exactly guided". "Scientists are to science what masons are to cathedrals." Biology has three dimensions: (1) each species, from its molecular composition to its place in an ecosystem, (2) mapping biological diversity in a range from local habits to the entire planet (3) reconstructing the history of each species, gene, ecosystem. This is an enormous agenda. Currently, resources are skewed toward the molecular and cellular level and medical applications, toward the "explorer-naturalists of a new age" investigating microscopic ecosystems. The rest, however, is nowhere near complete. He proposes an Encyclopedia of Life, with a web page for each species, with information about its genetic code, its ecological niche, its geographic distribution, its relevance to humans. (The Encyclopedia of Life (http://eol.org/) now exists, created in response to a TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/e_o_wilson_on_saving_life_on_earth.html).) And this is not an ivory tower enterprise; enthusiasm and involvement of the public are essential to the cause, and focus of the chapter Citizen Science. (Example: bioblitzes.)

This is E. O. Wilson, so of course there are ants. Mystery ant #1: During the 1500s, a series of ant plagues in the the West Indies wreaked havoc on gardens and orchards. (Bartolomé de las Casas believed this was God's punishment for mistreating the Taino.) Which species of ant? And why then? This is a tale of invasive species, but the ants were already there. Mystery ant #2: The pitchfork ant has jaws that inspired its name. What are they for? An appeal in Notes from Underground got an answer. "There is nothing more satisfying to younger scientists than showing up older ones."

Alarming and sweet, and recommended.

25rebeccanyc
Feb. 29, 2012, 10:47 am

Interesting review of the Wilson book. I"m somewhat familiar with the Encyclopedia of Life -- there are several versions of this project. Have read Wilson in the past and find he can be a little didactic, but he's a great man not just in his field but in the broader world.

26qebo
Bearbeitet: Feb. 29, 2012, 10:03 pm



#7: Universalism 101 by Richard Trudeau -- (Feb 26)

I read this because I've been attending the local UU church in recent months, and one of the ministers held a series of chapter by chapter (loosely, with many digressions) discussion sessions.

Summary / review pending.

27qebo
Feb. 29, 2012, 10:20 pm

28lauralkeet
Mrz. 1, 2012, 7:58 am

>26 qebo:: no pressure, but I'm interested to hear more about that one!

29qebo
Mrz. 1, 2012, 1:35 pm

28: This weekend maybe... It's a short book about things I didn't know, so I want to get the gist organized / summarized.

30msf59
Mrz. 9, 2012, 9:11 pm

Katherine- Outstanding review of The Worst Hard Time. This was a perfect NNF for me and was my top read of last year. I also have his book, The Big Burn lined up on audio. I hope to get to it in the next few weeks.

31qebo
Mrz. 9, 2012, 10:33 pm

30: I have The Big Burn too, don't know when I'll get to it. Semi-obligatory books plus RL keep inserting themselves into the queue.

32qebo
Mrz. 31, 2012, 11:56 pm



#9: God's Philosophers by James Hannam -- (Mar 9)

This was a group read (http://www.librarything.com/topic/132041). I began too ambitiously, taking notes along the way. About midway through, I entered more familiar territory, and also wanted to move on with my life, so stopped with the notes.

To be continued...

33qebo
Mrz. 31, 2012, 11:57 pm



#10: Scientific American - October 2011 -- (Mar 18)

This link leads to... nothing just yet.

34qebo
Mrz. 31, 2012, 11:57 pm



#11: The Riddle of Amish Culture by Donald Kraybill -- (Mar 26)

I read this for a series of talks by a ex-Amish man, who appreciates its accuracy while criticizing the author's role as a filter and a buffer, presenting and protecting the Amish. The book is sociological in tone, organized by theme, with occasional quotes but mostly impersonally academic, informative but not immersive. It begins with a chapter on Anabaptist history: the separation of Amish and Mennonite (to shun or not to shun), and divisions among the Amish (house worship or meetinghouse worship, rejection or acceptance of technology). It ends with a chapter summarizing the regulation of social change, the considerations behind decisions. In between are chapters portraying the Amish as a dynamic community, entwined with, and continuously negotiating with, the outside world. A cultural ideal is Gelassenheit, a word that can be translated as yielding to a higher authority, submission, humility, simplicity, contentment, a word that our speaker said he'd never heard among the Amish, though he accepts its meaning and importance. The immediate authority is the bishop and the Ordnung. School stops after 8th grade, with an additional "vocational" year in concession to legal requirements. Independent thinking is not esteemed. To the outside observer, change is not glaringly apparent, but it occurs. Electricity is limited to batteries, but much can be done with pneumatic and hydraulic power, there is no lack of mechanical creativity in converting modern farm equipment for use with the symbolically essential horse, and people are always nudging the boundaries. Under economic pressure, the Amish have been shifting from agriculture to business. All is presented straightforwardly and unsentimentally, though generally with a positive spin from the perspective of the Amish. In this context, the riddles / puzzles / paradoxes became irritating: why calculators but not computers? why scooters but not bicycles? why is it OK to ride in a car but not own one? as if a tourist brochure got stirred into textbook. Still, it's not for nothing that the author is the go-to guy for everything Amish.

35qebo
Mrz. 31, 2012, 11:57 pm



#12: The Leafcutter Ants by Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson -- (Mar 30)

This book is a spinoff from The Superorganism, which I haven't read. The context might've been helpful. 100 years ago, entomologist William Morton Wheeler described an ant colony as an organism: the queen is the reproductive organ, the workers are the supportive tissue, the exchange of food and liquid is the circulation system. As an analogy this was provocative but limited, and fell apart in the details. Since then though, increasing knowledge about both organisms and colonies has led to increasing acceptance of the superorganism as a level of biological organization. The question of general interest for biology is the similarities, the joint rules and algorithms, arising between morphogenesis and sociogenesis. The leafcutter ants are an example. This book summarizes research on leafcutter life cycle, castes, communication, agricultural activity, and symbiotic relationship between the ants and the fungus they cultivate. The photos are gorgeous. The illustrations by Margaret Nelson are striking. There's an evolutionary tree of fungus tending ants, which arose 50-60 million years ago. There's a diagram of the ant brain. The text, alas, after a promising start, is jargony (e.g. The sound comes from a stridulatory organ, composed of a cuticular file on the first gastric tergite and a scraper situated on the postpetiole.), culled from journal articles and often more tedious than illuminating. So don't get too caught up in the minutiae of the text; the book is worthwhile for its other features.

36mabith
Apr. 1, 2012, 5:52 pm

>34 qebo: - I'll have to put that on my to-read list. I went to boarding school in an area with a lot of Amish farms and it was always really bizarre to see them in places like Dollar General. I think if you're going to have rules like that about technology it should also apply to inventions like plastic.

It was also interesting since there were still some Mennonites in the area, plus a few plain dress Quakers and a lot of conservative Quakers, so there was a weird mixture of bonding and clashing with each other and the townies.

37qebo
Apr. 1, 2012, 8:41 pm

36: Well, that's because your agenda is different from theirs. :-) Someone who works at the downtown visitor center suggests that people who want to see the Amish without driving out into the county should go to Costco.

38kidzdoc
Apr. 1, 2012, 9:40 pm

>37 qebo: Someone who works at the downtown visitor center suggests that people who want to see the Amish without driving out into the county should go to Costco.

They could also go to the Reading Terminal Marketplace in Center City Philadelphia; there are a couple of Amish stores in there.

39qebo
Bearbeitet: Apr. 15, 2012, 9:41 pm



#13: Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy -- (Apr 8)

Forget the exotic Amazon rainforest; we've got trouble here at home, with expanding swaths of suburban lawns and alien plants. What's wrong with alien plants? Native plants evolved over eons within a balanced ecosystem: plants feed bugs feed birds, etc. Alien ornamentals were often brought here precisely because they do not attract native bugs. This is a problem for two reasons: alien plants whose growth is unchecked by bugs may outcompete native plants, and without support for native bugs the rest of the ecosystem collapses. Why don't native bugs switch to alien plants? The chemicals are different, and bugs are typically constrained to particular leaf chemicals, either as adults or for depositing eggs and nourishing larvae. What to do? The author advocates the title of the book: gradually repairing the ecosystem, suburban lot by suburban lot, adding native plants or replacing alien plants, and shrinking sterile lawns. Half the book is two sections: native trees, ranked by the number of lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) species hosted, and native bugs, with descriptions of life cycles and host plants. One tree or bug per page, accompanied by photos. The author is an entomologist whose focus is the local ecosystem, and he happens to live about 50 miles from me, so his local is my local. An appendix lists native plants in all regions of the US, but without photos or further information. The author also happens to have a 10 acre lot to work with, so he can casually plant multiple trees. I'm in the city, my yard is 1/40 acre, and a single tree would be the end of it. Still, this is an enlightening and useful book, more consciousness raising than pragmatic how-to. I've never had a yard before, I'm new to gardening, and I've begun with whatever the garden center provides. Now I will be more cautious and discriminating.

40rebeccanyc
Apr. 8, 2012, 7:20 pm

I have that book too, but I left it up at my family's house upstate last summer after reading just a few pages. I am NOT a gardener, but I'm interested in native plants and ecosystems, so I look forward to at least dipping into it when I'm back up there this summer.

41qebo
Apr. 9, 2012, 2:40 pm

I am now trying to get pragmatic about what to plant this spring, and discovering it's not a trivial matter. I have a few gardening books for Pennsylvania / Mid-Atlantic, but the plants described are ones that grow here, and may be native or not, a fact which may be mentioned or not. Bringing Nature Home lists native species in the appendix, but without descriptions. There's information on the internet, but not neatly packaged with details and photos and such, so it's seeming necessary to research plants one by one. Urgh.

42mabith
Apr. 9, 2012, 3:25 pm

If you search "plants native to Pennsylvania" in Google, you get some good resources on the first page.

http://www.wildflower.org/collections/collection.php?collection=PA - with this one (which is more than just wildflowers, includes trees, bushes, and grasses) you get a thumbnail image for almost every entry on the list, and descriptions plus all the images when you click on the scientific name.

43qebo
Apr. 9, 2012, 4:05 pm

Yeah, that's about what I did. The UT wildflower site is good for photos, less clear about what is native to PA (it notes native to US, and suitable for planting in PA).

http://www.pennystone.com/plants/index.php
http://www.amazon.com/Pennsylvania-Native-Plants-Perennials-Habitat/dp/061560641...
This seems thorough re PA native plants, but w/o photos. The associated book looks much like the web site.

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/subject/advcoun/stormwater/Manual_DraftJan05/Appe...
This is tabular format w/ a column for "wildlife value".

These are the most useful I've found. Also there are specialty seed companies. And a few localish nurseries specializing in native plants, but skewed toward trees, which makes sense, because trees are what people don't want to grow from seeds.

I'm working on a small scale, largest area is about 15'x20', most others 2'x or 3'x or 4'x strips, and some of those get little sun. I'm not seeing much correlation between lists of PA natives and the seeds I've picked up in local stores. So, work to do, and maybe I should aspire to choose one or two plants to begin with, and add others over time.

44lauralkeet
Apr. 10, 2012, 7:51 am

>42 mabith:, 43: very helpful links. We are creating a new garden space in our back yard, a combination of decorative (shrubs & flowers), and functional (fruit, veg & herbs).

45qebo
Apr. 10, 2012, 8:18 am

Oh, nice. I'll be interested to see reports of decisions and progress. And photos. :-)

46lauralkeet
Apr. 10, 2012, 8:25 am

>45 qebo:: yes, I'll have to do that on my thread. First step is paying some landscapers to create the space -- beds, paths, and hardscaping. The hubster is itching to get planting but it's not quite ready for that yet.

47qebo
Apr. 10, 2012, 8:44 am

I'm in the prep stages too. Just as well. I know people who planted in March this year because winter was so mild, but generally it's iffy until May. Last weekend I marked spots for seeds, but I'm exercising patience...

48qebo
Bearbeitet: Apr. 21, 2012, 10:42 pm

This morning I spent a few hours removing invasive plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliaria_petiolata) from a local park, and was talking with one of the organizers, who mentioned that he's hoping to get Douglas Tallamy here to speak. He mentioned also a recent article in the local newspaper about native plants. (I'd missed it. Why? Because it was in the _sports_ section.) The article (http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/627771_A-birds-and-bees-challenge.html) is about Pennsylvania Pollinator Friendly Garden Certification, whose application includes a handy list of appropriate native plants (http://ento.psu.edu/publications/Pollinator%20Certification.pdf) and links to a list of butterfly host plants (http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/uh139.pdf).

49lauralkeet
Apr. 21, 2012, 9:15 pm

>48 qebo:: ooh, thanks for those links! We're beginning to populate our garden now (went to Groff's Plant Farm in Kirkwood this morning -- only 40 min from Lancaster btw). I definitely want a butterfly-friendly garden!

50qebo
Mai 8, 2012, 2:54 pm

Searching for Pennsylvania native plant information today, I found a nursery dedicated to the cause and only 30 miles away: http://www.sugarbushnursery.com/whyNatives.htm. Not a casual trip, so I'll need to plan ahead, but better than trying to figure out what's what at the main local nursery.

I'm not reading much these days. Otherwise occupied: http://www.librarything.com/topic/136710.

51qebo
Mai 20, 2012, 2:15 pm



#14: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick -- (Apr 21)

Thorough detailed history of the interaction between native tribes and arriving Europeans, comparing the period of the Mayflower when cultural and political interdependency was established and tended, with the period 50 years later when the balance was tipped and King Philip's War erupted. This is not good guys vs bad guys, but negotiations and alliances, with focus on relatively few people. IMO, the Mayflower period was fascinating, King Philip's War too much play by play that obscured the big picture, overall well worth reading, skimming or skipping the tedious bits.

52qebo
Bearbeitet: Jun. 20, 2012, 6:10 pm



#16: James Tiptree, Jr. by Julie Philips -- (May 2)

James Tiptree Jr. emerged in science fiction magazines in the late 1960s, and maintained correspondence and friendships with other authors, who were aware that the name was manufactured, but not aware that he was really she, Alice Bradley Sheldon. This biography traces Alice Sheldon's life, year by year from 1915 to 1987, and although 50 years and half the book go by before the critical point is reached, the life was so complex, and the biography is so well researched and psychologically astute, that it is never remotely plodding or tedious; it constructs layer by layer. The gender change was not a surface distraction, but a consequence of a deeply embedded set of concerns, personal and social. If spoilers are an issue, be warned that several story plots are described. The effect on me was increased interest; I had been only vaguely aware of James Tiptree Jr.

53qebo
Bearbeitet: Jun. 20, 2012, 6:10 pm



#17: Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes -- (May 19)

As the subtitle says, a year on the lawn in suburban Portland ME. Organized by season, with chapters focused on and digressing from a family of crows, an opportunistic chipmunk, the miniature world of bugs, chemical communication of trees. Anecdotal and entertaining, with a serious side of ecology and climate change, and bits of information from science studies scattered throughout. One takeaway: the Freedom Lawn.

54tropics
Mai 20, 2012, 4:18 pm

Qebo: Thanks for taking the time to write these great reviews. I was charmed by Suburban Safari. Here in the Sonoran desert (with native, drought-tolerant plants in our yard) we are blessed with never having to listen to (or operate) a lawnmower. There are times, though, when I miss the camellias, azaleas, and Japanese maples left behind in Oregon.

55banjo123
Mai 20, 2012, 4:49 pm

Thanks for the reviews! I really like James Tiptree, Jr--she is one of the few SF writers whose books I kept after my youthful SF interest waned.

56qebo
Mai 20, 2012, 7:36 pm

54: I lived in Tucson briefly nearly 30 years ago, was weirded out that people would plant geraniums in a ring around the saguaro cactus, and flood patches of lawn like rice paddies, so I'd take long walks in search of yards with native plants.

57qebo
Mai 20, 2012, 7:44 pm

55: Seems that Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is the collection to read. I'm not much for short stories -- just when I'm getting engaged it ends -- but with the context of the biography I'll give these a shot. What stood out that you've hung onto her books?

58qebo
Bearbeitet: Jun. 20, 2012, 6:11 pm



#18: The Tree of Life by Peter Sis -- (May 20)
About Darwin.



#19: Starry Messenger by Peter Sis -- (May 20)
About Galileo.

Yes they are non-fiction. The rationale is that I've stalled on a group read of On The Origin of Species (http://www.librarything.com/topic/133601) and was hoping to be inspired to get back to it... and then I read the other for comparison. I like Darwin better, can't fully disentangle this from the books, but the Darwin book has excerpts from his Beagle notebooks, with drawings of bugs and plants and peculiar animals and fossils, and the Galileo book merely has sketches of the moon and also Italy has too many colors.

59banjo123
Mai 20, 2012, 10:24 pm

I love the covers from the Sis books.

I think that Tiptree balances good writing, and speculation on both science and culture in a way that was unusual for the time.

60qebo
Bearbeitet: Jun. 20, 2012, 6:11 pm



#20: White Bread by Aaron Bobrow-Strain -- (May 24)

Early Reviewer (January)

Before 1900, most bread was baked by women at home. By 1930, most bread was baked by men in factories. Commercial bakeries were initially small and "associated with poverty rather than affluence", cutting costs by adding plaster or chalk or borax to flour, exploiting employees with long hours in inadequate ventilation; lung disease was rampant. The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis was intended to outrage the public about treatment of immigrants in the meat packing industry, but instead it frightened the public about germs in food, and partially as a consequence the Pure Food and Drug Act became law in 1906. Mechanizing bread production was not simple: "Imagine how crazy it would have made Henry Ford if his Model T parts shrank or grew with slight variations in temperature, collapsed in air drafts, deflated after minor production delays, and depended on fickle microbes for energy. Before bakeries could become mass-production assembly lines, bread's living nature would have to be tamed." As mass manufacture became feasible, advertisements stressed the sanitary conditions of government inspected factories, and the cleanliness of bread untouched by human hands. What about exposure to microbes during delivery? Solution: wrap the bread. How to tell whether the hidden bread is fresh? Solution: softness as proxy for freshness. But soft bread is difficult to slice with a dull knife. Solution: the invention of sliced bread.

The author states: "This isn't really a book about the history of bread. It's a book about what happens when dreams of good society and fears of social decay get tangled up in campaigns for 'good food.'" He traces bread as it is formed not only by technological innovations but by cultural pressures, as it is infused with vitamins for a nation at war, as it spreads through the world with the Green Revolution, as it is criticized by advocates of health food and other less savory "improvements" of body and mind, as it is enhanced with caramel coloring and wood pulp fiber to satisfy a revived preference for whole grain. He visits the epitome of the modern aesthetic, the best of both worlds: an "artisanal" factory, "an M. C. Escher optical illusion come to life"

The author has an eclectic background as baker and historian. The combination of personal anecdotes with academic context is engaging and informative. And, at 200 pages, unpretentious.

61mabith
Jun. 17, 2012, 7:16 pm

Ooh, definitely adding White Bread to my list. Sounds fascinating.

62qebo
Jun. 19, 2012, 5:37 pm

Oh good. It's a January ER book that arrived in March, and by then spring had sprung and my head was in a different place and I procrastinated on reading, and I haven't been devoting enough time to writing proper reviews... none of which is the fault of the author, so I'm glad I conveyed enough to interest others.

63qebo
Bearbeitet: Jun. 20, 2012, 6:12 pm



#21: The Man Who Planted Trees by Jim Robbins -- (May 29)

Early Reviewer (February)

The man who planted trees is David Milarch, alcoholic arm-wrestler whose near-death experience transformed the family tree nursery in Copemish Michigan into the Champion Tree Project. His goal is to clone trees of endangered and crucial species with the highest combined score of three measurements: height, crown size, trunk diameter. Are these genetically superior trees? Maybe or maybe not, but these are trees with proven ability to survive and thrive. Typically though, they are the oldest trees, and therefore the most difficult to clone.

Redemption, mysticism, adventure, ecology... never a dull moment in this tale of an intuitive obsession shaped by sobering science. Says the author: "If we are waiting for a team of distinguished scientists to issue a report warning that the world's forests are in crisis and recommending a ten-point plan to fix them, forget it. We have statistics of deforestation and fragmentation, and abundant information that is interspersed throughout the book: phytochemicals, phytoncides, endophytes, phytoremediation, the dense and varied ecosystems of tree canopies and tree roots, the attributes of bristlecone, oak, redwood, sequoia, willow, yew... We know enough to know how little we know, and enough to know that the planet is losing services that trees provide: cooling, carbon sequestering, water filtering. Says a doctor in the EcoHealth Alliance: "Any emerging disease in the last thirty or forty years has come about as a result of encroachment into forest." The author, as a result of research and interviews, shifted from thinking that "planting trees... is feel-good thing, a nice but feeble response to our litany of modern-day environmental problems" to thinking that "planting trees may be the single most important ecotechnology that we have to put the broken pieces of our planet back together."

David Milarch plants trees, but not haphazardly. Over twenty years, his project has devised techniques for cloning old trees, developed criteria for which trees should be planted where (emphasis on native and non-invasive), generated buzz and enough cash to keep going with the successful cloning of significant (both physically and emotionally) trees. A few years ago it acquired a philanthropist, Leslie Lee, who established the Arcangel Ancient Tree Archive, and a science advisor, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, whose bioplan guides the way.

This is a short book by a newspaper and magazine journalist, and it somewhat reads as articles pieced together, episodes with a common theme, not deeply technical. This is fine, more observation than criticism. It conveys the gist of the science, with a call to action and an inspiring example.

64Mr.Durick
Jun. 19, 2012, 7:41 pm

The Man Who Planted Trees is now on my Waiting-for-the-paperback wishlist. Thank you.

Robert

65qebo
Jun. 20, 2012, 6:14 pm



#15: Scientific American - November 2011 -- (Apr 30)

Oh, blast, I missed this one. I've gone back and renumbered.

66qebo
Jun. 20, 2012, 6:14 pm

67qebo
Jun. 20, 2012, 6:14 pm



#23: Drawing from Memory by Allen Say -- (Jun 7)

I propped open this graphic memoir on the dining room table when it arrived in the mail, and read a page or so each time I passed by on my way to/from the kitchen. Allen Say is an artist born in Japan in 1937. The story takes place mostly in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His parents divorced, his father remarried and took the children, and after a few years his mother's mother reclaimed the children and rewarded Allen with his own apartment when he passed the exam for acceptance into middle school at age 12. There he read in the newspaper that cartoonist Niro Shinpei had taken in a student, a 15 year old boy who had walked for two weeks to find him. Allen set out to find Noro Shinpei too, and did. The apprenticeship is described in words, and illustrated with drawings and photos, with practical and philosophical details about learning to draw, and hints of unrest in the surrounding post-war society. The story seemed rather spare and prosaic as I read it, but the author's note at the end, recounting his reunion with Noro Shinpei and family years later, conveys the intense emotion behind it. I surely missed things in a single pass through at sporadic moments.

68qebo
Jun. 20, 2012, 6:15 pm



#24: Plants: A Very Short Introduction by Timothy Walker -- (Jun 8)

This book is indeed short, and it is an introduction of sorts, but oddly so, because it covers basics (evolution, reproduction, dispersal, diversity, conservation) but casually inserts botanical jargon without emphasizing the text or providing a glossary. Also it begs and pleads in vain for illustrations. The black and white photographs aren't notably informative. The one useful diagram is of plant evolution, showing the major events and categories. The tone is conversational. (This may seem contradictory, but jargon isn't jargon if it's familiar. He is comfortable with his plants and observes them with affection.) For example, after describing five hurdles in evolution from water to land: "If these five problems are put together, it is possible to see that one way of solving them simply and simultaneously is to be a liverwort." I enjoyed reading it. I want to know more, and I may well reread sections of this book when the going gets tough elsewhere. I just wished for the conversation to be in reference to a visual representation.

69qebo
Jun. 20, 2012, 6:15 pm

70qebo
Jun. 25, 2012, 3:51 pm



#26: The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis -- (Jun 20)

A graphic memoir of Czechoslovakia. Fantastic illustrations, black and white and red for the external world, color for drawings and dreams, with inserts "from my journals", maturing from childhood indoctrination to adulthood resistance:
1963: "Colonel Jan Pixa was named a Hero of the Czech Socialist Republic for his ingenious plan for catching 'disturbers of the border', people trying to cross over to the West. He made a fake border so the 'bad guys' would think they had gotten through. When they saw the American flag and were greeted by secret service men disguised as American soldiers, they'd think they had reached the West. The defectors would tell the secret service everything they knew and name their friends. What a surprise when the defectors found out they weren't in the West after all and were going to prison for life. Colonel Pixa is a hero."
1977: "There is a whole science to learn about dealing with censors. You have to give them something to change. For instance, if you're making a film or a painting, or writing a book or a song, you put it in a big church. You can be sure the censors will tell you to take it out, and perhaps they won't notice the smaller, important things."
Odd: the journals are "I", the rest is "he".

71qebo
Jun. 30, 2012, 9:35 pm

72qebo
Jul. 7, 2012, 7:33 pm



#28: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey -- (Jul 7)

Reviews of this book intrigued me last year, so I noticed it in a publisher e-book promotion this week. The author, after several years of gradual recuperation from a mysterious disease, relapsed, and was confined to bed away from home, barely able to move. A friend brought her a pot of violets with a snail spontaneously plucked from the woods. The snail was Neohelix albolabris, a fact not stated until the end, but the image may enhance the reading. What does one do with a snail? Its slow pace and limited range turned out to be just the thing for watching from bed, caring for and caring about, as friends assist with appropriate habitat and food (FYI: snails like mushrooms). Who thinks about snails? Well, Darwin for one. From the acknowledgements: "I am also indebted to the nineteenth-century naturalists whose words enrich these pages. They observed every nuance of snail behavior, and their lyrical writings are unconstrained by today's more technical scientific language." The eating? Well, it has a crunchy sound, and produces squares in paper. Snails have a radula, a ribbon of teeth, thousands of teeth. The slime is quite something too. The debilitating disease is in the background but always present, a worry that somehow intensifies concern about the welfare of this insignificant creature, no moment to be cavalierly dismissed. Highly recommended.

73banjo123
Jul. 7, 2012, 8:02 pm

This sounds great--thanks for the review.

74mabith
Jul. 7, 2012, 8:13 pm

The snail book sounds wonderful. Definitely adding it to my list.

75kidzdoc
Jul. 7, 2012, 10:56 pm

Excellent review of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating! I see that the Kindle version is on sale for $1.99 in the US, so I've just purchased it.

76qebo
Jul. 7, 2012, 11:08 pm

75: Thanks. Yeah, the publisher does monthly e-book specials: http://www.algonquinbooksblog.com/blog/lucky-7-e-books-july/. (I posted the link on the 75er message board a few days ago too.) This month includes two by Amy Stewart, but I already have them.

77The_Hibernator
Jul. 8, 2012, 6:52 am

Woo-hoo! It's $1.99 on the Nook, too! I just bought it. :)

78Mr.Durick
Jul. 8, 2012, 3:56 pm

Me, too!

Robert

79qebo
Jul. 15, 2012, 4:54 pm

80Linda92007
Jul. 18, 2012, 9:21 am

Irresistible at $1.99! I wish Amazon had a better way of highlighting publisher promotions like this.

81qebo
Aug. 12, 2012, 6:29 pm

82qebo
Aug. 12, 2012, 6:30 pm



#31: Noah's Garden by Sarah Stein – (Jul 17)

This book occupies similar ground to Suburban Safari and Bringing Nature Home, less anecdotal than the former, less academic than the latter, engagingly and informatively combining personal experience and scientific research. The author bought a multi-acre plot of land, cleaned and tamed it into a garden, then realized the wildlife had disappeared. The process of restoration wasn’t a matter of returning it to a disrupted nature, but of strategically ungardening. ”I spent the following months studying awesomely complicated and almost incredible tales of how plants and animals run these entities we call ecosystems. Over the winter, I tried to translate this research into garden plans. I’ll save you the time and trouble: it doesn’t work. ... The Master Plan is too complicated for me or you – or, frankly, for the ecologists whose flashlights of observation tease me on – to write out, draw up, or even ever to comprehend fully. But, paradoxically, the Plan may not be so hard to follow. The general outlines are before us in the woodlands, thickets, meadows, marshes, and other ecosystems still to be found. ... As to the broad brush strokes of the Plan, we can certainly draw up lists of plant species that grow in these habitats. As for the fine details, I think we needn’t worry. This is a picture that, well started, will fill in itself.”

83qebo
Aug. 12, 2012, 6:30 pm

84qebo
Bearbeitet: Aug. 26, 2012, 10:25 am



#33: Stokes Butterfly Book by Donald Stokes and Lillian Stokes and Ernest Williams – (Aug 25)

This spring I began a native plant garden, and less than two months after getting everything in the ground, I’d acquired a monarch caterpillar on the milkweed. In a patch of weeds I removed everything that wasn’t a violet, the violets happily expanded to fill the space, and fritillary caterpillars appeared. I’ve gotten hooked on watching the caterpillars, and am contemplating how to expand the repertoire next year. This book is maybe not the “complete guide” it claims to be, but it covers the basics nicely, not for every butterfly in existence, but for the dozens that are typically around in the US. It has a section of life size butterfly photos for identification, a section of caterpillar photos, example plans of small and large butterfly gardens, a list of nectar plants and their bloom times, a list of caterpillar host plants, and a chapter on butterfly behavior. I mostly wanted it for the section on each butterfly family, which includes details about its behavior and preferences, a map of species range, and a table noting habitat, food, and time frame for life cycle stages. For the novice, a useful reference.

85qebo
Nov. 25, 2012, 6:42 pm



#34: Super Cooperators by Martin Nowak and Roger Highfield -- (Aug 27)

I read this because Martin Nowak is working with E. O. Wilson on modeling the evolution of ants and other eusocial insects, a project that occupies one chapter. He got hooked by the prisoner’s dilemma early in his career, and has been elaborating ever since, to illuminate social organization and behavior. The presentation is chronological with personal anecdotes. Alas, not as gripping as I’d hoped, maybe a consequence of coauthor Roger Highfield, a journalist and editor, whose role presumably was to nudge in the direction of popular science. Which is fine and the level I was seeking, but it seemed both technical specifics and individual voice were watered down.

I wrote approximately the above two months ago, and had intended to add more, but memory has faded, my page flags aren't triggering either insight or enthusiasm, and I need to move on. Sorry, I'm not doing justice to the book; it's pretty good, but my mind is elsewhere.

86qebo
Nov. 25, 2012, 6:46 pm



#35: The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto -- (Aug 31)

Read as something of a companion to Mayflower, because this is about Manhattan during the same time period. Also I have ancestry from the place and time. The thesis is that the Dutch colony of New Netherland introduced a strand of business-oriented multi-culturalism to America. Based on documents translated by the New Netherland Project.

More eventually...

87qebo
Nov. 25, 2012, 6:46 pm



#36: Scientific American – June 2012 – (Sep 6)

Not yet documented...

88qebo
Nov. 25, 2012, 6:46 pm



#37: Scientific American – July 2012 – (Sep ?)

Not yet documented...

89qebo
Nov. 25, 2012, 6:47 pm



#38: Darwin's Ghosts by Rebecca Stott -- (Sep 24)

Soon after the On the Origin of Species was published, Darwin received a letter that praised the book but accused him of failing to acknowledge predecessors and taking credit for ideas put forth by others. In response and agreement, Darwin composed an Historical Sketch of men “who believe in the modification of species, or at least disbelieve in separate acts of creation”, which accumulated more names with each subsequent edition, but it was indeed a sketch, based on notes and memory, not exhaustive research. This book adds biographical detail, in chronological order beginning with Aristotle and ending with Wallace, but the correlation is loose; it does not include everyone who was on Darwin’s list, and does include others who were not (a comparison table would’ve been handy). Aristotle, for example, was an error, mentioned because a town clerk had sent Darwin a passage that was actually a protoevolutionary quote from Empedocles, refuted by Aristotle who believed species were fixed and eternal. al-Jahiz, while fascinating, was not in Darwin’s scope, which focused on the 18th and 19th century Europe. Stott is connecting ideas through a longer span of history. I am currently reading On the Origin of Species, and names abound; Darwin read and corresponded widely, and describes the experiments and observations of others with appreciation and respect, but I would suppose him to be not so keen on philosophical speculation untethered to evidence. Stott includes a chapter on Robert Chambers, author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a compilation of transmutationist ideas from geology and botany and zoology published anonymously in 1844 and denounced as scandalous and heretical. Darwin devotes a paragraph for its “excellent service ... in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views”, but with reservations: “The author apparently believes that organisation progresses by sudden leaps, but that the effects produced by the conditions of life are gradual. He argues with much force on general grounds that species are not immutable productions. But I cannot see how the two supposed ‘impulses’ account in a scientific sense for the numerous and beautiful co-adaptations which we see throughout nature; I cannot see that we thus gain any insight how, for instance, a woodpecker has become adapted to its peculiar habits of life.”

I was expecting more emphasis on biology, and I’m not so entranced by colorful biographical accessories, so I perked up with the chapters on Abraham Tremblay’s polyps and Robert Grant’s sponges, and was mildly disappointed otherwise. I can see though that the task was not simple, to organize Darwin’s list of significant thinkers and bit players into a narrative strand. And the history really was a combination of tangible discoveries and speculative ideas floating in the air, each influencing the other. If the book is approached as inspired by, rather than as a complete account of, Darwin’s list, it is an engaging introduction.

For the record, a bibliography of works cited in On the Origin of Species Historical Sketch: http://until-darwin.blogspot.com/2012/09/digital-bibliography-for-works-cited-in... .

90qebo
Nov. 25, 2012, 6:55 pm

Over the summer I got hooked on caterpillars and butterflies...
http://www.librarything.com/topic/136710
http://www.librarything.com/topic/140411
http://www.librarything.com/topic/141676
... and book reviews suffered. I'll cut my losses at the end of the year, but until then I'm making an effort to catch up...

91qebo
Dez. 2, 2012, 7:31 pm



#39: The Mystery of Metamorphosis by Frank Ryan – (Sep 30)

I read this book because I got hooked by caterpillars over the summer, googled for information about metamorphosis into butterflies, and ... OMG, the process is incredible! This book is about the scientific investigation of metamorphosis, focused on two men: Vincent Wigglesworth in the 1930s and Don Williamson in the 1980s. It is neither a comprehensive history nor a comprehensive account of current knowledge, but it combines elements of both into a fascinating narrative story. (Note: I have no educational background in biology, I am merely a casually interested layperson, so please assume that any errors in this summary are my misinterpretation, not the author’s.)

Vincent Wigglesworth, an entomologist whose career began with investigating relationships between the physiology of insects and the spread of tropical diseases, wondered about the evolution from incomplete to complete metamorphosis. The fossil record shows that insect metamorphosis did not evolve from marine arthropod metamorphosis. The protective exoskeleton of insects is composed of chitin, which is derived from mucoproteins (such as the slime of slugs), and strengthened by the protein sclerotin. Growth occurs by molting. The more primitive insects change size but not form, and do not have wings. Among the most ancient insects with wings, dragonflies undergo incomplete metamorphosis, with buds on the outer surface of nymphs developing into wings on adults, and no larval or pupal stage. In the complete metamorphosis of beetles, bees, butterflies, etc, the wings develop internally. Complete metamorphosis had been associated with imaginal disks, discovered in mid 1700s and investigated in the mid 1800s, determined to be active in the pupal stage when the larva is liquified and reconstructed into an adult. Wigglesworth was aware of variations and exceptions, and not convinced of the unique role of imaginal disks. What if the key mechanisms of metamorphosis were an extension of molting? What if the pupa had evolved to fill the gap between increasingly divergent stages of larva and adult? His experimental subject was the kissing bug (Rhodnius prolixus), which undergoes incomplete metamorphosis in five nymphal stages, with the most significant changes occurring throughout the body in the final molt. Sudden universal changes implied a signal, and the most likely candidate was a hormone. In a series of gruesome experiments involving beheadings and surgical conjoinings, he determined that the corpus allatum gland produced an inhibiting hormone in the first four stages (this is now known as the juvenile hormone, and is found across insect families); the molting hormone came from... where? This question was answered by Carroll Williams, who was studying diapause in silkworm moths (Hyalophora cecropia). As soon as the caterpillar spins a cocoon, cell activity ceases. When spring arrives, metamorphosis begins. Another series of gruesome experiments, with chilled brains transplanted to parts of severed bodies, established three components to metamorphosis: a hormone secreted by the prothoractic gland, a master hormone secreted by the brain, the absence of a hormone secreted by the corpus allatum gland. The molting process is now known to be this: neurosecretory cells in the brain send signals along nerves to the neurohaemal organs / corpora cardiaca (located near the corpora allata), which release prothoracicotropic hormone, which is carried by the bloodstream to the prothoracic gland, and stimulates production of the ecdysone, which triggers molting. This is the simplified version. I’m including scientific jargon because I want search terms. The jargon is peripheral and not a concern; I ignored it while I was reading. What comes through are people keenly curious about nature.

Don Williamson, a marine biologist who specialized in plankton, was intrigued by anomalies. In classic evolutionary theory, each developmental stage of the life cycle (egg, embryo, larva, adult) is modified by natural selection. A starfish, for example, swims as a larva at the ocean surface for wide dispersion, but settles as an adult on the ocean floor for predation. The developmental stages, though, do not always flow nicely from one to another; for example, the symmetry of an animal may change from bilateral to radial. He constructed and compared evolutionary trees based on larval forms and adult forms, and they did not precisely coincide; larval forms of one lineage sometimes appeared in another, as if somehow transferred. Nonsense, he thought for years, and then he decided to take the idea seriously, as a hypothesis of “larval transfer”. This though was not an explanation; he needed a mechanism and experimental evidence. The only plausible mechanism was hybridization, producing offspring by mating different species. He chose animals even more distantly related, from different phyla: crustaceans and echinoderms, eggs from shrimp (Gammarus dubeni), which are bilaterally symmetrical, and sperm from sea urchins (Echinus esculentus), which are radially symmetrical. He could see development through a microscope, but most of the hybrid eggs did not survive beyond a few days, and none hatched. Recognizing difficulties, he reconsidered, and focused on sea squirts (Ascidia mentula), in the phylum of urochordates. Sea squirts are bilaterally symmetrical at all stages, but the larva does not gradually transform into the adult; instead, the adult grows inside a tadpole larva, with two nervous systems and two brains coexisting until one is destroyed. Sea urchins develop similarly; the adult grows inside a pluteus larva. Williamson fertilized eggs from sea squirts with sperm from sea urchins. Some larvae developed to the radially symmetrical pluteus stage, remarkable because sea squirt eggs would normally develop into bilaterally symmetrical tadpoles, but no further. In 1985, he wrote a paper proposing that anomalies in the evolutionary tree might be explained by the transfer of genetic material from one branch to another, and submitted it to several journals, but it was too much at odds with standard theory for publication. In 1987, it was accepted to a journal on oceanography, whose editor had also been puzzled by larval forms and the assignment of taxonomic relationships. In 1988, it found its way to Lynn Margulis, whose theory of endosymbiosis had initially been rejected by established forces, and whose sympathies as a consequence were with iconoclasts. Doors opened. Over the years, a smattering of biologists have been interested enough to give the idea a public airing and considered response, and to attempt repeat experiments. The theory of larval transfer is quite possibly (probably?) wrong. And yet, much about metamorphosis remains unexplained. The story is compellingly told, with the twists and turns of a struggle for understanding, and the appropriate caution.

92banjo123
Dez. 3, 2012, 2:11 pm

Great review, thanks! I have wish-listed this. I want to read more about science next year, and I was thinking of focussing on evolution.

BTW, I imagine you have read The Beak of the Finch? It's also a book that really highlights the process of scientific inquiry.

93qebo
Bearbeitet: Dez. 3, 2012, 4:29 pm

92: I imagine you have read The Beak of the Finch?
Hmm, actually I have not. Onto the wishlist. I was absolutely smitten by another of his books, Time, Love, Memory about experiments with fruit flies.

94banjo123
Dez. 4, 2012, 1:16 am

And now I have Time, Love, memory on my wish list. :)

95qebo
Dez. 23, 2012, 6:59 pm

It's getting to be time for a 2013 thread, but I'm still working on 2012... Once the Christmas prep is done, I'll have time.

96qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:30 pm



#40: Fifty Acres and a Poodle by Jeanne Marie Laskas -- (Oct 13)

Urbanites buy a scenic farm. Sweet and funny.

97qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:30 pm



#41: Scientific American – August 2012 – (Oct 15)

Not yet documented...

98qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:31 pm



#42: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch

For those of us who don’t remember what we went down to the basement for... optimism about middle age, defined here as 40-68.

99qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:31 pm



#43: Milkweed, Monarchs, and More by Ba Rea and Karen Oberhauser and Michael Quinn -- (Oct 19)

A field guide to the milkweed patch and the critters who reside there or pass through, aimed at the classroom level, with bugs organized by classification order and family, identifying photos, brief descriptions of notable features and life cycles, and tags indicating roles of predator, parasite, herbivore, nectivore, scavenger. A helpful place to start, focused on one context rather than a catalogue of everything.

100qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:32 pm



#44: Scientific American – September 2012 – (Oct 20)

Not yet documented...

101qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:33 pm

102qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:34 pm



#46: The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs -- (Nov 6)

Part gimmick, part sincere, humorous and serious. A. J. Jacobs culls 700+ rules from the Bible (RSV, though he collects alternatives for reference) and vows to follow them for a year, September through August. All of them, simultaneously, though he focuses on one at a time, and splits the year into eight months of Old Testament and four months of New Testament. ”How can these ethically advanced rules and these bizarre decrees be found in the same book? And not just the same book. Sometimes the same page. The prohibition against mixing wool and linen comes right after the command to love your neighbor. It’s not like the Bible has a section called ‘And Now for Some Crazy Laws’. They’re all jumbled up like a chopped salad.” How do Christians and Jews determine which rules matter? There’s a distinction between moral and ritual, with a murky gray area. There’s an exemption for only in the destroyed Temple of Jerusalem, or only in Israel. There will be no exemptions for him. Well, maybe one. ”Today marks the twenty-sixth time I’ve been asked whether I’m going to sacrifice Jasper during my biblical year. No, I say politely, only Abraham was commanded to do that."

He follows the rules that have dropped from common practice. Surely nobody else in America cares about the ban on wearing clothes with mixed fibers? Turns out there’s an expert shatnez tester, who arrives with a microscope, and whose joy and “high” is saving people from breaking commandments. Surely ten string harps are obsolete? Turns out they’re available on eBay. ”When will it sink into my skull that there is no such thing as an obscure Bible verse?” His wife endures the voluminous beard. ”Julie wanted to go to Halloween with me as Tom Hanks from Cast Away and her as the volleyball, but I can’t do Halloween because it’s a pagan holiday.” But when he cannot sit on a chair that has been occupied by a menstruating woman, she sits on every chair in the house, and he has to carry a folding chair that remains pure.

He follows the rules that endure. He makes an effort to speak Biblically, which ”requires requires a total switch in the content of my conversation: no lying, no complaining, no gossiping”, and becomes aware of how often and how easily he slips. He prays. ”A spiritual update: I’m still agnostic, but I do have some progress to report on the prayer front. I no longer dread prayer. And sometimes I’m even liking it. I’ve gone so far as to take the training wheels off and am testing out some of my own prayers instead of just repeating passages from the Bible.” Of the four types outlined by his friend the “pastor out to pasture” (Adoration – Confession – Thanksgiving – Supplication) he is most comfortable with thanksgiving. Later he extends to praying for others: ”I still can’t wrap my brain around the notion that God would change His mind because we ask Him to. And yet I still love these prayers. To me they’re moral weight training. Every night I pray for others for ten minutes. ... It’s ten minutes where it’s impossible to be self-centered.”

His perspective changes. After 6 months: ”Here, at the halfway mark of my journey, I’ve had an unexpected mental shift. I feel closer to the ultrareligious New Yorkers than I do the secular. The guy with the fish on his bumper sticker. The black man with the kufi. The Hasidim with their swinging fringes. They are my compatriots. They think about God and faith and prayer all the time, just like I do.” After 12 months: “The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion. It’s not just moderates. Fundamentalists do it too. They can’t heap everything onto their plate. ... But the more important lesson was this: there’s nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren’t bad per se. ... The key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones.”

As an apatheistic agnostic, I’m a poor judge of irreverence, but this book was recommended by a conservative Christian acquaintance who considers it respectful. It is funny in a foibles of human nature sort of way, lightening a serious reminder that daily attention and habit can have profound effects.

103qebo
Dez. 24, 2012, 5:35 pm



#47: Scientific American – October 2012 – (Nov 20)

Not yet documented...

104qebo
Bearbeitet: Dez. 25, 2012, 10:15 pm



#48 : Future Perfect by Steven Johnson – (Dec 1) – Early Reviewers

Where does progress come from, and how can we create more of it? The book begins with the Miracle on the Hudson, the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 by Chesley Sullenberger, and without diminishing heroism, credits a series of incremental safety improvements, beginning with the chicken gun, which simulates the collision of birds with aircraft.

We tend to think that progress comes from the market, but it also comes from the public sector and social forces. It may involve technology, but even more it involves organizing information and resources. The internet is a role model rather than a solution. An emerging movement of “peer progressives” seeks distributed contributions rather than a centralized plan from the hierarchical structures of big business or big government. This has implications for the future of both capitalism and democracy.

Examples:
* Save the Children staff who sought “positive deviants” in a Vietnamese village to understand the behavior patterns that allowed some families to thrive despite the norm of malnutrition, and encouraged amplification through existing communication channels.
* Kickstarter crowdfunding of projects and causes, an example of the “gift economy”.
* X Prize Foundation, which sponsors prize-backed challenges whose goals emerge from a multilayered process.
* 311 system of New York, where citizens can call to request information or report problems, which are tagged and categorized and mapped so the city can set priorities and allocate resources effectively.

This is a short, breezy, optimistic book describing a single idea, well illustrated with examples. It could probably have been consolidated into a magazine essay, but the extra is pleasant reading.

105rebeccanyc
Dez. 25, 2012, 8:14 am

Nice catch-up. I felt reassured by The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, although now I only remember why I did, and not the details!

106qebo
Dez. 25, 2012, 12:51 pm



#49: Thank God for Evolution by Michael Dowd – (Dec 6)

I read this because the author is scheduled to speak locally, and an acquaintance led a book discussion.

The author was “born again” in his late teens and rejected evolution as a package deal, then attended an evangelical university where he discovered that evolution is accepted by actual Christians. Fast forward, apparently some decades, he has married and raised children and divorced and meets an atheist science journalist at a conference. They marry, decide to evangelize evolution together, and travel the country with a van decal of a Jesus fish kissing a Darwin fish. This summarizes the first few pages of the prologue, and next is the introduction: ”Religious believers can hardly be expected to embrace evolution if the only version they’ve been exposed to portrays the processes at work as merely competitive and pointless, even cruel, and thus godless. Is it an wonder that many of the conservative side of the theological spectrum find such a view repulsive, and that many on the liberal side accept evolution begrudgingly?” This is page 7, and this is where the author lost me, because he is assuming a perspective of people from another planet. I get that countering is necessary, with nearly 50% of the US population rejecting evolution, but I became doubtful of the remaining 360 pages. I had hoped for more explanation of this perspective (what are people trying to hang onto?), not an assumption of its existence. I confess that I skimmed at times.

The gist is a conversion of evolution from blind chance into meaningful story, and it begins with a succinct description of natural selection. Which has been around for, oh, 150 years or so, and has been repeatedly deliberately dishonestly distorted. Grrr. OK, calm down, going with the flow here... The gist is optimism, evolution as Good News, the Great Story that includes all other stories. Evolution does not destroy God, it enhances God. God did not stop revealing truth 2000 years ago. All traditional religions must move away from literal interpretation, idol worship, of scripture tied to time and place, toward the “sacred commentary” of theories, which must submit to empirical facts, the revelation of God. The Universe can be trusted to unfold with increasing diversity and complexity and awareness. The Universe is creativity, a process of synergy and strife and challenges. In a Universe of emergent nested interdependent holons, God is the encompassing One, immanent not transcendent. Science is the “day language” of events and reason and public objectivity. Religion is the “night language” of meaning and reverence and private subjectivity. Both atheism and theism are embraced in the term “creatheism”. So I’m fine with this, elements of Teilhard de Chardin and Ken Wilber and panentheism and process philosophy, all of which make appearances in the book. Continuing on to concepts of Christianity, “the fall” and “original sin” and “personal salvation” are recast in terms of the quadrune brain, lizard and mammal and primate and human, in a manner that I found a bit too cutesy, but the author’s audience often includes children. I can imagine him as charismatic preacher, and am curious to see him in person.

Why does this matter? A chapter on sustainability brings it down to earth.

So I wanted a different book, and cannot fairly criticize the author for not providing it. I respect what he is aiming to do, and he does it well.

107qebo
Dez. 25, 2012, 12:51 pm



#50: Scientific American – November 2012 – (Dec 9)

Not yet documented...

108qebo
Dez. 25, 2012, 12:51 pm



#51: Scientific American – December 2012 – (Dec 20)

Not yet documented...

109qebo
Bearbeitet: Dez. 26, 2012, 7:47 pm



#52: On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin – (Dec 26)

I summarized chapters along the way (http://www.librarything.com/topic/133601), so I’ll keep the review short. This book is a classic for a reason, a thoroughly considered and methodically presented theory that ties together and explains an enormous range of facts. All life on earth is related by genealogical descent from one or few original organisms. This is seen in geological succession through time, geographical distribution in space, and morphological similarities of current and extinct organisms that are organized most sensibly into groups and subgroups. The recognition of variations within species, the observation that organisms produce far more offspring than can survive to reproduce, and the experience of developing domestic breeds from wild ancestors, all converge to support a conclusion that the mechanism of change is natural selection. As variations arise (by means as yet unknown), those that are more beneficial (in a context of habitat and other organisms) are maintained through generations, those that are less beneficial die out, and the population is gradually transformed. So simple, and yet so powerful. It is a pleasure to read as Darwin collects evidence from Mr This and Mr That, and conducts meticulous experiments of his own with plants and insects.