Book Review: Nonsense on Stilts

While I've been reading plenty of books recently, I haven't really sought to write reviews on them. Mainly because in terms of content I don't have the expertise to judge the content so I can only really say what I enjoyed about it and what I got out of it. Massimo Pigliucci's book Nonsense On Stilts is along those very lines, explaining the ability for there to be scientific knowledge and how as laypeople we can go about discerning it.

The necessity of this book should be self-evident. We live in a culture dominated by science, specialisation means prosperity at the same time as leaving people in the dark about the underlying explanations for all the things that make their life convenient. This is why I'm an advocate for science, I don't need to understand how a television works in order to know that it's a product of the scientific enterprise.

But being a science advocate is not enough, the authority that is given to science means that there are always going to be people trying to give their ideas the perception of scientific legitimacy. And to be able to "tell science from bunk" as the subtitle suggests, this requires an exploration of just what science is. For that, read the book.

Where I see the book's success is whether it's able to actually do what the subtitle suggests: "how to tell science from bunk". And on this I think in part it fails. The book starts out well, giving an account of the demarcation problem and explaining the contentions through both philosophical and empirical accounts. Then by contrasting practical examples of legitimate science, near-science and pseudoscience there was at least there were things to look out for. But where it fails is the admission at the end that really it comes down to expert domains and we as laypeople are meant to rest where the preponderance of experts rest.

This is an understandable position, but doesn't really tell us how to tell science from bunk. Instead it's consensus among experts that we should look for, but only in cases where expertise is relevant. The example in the book was Quantum Mysticism, where being an expert in nonsense isn't an expert at all. And this again requires some knowledge so one can see whether the relevant expertise takes it seriously - in this case it's the quantum mechanics experts. Not the ideal situation really, indeed I have seen pro-science types reject science they don't like because they don't consider that particular discipline of science is actually science.

So how do we tell science from bunk? For the most part we look to experts and see where the weight of expertise lies, which doesn't really solve the problem but tells us where to hedge our bets. But while this doesn't give us the ability to answer the question, it does frame questions of importance such as AIDS denial that does cause harm.


In the context of a sibling society where information is transmitted from person to person irrespective of expertise, being able to tell science from bunk is vitally important. Take something like alt-med, has great transmission from person to person yet very few of us are medical experts and / or have domain knowledge about what's on offer. From the ivory towers, medical researchers can proclaim that homoeopathy is bunk until the cows come home, but how does that help the average person?

We are drawn into discussion of ideas that are well beyond our own expertise because so much of what is science is also part of our lives. Luckily I don't have to render an opinion of the validity of nucleosynthesis much, but I do come across climate change deniers and creationists and adherents of SCAM* with claims passing from person to person left unchecked.

The need for such a book is because we are in a society where expertise is seldom part of the facilitation of ideas. Where is the medical expert when someone talks about SCAM? Where is the evolutionary biologist to step in when a creationist dismisses biology, or the climatologist to counter those arguments against climate change?

As individuals we need to be able to tell science from bunk because our lives are full of people pushing bunk (genuinely or maliciously), and it can't be just more than being a personal barrier. Even if we as individuals aren't transmitters, there are still plenty of transmitters out there. As Massimo makes the case, nonsense harms. Even something like astrology can lead people to make foolish choices. Climate change denial means inaction, creationism weakening science education.

It's for this reason that I think the book is worth reading. Not because it gives a baloney detection kit**, but because it illustrates what our limits are both as individuals and as a species. And through an understanding of science of what science is (and what it isn't), it gives a path to follow in order to get some knowledge - consult experts. Because even if this book does serve to teach us our limits, there is the need for us to be informed enough to hopefully carry the beacon of science in a society where the implications don't match the level of engagement that experts have.


* Supplements, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine
** for that read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World

Revisiting The God Delusion

It was December 2006, I had just finished* university and was going to visit my dear sweet mother in Southern Queensland. To get an idea of this journey, this involved taking a late-night 3 hour train journey to Sydney, spending a few hours sitting in an internet cafe before flying ~1500km to Southern Queensland on an early morning flight. Having some time between check-in and boarding, I browsed the airport book store and there I stumbled upon it.

One of my house-mates pulled me into this whole discussion, bringing me into scepticism, into the creation / evolution controversy, and ultimately the God debate. Dawkins' book was one that he mentioned and so upon seeing it I promptly snapped up a copy. I still remember reading the first chapter on the plane, Dawkins' rhetorical style was engaging and thought-provoking. Over the coming weeks I worked my way through the rest of the book, and by the end I had been transformed.

For several months after reading the book I was on a high, I couldn't help but admire the intricate nature of the biological world. I noticed an aspect to reality I had never contemplated before, and all this came with the confidence that for years that started to wane with being an atheist. Questions of morality and meaning, staring at the potential of behavioural nihilism as defined by (now I know to be ignorant) theists - The God Delusion gave answers that the theists claimed they had a monopoly on.

Fast forward about 2.5 years, subsequently I've explored the subject much more and spent a great deal of time injecting myself into the debate thanks largely to web 2.0. I've read several more books by the "new atheists", yet I still held Dawkins' book above the rest. My copy had been lent out so unfortunately I couldn't revisit it, and since the book has made such a profound impact on the debate it was only natural that my recollections of the book would be clouded by the positive and negative feedback by atheists and theists alike.

One of the most common objections I saw was how unrefined Dawkins' argument was; that he went to great lengths to disprove the old testament God which wasn't the god of the modern theist, and that his arguments missed the mark. 2.5 years of complaints about a caricature of Gods that doesn't really exist, that his philosophy was wrong, that he made simplistic arguments akin to straw man attacks.

So last month I did something I should have done a while ago, I revisited the book again; this time in the form of an audiobook. It didn't take long to finish, the portability of the format combined with the engaging style once again drew me in. I remembered just why I considered it such a profound piece of work. It is incredibly polemic, outrageous, offensive, blasphemous, yet unlike Hitchens' God Is Not Great there was substance behind the rhetoric.

This is not to say I agree with everything in this book, there were still many parts I found as bad upon second reading as I did the first. His central argument concerning statistical improbability, while it may be a fairly sound argument, can be dismissed by the theist on the same grounds as a theist knowing that God really really hates fags. Not that a theist can really say that God hates fags, but it's hardly going to be convincing.

Furthermore this line of argument can lead to a misunderstanding of natural processes. Take abiogenesis. Dawkins talks about it in The God Delusion purely in terms of probability, using the notion that in a universe of this magnitude that even an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances for our earth would be probable enough in a universe of this size. It may be so, but those picking up The God Delusion without knowing much on the subject of abiogenesis would feel that the argument for abiogenesis is down to chance. Indeed, this is what Antony Flew objected to when renouncing his atheism.**

So where was the objection to the old testament God? There wasn't really, mentions of the old testament were in the context of the argument of morality. Not to reject the notion of the God who killed the first-born Egyptians, but to demonstrate that the morality of modern-day Christians does not come from the bible!

His attacking of this notion of a particular god that isn't what theists believe in? The book centred on the very notion of gods, it was the underlying substance Dawkins ripped apart. It would be like ripping apart homoeopathy on the very foundations then having that argument dismissed because it left out just how it was mixed***.

Upon reading it again, I didn't have that same transformative experience. Rather I was left with a greater appreciation for what the book is. It really was worth revisiting and I'm glad I took the time to do so. Now that I've made further inquiry into topics raised in the book I can appreciate it all the more. Dawkins talked about one of the goals in the book being consciousness raising, and in my case he has succeeded.


*Technically this isn't true, I still had work placement to go but this was in effect the transition point between being a student and entering the work force.

**This was before The God Delusion was released, and when explained that abiogenesis has scientific merit Flew claimed he was misled by Dawkins.

***Ben Goldacre, you've gone much out of your way to appease the arguments of those who don't deserve a response, much less will listen to you.

Book Review: Only A Theory

The Dover trial was worldwide news, the notion of Intelligent Design and the fate of science itself was mainstream news. Even then-Prime Minister John Howard weighed in on the matter, claiming that schools should 'teach the controversy'. Now my memory of the event may be a little fuzzy, but the debate here went along the lines of the state education systems saying "fuck off, it's not science". While they may have been more polite than my recollection of the events, this case was landmark and attracted global attention.

What really drew me into the whole debate was a lecture a housemate linked me by a biologist named Ken Miller, where he outlined ID and the challenge it posed to science. From there I was hooked and in the last few years through the wonders of the internet I've been drawn in to this debate. Ken Miller beyond anyone else has been the public face of this debate in terms of science, so it's only fitting I read his take on what this is really about.

The book does something all arguments should do, framed the case for what he is arguing against in a fair manner then dismantled it piece by piece. But this was not the purpose of the book, only a microcosm of the wider argument at hand. ID is not about bringing a new unifying theory of biology to the classroom, it's a means of subverting the materialistic process of science - that methodological naturalism is being attacked with evolution as the point of weakness.

He brilliantly sums up the public controversy, and just why it is boiling over on the pits of academia. And the majority of this book is dedicated to explaining the importance of science, trying to explain methodological naturalism and why it is such an important too. But this is not an atheist assault on theism, Miller is a theist himself. And seeing a theist come out in such defence of methodological naturalism (as the name suggest, it is a method not a philosophy) is important to dissect this notion that science is an inherently atheistic enterprise.

One thing did irk me though, his explanation of resolving the anthropic principle seems a false dichotomy. That one needs faith for God or the multiverse to account for why this universe is so primed for life. While I can understand that could be a position for theism, to characterise it as atheists needing to have faith in a multiverse just missed the point to me.

To use an analogy, 200 years ago before Darwin where Paley gave us the watchmaker argument and Lamarck had his species change themselves notion. In the absence of Natural Selection, should one be forced to choose between a divine watchmaker and species passing on acquired characteristics? In light of modern information, we know this dichotomy to be a false one. It's neither designed nor are acquired traits inherited, variation and natural selection forms the basis of how life diversified.

I don't see what's wrong with saying "I don't know" in the absence of understanding of how the laws of nature and the ratios therein form. Perhaps I'm looking too much into what was almost a throwaway statement to give comfort that there is still a gap to put God into. But that should give an indication of what I thought of this book, the only statement I could possibly find fault with was something so insignificant that it demonstrates what a well-written book it is.

This book is worth reading for anyone who needs reminding of what is at stake if science is redefined in order to be friendly to religion, and to understand what this whole controversy is all about. I was thoroughly impressed with Ken Miller's style, he's an engaging writer and an amazing teacher. He carries the same style in his books as he does in the lectures I've seen of him (a lot of this book actually was in the aforementioned lecture, to the point where I thought I was reading the same sections twice). It's thoroughly engaging, you won't want to put it down. At least I didn't.

Book Review: Why I Became An Atheist

When people ask me why I became an atheist, the answer is always the same - I was born that way. The truth is I've never believed in a god, and it's only through television, my peers and the oddly cultural-relativistic public school system in Australia that I even came to know god. When I was 9 I changed schools where I was asked what religion I was, I said Christian because I went to scripture at my old school. At further pressing they asked me if I was catholic or Anglican, I didn't know the difference and said catholic. Needless to say my Mother got me out of that nutty cult room pretty quickly. When I was 12 and finally old enough to understand the question, I rejected the concept of God and have since been an outspoken atheist. So why am I mentioning this? Because my background matters when reviewing John W. Loftus' book Why I Became An Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.

It matters for me to make the case for my atheism because unlike a lot of people in western society, I was not brought up Christian. In scripture at school, we weren't taught from the bible, but were taught of the nature of God and the power of faith through parables. It wasn't a literal reading, it was very liberal, very much about selling a personal relationship with Jesus. So to read a book criticising fundamentalism is not even attacking the Christianity I know, to me it's attacking the extreme right who have no basis in reality to begin with.

To me, a criticism of biblical literacy should begin and end with science. We know the world is more than 6000 years old, we know that life evolved - both these facts have been known for more than 100 years now. Yet there are still those who take mythic storytelling and think of it as history? No wonder my scripture teachers focused on the power of belief instead of trying to warn me of the dangers of talking snakes. That to want a personal relationship with Christ is better than selling children on the dangers of Hell.

I have been an avid reader of Loftus' blog, Debunking Christianity, for some time now and find him to be a reasonable and level-headed man. Which is why the first thing that shocked me about the book was the way he would talk about what he used to believe, that it is so obviously absurd. And as I went on through the book, what stood out was how poor the intellectual reconciliation between the modern understanding of the world and the bible actually is. The reconciliations take an absurdity and make it sound even more absurd. To preserve the notion that the bible is the word (in some sense) of an omniscient deity, the most asinine explanations are presented. The book didn't even need Loftus' debunking those claims - they could not stand up on their own.

This is not to say I hated the book, Loftus is an excellent writer and wrote a mostly engaging argument. I say mostly engaging because I found the excessive quoting of scripture to be tedious. But then again, I keep getting scripture quoted at me so it must mean something to somebody - I'm really not the target audience for this. There were some parts that made the book worth getting - the outsider test for faith is possibly the best argument against religion, and that goes for all religion. The philosophy and explanation of the control beliefs was also really thorough and well presented. And finally at the end, the way he tackled the idea of ultimate meaning was done very well.

I was asked if I were to recommend an atheist book to theists, would it be this or Dawkins' book The God Delusion. I answered this book, and I do thoroughly recommend it. But at the same time I found Dawkins' book to be a lot more intellectually satisfying. It gave reasons to do away with superstition, this book attacked what is in my mind a straw-man of Christianity. But what I've fast come to realise over the last 5 years or so, what I perceive as a straw-man is the intellectual and moral foundations for hundreds of millions of people. Apparently some people still believe we are magic dirt who ate some bad fruit on the advice of a talking snake. Thankfully it's now the 21st century and J.K. Rowling has written a much better tale warning of the dangers of listening to talking snakes, and we don't even have to believe that there's a platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station to heed this advice.

Book Review: Bad Science

Going from one book looking at the importance of science to this, the contrast of styles is startling. While Sagan tried his best to empathise and emotionally guide the reader towards science, Ben Goldacre's effort was an unrelenting attack on the way science is misrepresented and misused by the mainstream media. The book is Media Scepticism 101, and as such is a valuable read for anyone who wants to learn how to interpret the heavily filtered information we receive through media.

It's in it's privilege of the source of information that makes it so important for the media to be as accurate and as informative as possible. The problem for any media outlet is the ability to sell it's story, even the non-profit enterprises are competing for attention. Goldacre lays the blame for the miscommunication and controversy in the media at the hands of the journalists and editors themselves - humanities students who not only don't understand science but have a disdain for the endeavour. While this may be true, it's merely incidental to the real problem at hand - getting the layman to understand about how to investigate any claim of knowledge regarding science.

Being a British book, there is a strong focus on a couple of British media personalities. As it gets into personal details about these people, the stories serve as little more than parables to the non-British reader. It matters not what qualifications a nutritionist may or may not have, but it does matter in the way they present the message - and the media uses these people as an authority where there is no foundation for which to do so.

Where the book's strength lies is in its highlighting of the processes involved. The explanation of the placebo effect was sublime, exposing homoeopathy was thorough, and the way Goldacre explained the trappings and limitations of medical studies was highly impressive. The great thing was that even in all this, it gave the reader experiments to conduct on their own - from squirting water on detox pads to making moisturiser. By doing this, it wasn't simply a regurgitation of processes but a way to empower the reader to become more active in the process. After all, what's more important than one's own health?

The dismantling of the New Age claims about conspiracy theories and systematic subversive behaviour by health professionals was most impressive. Every conceivable argument was dismantled, and was even shown to be for the most part hypocritical (like a nutritionist claiming that big pharmacy is just in it for the money while using his platform to sell vitamin supplements.) The sympathy Ben Goldacre displayed for the layman couldn't be more apparent. At all times he focused on evidence-based medicines and means to achieve the best possible health outcomes for the public, and was very sympathetic to the concerns that generally are responsible for the negativity towards western medicine.

The book is blunt but entertaining, informative and yet a delightful read. The real beneficiaries from reading such a book would be the journalists and editors who make the news, but in absence of that trying to educate the public on the matters is the next best thing. In this, the more people who pick up a copy of this book and read it, the better off society will be. In a time when intellectual dishonesty is pushed by a sensationalist platform and an ignorant yet credulous public, having voices like Ben Goldacre speaking out is more important than ever before. When selective bias is being exacerbated by user-driven demand (the Internet) having the tools to combat misinformation can only be a good thing.


Next book: Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great

Book Review: The Demon-Haunted World

Recently I've been watching the series Cosmos, a show in the style of Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent Of Man but speaking to a far wider audience. While the two shows are similar, the way that Bronowski and Sagan go about selling science to a wider audience is vastly different. Bronowski sold science through enthusiasm while Sagan pushed the mystique of the universe almost in the Einsteinian sense. In this book, The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan takes that same mystique and writes in great passion of science itself.

Conveying scepticism is not easy, it almost all cases there remains the strong possibility of offending someone who has an emotional investment in a concept. From that sceptics are seen as cynics, stepping over the heart-felt beliefs of others - something that couldn't be further from the truth. Sagan tries admirably throughout the book to sell just that, it was certainly empathetic as opposed to the usually cold logical proses that go hand in hand with modern-day scepticism.

The essays that are the chapters are a wild ride at times, mid-chapter he would so often go on a tangent only to come back and round it all off very eloquently. This results in one refreshing aspect, that the point made in one chapter can be shown to apply to many topics. While there was frequent reference to alien abduction cases, he spread out the same criticisms and applied the same critical thought to similar phenomena such as satanic cults. There was even a look back in time at similar cultural phenomena like which burning in centuries past. The case for human error transcending any one phenomenon made for a more compelling argument.

On a practical note, chapters dedicated to the tools of critical thinking will be a useful addition to anyone's mental arsenal. Knowing logical fallacies is one thing, applying them on an everyday level is another. His criticisms of those who abuse the scientific method or act without thinking of the wider social consequences was refreshing to see in print.

There's something to be said for Sagan's way of going about things, though I personally have my doubts that it will win many converts. Surely it's more effective than calling someone deluded or deceived, though like many of these books that have something to say it's little more than preaching at the converted. And that seems to be the problem with all these great books on scepticism, no matter how accomodating the author is towards the beliefs of others, ultimately books like this are sold to an existing audience.


Next book: Ben Goldacre - Bad Science

Review: Your Inner Fish

I've always had trouble in recommending a good data source to creationists on the topic of evidence for evolution. It's not through lack of evidence, rather I haven't found a source that has eloquently and concisely made a strong case for the evidence. In The Blind Watchmaker for instance, Dawkins went to great lengths to talk about the design power of evolutionary theory and how it could account for the apparent design in nature, but that kind of book was light on evidence as compared to process. Neil Shubin's book Your Inner Fish does the opposite, it's light on theory but argues a very compelling case for common descent.

The triumph of this book is the way the information is explained. It's not making the case for evolution, there's simply no need to do that any more. Rather the book takes the idea of common descent and shows just how the evidence fits around it. The distinction is important as the focus then becomes on telling the story of the human body in the context of our current understanding. There's no need to make the case for evolution again, it would be like any book on rocket science having to make the case for gravity. The framework exists and all information fits into it.

Palaeontology is given a very important role throughout the book, as it should be. Where the discoveries fit into the timeline of earth are incredibly important in the context of the argument. What surprised me was how little this book focused on Tiktaalik, it only represented a single transitional point of many that litter our past. Instead through palaeontology and genetics, the story of our body and the origins of each part more often than not went back further in time, through insects, through to multicellular life and quite often through to bacteria. Each step of the way was not only shown to have evidence, but the story of how scientists came to the evidence was told. In this respect, Shubin carried on his humble demeanour to the pages of this fascinating tale.

The power of this book was the sheer power of understanding that our ancestry provides us. Because our past was at one stage aquatic, we carry the scars of our past. The final chapter giving the problems that have come from our ancestor was possibly the most useful section of information in the book. To explain why we have certain injuries, certain ailments and illnesses, and put it all in the context of our past is a stark reminder of the power of explanation of the scientific method. Why does it matter that individuals learn evolution? Because our past affects our lives now. It affects embryological development, it affects the way we live and breathe, it affects the means by which we can harm ourselves, and it affects the understanding of the limitations of the body. To have evolution as a context is to understand ourselves.

I'd recommend this book to anybody, young or old, who is curious about the nature of who we are. For anyone uncertain on the evidence of our ancestry, this is the perfect book to read. And for anyone who wants a fascinating read into the world of palaeontology and anatomy, again this book is wonderful. It's not very technical, but the straight-forward nature of the presented information makes it a must have for any pop-sci book collection.

Next book: Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World

Book Review: Letter To A Christian Nation

The God Delusion was really the first piece of atheist literature I had ever read, it was more a curiosity than anything else since I was already a non-believer. Reading that book showed me a different perspective on the religious debate, and piqued my interest in the question of why people believe. It's just something I've never understood. Since then I've picked up the Sam Harris polemic argument The End Of Faith, a blunt insight into the dangers that religion as an institution poses. His follow-up novel Letter To A Christian Nation took the form of a long essay to deal with the core issues of what he sees at the problem.

The letter took the most extreme tenets that various Christian groups hold and successfully argued against those extreme views. With as many beliefs in Christianity as there are followers, I could see the dismissals of his work as a misrepresentation of their personal faith. The confronting nature of the book is bound to cause an adverse reaction and further isolate some extremists. At the same time it's going to put the moderates offside because it would seem like nothing more than a straw-man attack on religious beliefs. Harris makes it clear that the book isn't written for moderates.

There's no pussyfooting around the issues, each point that Harris makes is a merciless refutation coupled with examples of the exact danger the beliefs pose. Most telling were the examples of sexual sedition by the religious faith, the absurdity of opposing inoculations against STDs purely on the fact that in their eyes it promotes promiscuity. The opposition to stopping the spread of AIDS in Africa even among heterosexual married couples is particularly shocking. It's hard to walk away from this prose with a benign outlook on fundamentalist Christianity and the threat it poses to the world.

There was one moment of the book that stunned me:

The truth, astonishingly enough, is this: in the year 2006, a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get seventy-two virgins in Paradise. Western secularists, liberals, and moderates have been very slow to understand this. The cause of their confusion is simple: they don't know what it is like to really believe in God.

Maybe Harris is right on this count, personally I have no clue what it's like to believe in God. And certainly I don't know what it's like to believe in the fundamentalist sense. Though I wonder after reading this book if Harris truly does either. On that the entire argument rests because this book is an appeal against the fundamentalists. For it to be a success, he needs to communicate in a way that can appeal to those who with a strong education can still retain fundamentalists beliefs. My feeling upon reading this book, it's only really going to appeal to those who are already atheists.

Harris as written an honest appraisal of the threat of fundamentalists in this modern age, though he's really pointing out the obvious. As a response to the criticism of his first book, it's a fair read. But really his masterpiece tome is The End Of Faith, and a much better look at the dangers of faith. Here's hoping that once he finishes his doctorate he has something new to say.

Book review: A Brief History Of Time

"There is so much I don't know about Astrophysics, I wish I read that book by that wheelchair guy" - Homer Simpson

Although I spent a lot of time in my youth looking at the stars and even attending lectures on astronomy, what I understood about cosmology was very limited. My time studying physics was mostly spent on kinematics and dynamics. What I found in this book was a good starting point in order to understand the cosmos on the grand scale it resides in.

As a layman introduction for a very difficult subject, I can't fault the eloquence of this book. Any elements I couldn't understand were not due to Hawking's excellent analogies, rather my own inability to conceptualise the concept. I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of a singularity, each time I think I've got a grasp of the concept it falls into a black hole in the mind and I'm left still feeling confused.

Other than e = mc², the book was void of all equations. This I felt took away some of the explanatory power of the book. It became more of a "what we know" read instead of how we know it, and in there I was left feeling unsatisfied. It's understandable why he left them out, it's a difficult subject to begin with without having to rely on the explanatory power of mathematics.

Overall it was a good introductory book on cosmology, and it has rekindled my interest in physics. Or put more accurately, it's exposed a gaping hole in my knowledge that I wish to fill as much as possible. I've been recommended The Feynman Lectures.

Next book: Richard Feynman - Six Easy Pieces

Book review: A Short History Of Nearly Everything

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up Bill Bryson's book on science, I'd heard good things about it but wasn't sure really what I would get out of it. It was something I wanted to read before getting into other books that detail the specifics, that way I wouldn't be reading over the same kinds of information. What I discovered, however, was that what I did know enhanced the learning experience.

A Short History Of Nearly Everything achieved what it set out to do, explain the basics of science in a manner that is understandable for the layman. As a rough guide to science, it's hard to think of any resource better. It's the kind of book I wish I had in high school, maybe it would have kept me in the science lab instead of the computer lab.

The manner in which the science is laid out is well presented, it ties together the many different facets of knowledge well. It not only tells the stories of the information we know now, but also goes to great lengths to tell the story of the history of knowledge and the progression of ideas. That understanding of the context is vital to understanding the information.

The book was not only about the science, but the scientists behind it. Scientists are fascinating people, and at each step of the way the scientist behind the discovery had an interesting tale to tell. From egotistical narcissists to paranoid eccentrics and all the lucky or unlucky moments that befell them, each discovery was accompanied with a mini biography of the discoverer. Most of the time this was entertaining, but occasionally dragged on for too long and left me thinking "Isn't this supposed to be a science book?"

Overall it was a thoroughly entertaining read. Bryson did a superb job of pacing this book out, he made otherwise dull areas of science seem exciting, and was able to make every chapter both entertaining and informative. What most impressed me was the humility in it all, he went to great lengths to stress the unknown and where conflict exists in the scientific community on certain issues. It was very refreshing to see a pop-science book that was so willing to talk about what is still yet to be discovered, it's a softer stance that when talking to the general public is needed. Read this book!

Next book: Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time

Book review: The Blind Watchmaker

I saw the documentary Dawkins made to accompany the book a couple of months ago and given his persistent works in the field of promotion of evolutionary thought, I had a good idea of what to expect from this book - it was how we could account for design as seen in all life as we know it today. Richard Dawkins is a great writer of popular science, his style is engaging, informative and persuasive. Rather than just presenting a body of text, he uses a narrative to keep the reader engaged. He does, however, often go on tangents leaving me to wonder at times exactly what the original point he was trying to make was. But even in those long tangents he manages to bring it back on point so eloquently, now with a platform on which to ram that point home.

Content-wise, the book seemed to cover the processes behind natural selection quite well. It was able to answer many objectionable points that are made against the theory. He gave examples of good and bad design in nature, being very illustrative of the constraints and functionality that exists in neo-Darwinian theory. His use of biomorphs was a very novel way of drawing an analogy between emergent complexity and information systems; for me personally to have a comparison between biology and computer science made it a lot easier for me to understand the function. It also gave me a lot of programming ideas, but that's besides the point.

One criticism to make would be on his treatment of abiogenesis. While he was able to address and pinpoint the intersection of the known and unknown, his way of selling the concept could be misleading. Without proper understanding of the concept, one might have thought Dawkins was selling the idea that the origin of life was simply a chance event. Indeed, former atheist-turned-deist Antony Flew has complained that his understanding of abiogenesis as instructed by Dawkins amounted to a chance event. This is not the case, and while we don't know the exact origin of life, there's no reason to assume it was just a stroke of luck; rather it was a chain of events. That chain is currently unknown, but as Dawkins quite rightly points out, not knowing the origin of life doesn't diminish evolutionary theory as it's a matter for biochemistry.

Obviously with me the book was preaching to the converted, I'm already a staunch supporter of evolution and a materialist worldview. His emphasis on the constraints was good to see, so many seem to misunderstand evolutionary theory because they don't recognise that mutation can only build on what's already there. The book is now 20 years old, yet as a basic guide to evolution it still stands the test of time. While his atheism may get in the way for some, the narrative alone makes this book a convincing prose for Darwinian selection.

next book: Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything

The official Kelosophy bookclub

Recently my work environment shifted across the city, so instead of having a leisurely 30 minutes walk to work, I now take public transport. This opportunity to sit and read is one I've taken gladly, currently I've got a large pile of accumulated unread books that have been neglected in favour of a much more handy source. So starting last month, I've picked up one of the more appealing books in my growing unread collection and took a read. Now a month later, I'm onto my third book.


Book 1: Dr Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things
I was introduced to Dr. Shermer through an episode of Penn & Teller, and since then I've sought out his work with Skeptic magazine, online and whatever I could get my hand on. His essay on Captain Bligh in Science Friction was one of the most captivating pieces of historical analysis I have ever read. So when it came to looking for a good book on scepticism, this book sang out as a must read.

What struck me as the strongest element the book is that it's purpose is beyond just trying to get to the bottom of certain claims. Rather the book's strongest point was it's exercise in critical thinking. Although it did discuss some areas at length, it wasn't exactly to show a comprehensive worldview. Rather it was the medium in which to guide the reader into thinking critically. It was comprehensive in explaining the ways thinking can go wrote, the kinds of fallacies to look out for, and how our current modes of thinking can lead us away from the problems the human mind creates. The only problem I see is that it's direct confrontational nature of ideas may be a drawback to those who need that critical thinking most, but it's a minor point. For anyone who wants a good sceptical guide to exploring reality, the book stands on it's own.


Book 2: Dr Michael Shermer - The Science Of Good and Evil
I've been meaning to explore the origins of morality for quite a while on here, but every time I do I've found my view to be lacking something fundamental. I hoped this book would either give me some insight into where my view was lacking or provide me with the clarity to tie seemingly opposing ideas between the individual and the constraints (both social and genetic) they are bound by. Taking God out of the equation of morality needs an adequate explanation.

The book itself is a great overview of the necessity for morality as a species, and the fundamental drives that helped us achieve it. It lays the case out for exactly why "moral" traits have survived and "immoral" traits have persisted. As far as the science is concerned, the book was a little light on actual data. Rather it took snippets of information to help with the overall narrative. Although this did somewhat diminish the title, it by no means detracted from the actual argument. It successfully answered the question "can we be good without God?" and took it one step further: outlining the dangers absolute morality poses on a society. The explanation of provisional ethics is one that society would be better for taking on. It's not an all or nothing between God and nihilism, and Shermer wrote with great care and precision to explain exactly why that's a false dichotomy.


Next book: Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker