Review - Nobody Owns the Moon: The Ethics of Space Exploitation by Tony Milligan

Short review: A broad overview of the field of space ethics as explained by one of the more prominent figures in the discipline.

Haiku
The ethics of space
Exploration, colonies,
and terraforming

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Some people think this may bias a reviewer so I am making sure to put this information up front. I don't think it biases my reviews, but I'll let others be the judge of that.

Full review: Tony Milligan is a teaching fellow in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College in London. He has become known for his work in the area of animal ethics and space exploration, and so it is no real surprise that he penned Nobody Owns the Moon, a book examining the ethics of space exploration and exploitation. In this book, Milligan tackles a wide array of questions concerning human exploration of space, and what humanity's ethical obligations are when it comes to using the resources to be found there, and what responsibilities humanity has to be curators of what we may find, be it alive or otherwise.

In Nobody Owns the Moon, Milligan begins his inquiry from the ground up, so to speak, starting with the fundamental question of whether space exploration itself can be ethically justified at all, specifically focusing on whether manned space exploration is justifiable. By starting at such a fundamental level, Milligan indicates that he is going to tackle the questions at hand without presuming that anything is justified. Instead, Milligan works through each issue with as few preconceptions as possible, examining both the arguments for and against the proposition being examined. This can seem frustratingly indecisive at times, because with most questions there is no clear cut answer one way or the other due to the fact that there are pros and cons to almost every position. The end result is that for most such questions, the answer lies in choosing which is the best of a flawed collection of alternatives, not in choosing the one that is clearly correct.

Milligan is also concerned with only dealing with questions that result from actions that are within the realm of possibility. To this end, he spends a fair amount of time examining the question of whether terraforming a planet to be more Earth-like is possible before he gets into the question of whether it is ethical. As he points out, examining a question that could never possibly come to pass is simply idle speculation. To a certain extent, almost all of the questions Milligan addresses in the book are somewhat hypothetical - no one is currently actually mining asteroids or terraforming Mars, but as he outlines in the book, they are all within the realm of reasonable possibility, and thus it is worthwhile to consider their the ethical implications.

The topics covered by Milligan in Nobody Owns the Moon are wide-ranging. In many ways, this book covers the topic of space ethics in breadth rather than in depth, touching on issues from the ethics of terraforming celestial bodies to the ethics of multigenerational starships, with a broad collection of topics in between. In each case, Milligan makes an assessment of what the possible harms that could result from humans undertaking the proposed action, and then examines the justifications for doing them anyway. In some cases, Milligan points out potential harms that one might not have even considered to be harms. For example, while almost everyone agrees that humans have an ethical duty not to destroy extraterrestrial life should we find it on some planet or asteroid, but Milligan also considers whether humans have an ethical duty to preserve the very places themselves, regardless of whether they support life or not. If this seems strange, consider whether humans would be ethically justified in destroying the Grand Canyon, or destroying Mount Kilimanjaro. If not, then why would destroying Mons Olympus or the Mariner Valley by terraforming Mars be any different? As is usual for Milligan, the answers he comes up with for these questions are complex and at times, inconclusive, but ultimately thought-provoking.

Perusing the acknowledgements page reveals that three of the twelve chapters were originally published separately, as academic works, while other portions were formulated during formal and informal discussions. To acertain extent, this reveals the reason for the only true weaknesses of the book, which is that the material is sometimes presented in a moderately disjointed fashion, as the author darts from one topic to the next. The other weakness is that Milligan seems to repeat himself on occasion, covering the same issues more than once, and using the same language and thought-experiments to do so a couple of times. In the end this is a minor flaw, however, a tiny blemish on an otherwise beautiful and compelling piece of work.

To a certain extent, reading this book is a painful experience for a science fiction fan. By turning his eye upon many of the possible activities that underlie many of the treasured tropes of the genre, Milligan reveals that many of them are ethically dubious at best, and in some cases nigh impossible to justify. This is, of course, somewhat disappointing to science fiction fans - after all, if someone tells you that the heroes of the stories you love may have been behaving unethically when they launched themselves to the stars on a generation ship, or terraformed Mars and set into motion the destruction of its natural wonders, one is understandably a bit concerned. All of those stories about colonizing the Moon, mining the asteroids, and otherwise exploiting space at the very least raise some ethical questions that most stories (and much of the genre) have simply glided past without much in the way of self-reflection. On the other hand, the ideas presenting in this book seem like they could serve as useful inspiration for some new and insightful stories in the hands of the right author.

Nobody Owns the Moon is a good introduction and overview of the field of space ethics. Straddling the middle ground between the technical writing of academia and the simpler prose of "popular" ethics, this book has enough detail to be interesting, but not so much dry and abstruse analysis as to make it opaque to the lay reader. Reading this book won't make one an expert in space ethics, but it will likely provide enough basic information to allow one to be able to follow a discussion of the subject. Overall, this is an excellent place to start one's foray into the field of space ethics, and well worth reading.

Tony Milligan     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Biased Opinion - 22 Responses to 22 Creationist Questions

Matt Stopera of BuzzFeed asked self-identified creationists to pose some questions to people who believe in evolution, resulting in the article 22 Messages from Creationists to People Who Believe in Evolution. What followed was a very sad collection of terrible questions from people who have been betrayed by their teachers and failed by the education system. Because I love science fiction, I am very interested in science, and think a strong science education curriculum is of critical importance for our schools. Needless to say, the questions posed in the article saddened me by the obvious ignorance that they displayed.

If you are a creationist, at least try to come up with some arguments that have not been debunked a hundred times over. The questions that this collection of creationists posed seem to have been, in their minds, "gotcha" questions probing unsolvable conundrums. What these questions really are are examples of the fact that creationists really don't understand even the basics of science at all. I have endeavored to answer these questions, which are rendered in italics below. The questions are phrased as presented in the article, with the original spelling, punctuation, and grammar intact. My answers follow each question.

1. Bill Nye, are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?

Yes, Nye is. He's teaching them actual science.

2. Are you scared of a Divine Creator?

I'm not Nye, so I can't respond directly, but I'm guessing he probably isn't. Nye might even be a believer for all I know. Many people are religious and still accept the findings of science. Ken Miller of Brown University, for example, is one of the most prominent advocates of biology education in the United States and is a practicing Roman Catholic.

I, personally, am not a believer, but that is because I remain unconvinced that there is evidence supporting any of the claims relating to a god or gods. I am not, however, scared of a "Divine Creator". If you are a Christian, ask yourself if you are scared of Vishnu, a divine figure worshiped by millions of Hindus. If you are not, then you might be able to understand why I am not sacred of your chosen divine being.

3. Is it completely illogical that the Earth was created mature? i.e. trees created with rings . . . Adam created as an adult . . .

Yes. It is. In order for an idea to be "logical" it has to be supported by a chain of argumentation that starts with facts. In short, you need to start with some sort of evidence in order to come up with a logical explanation. If you start with no evidence or faulty evidence, then your conclusions are entirely useless. The stumbling block you have is that there is no evidence supporting the notion that the Earth was created mature. Lacking facts to start with, there is no way to get to a logically valid conclusion that the Earth was created "mature".

To put it another way, think about this: Could the Earth have been created last Thursday with all of the people in place and your memories implanted? That's just as likely as your scenario of a "mature Earth", because neither are supported by any facts. So one has to wonder why you don't believe in Last Thursdayism.

4. Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove evolution?

No, the second law of thermodynamics doesn't disprove evolution. These sorts of questions always make me wonder what the questioner imagines scientists know about science. Do they think that scientists don't know about the laws of thermodynamics? Do they think that biologists around the world are sitting in their labs ignorant of basic science and they will be stunned when a creationist walks in and starts talking about the second law of thermodynamics? Or do they think that biologists actually do know about the second law and are just hoping that no one notices that their discipline's unifying theory violates it?

To address the point specifically - the second law of thermodynamics does not disprove evolution, because the second law only applies to closed systems, and the Earth is not a closed system. We are constantly bombarded by energy from the Sun (which, by the way, is increasing in entropy, which is why the Sun will eventually run out of fuel and die). Nye actually pointed this out in the debate.

5. How do you explain a sunset if their [sic] is no God?

Sunsets are caused when the Earth rotates the face you are on away from the Sun. Because the Sun's light now has to pass through more atmosphere than it normally does, the light you see is more distorted than usual, resulting in the array of colors you see. This is fairly basic science, and you should know this already. That you don't is an indictment of your education.

Note: This explanation holds true whether the Earth is a sphere or flat. It the Sun is going "down" towards the horizon of a flat Earth, then its light will pass through greater amounts of atmosphere as it gets closer to setting, resulting in the same kind of distortion and the same kind of array of colors.

6. If the Big Bang Theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories?

The laws of thermodynamics don't "debunk" the Big Bang and evolution. Once again, I have to wonder what people who ask this sort of question think that scientists know about science. The laws of thermodynamics are not some sort of secret knowledge. In fact, the laws of thermodynamics are part of the core science curriculum at many universities. It is simply implausible that someone would be a practicing scientists and not have some familiarity with these laws. Any theory that contradicted those laws would be discarded by the scientific community, so the fact that neither the theory of evolution nor the Big Bang theory are in danger of being discarded is pretty good evidence that scientists don't think they conflict.

And they don't conflict. As I noted before, the Earth isn't a closed system, so thermodynamics has almost nothing to say about evolution. And the laws of thermodynamics, being derived from observations about the universe, clearly support the Big Bang theory. What you see around you is an old and cold universe, with massively larger amounts of entropy than were present at the Big Bang. The history of the universe as described by the Big Bang theory and subsequent cosmology is exactly what one would expect in a universe in which the laws of thermodynamics were in force.

7. What about noetics?

Noetics is a branch of metaphysics that deals with problems of the mind. Metaphysics are, by definition, not really part of science. Metaphysics, like a lot of philosophy, can be used to frame questions to be answered by science, but really doesn't have anything at all to say about the conclusions that are reached via the application of science.

I wonder if you are trying to raise the question of the origin of consciousness in a roundabout way. The question this bring to mind is do you think the idea of consciousness is somehow incompatible with a naturalistic world? What do you base this conclusion upon?

8. Where do you derive objective meaning in life?

How do you derive objective meaning in life? If you say God provides meaning in your life, then what happens if God changes his mind? That's not very objective is it? If God can't change his mind and can't change the "objective meaning" (for any reason, including "it isn't in God's nature"), then why does one need God to have objective meaning? Personally, I doubt whether there is objective meaning to be found, and I certainly haven't found a convincing argument that there even could be.

In any event, one has to wonder how this related to the truth or falsity of the theory of evolution in any way. This seems to be a fairly common tactic for creationists when trying to debate science - you bring up questions and issues that are entirely unrelated to science. Suppose that objective meaning exists. How does that show the theory of evolution is or is not true?

9. If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By chance?

No, not by chance. As a result of the functioning of our universe. It seems that a common thought process among creationists is that if something isn't actively directed, then there is no alternative other than "chance". This is simply wrong. Look at the tides in our oceans. Nothing directs them to rise and fall. They simply rise and fall as a result of the gravity exerted by the Moon and Sun. And they rise and fall in a predictable pattern. In fact, the regularity and predictability of our natural universe is the reason that we can do science - the ability to predict what will happen by using derived theories in effect is science.

Chemistry, physics, biology, and all of the other branches of science are all descriptions of how our universe works. By observing the world around us and then formulating theories about how it functions, we are able to make predictions about what will happen in the future and unravel mysteries about what happened in the past. Science clearly shows how chemicals plus energy results in reactions that form the building blocks of life.

I'll also note that single-celled organisms are highly complex and appear quite late in the development of life. Numerous simpler forms existed long before single-celled organisms. It took a billion or so years of the existence of life on Earth before the first single celled organisms arose.

10. I believe in the Big Bang Theory . . . God said it and BANG it happened.

Okay, so? The Big Bang theory says nothing about what happened before it took place. So how do you come to the conclusion that God was there? Merely asserting the existence of God isn't actually an answer, and it has no bearing on science. Science depends upon evidence. Without evidence, a scientist says "I don't know". Since you are apparently making a scientific claim, what evidence do you have to support your contention?

11. Why do evolutionists/secularists/huminists [sic]/non-God believing people reject the idea of their [sic] being a creator God, but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extra-terrestrial sources?

Well, first off, most don't. The vast majority of secular people believe that life evolved on Earth without any kind of aid or assistance from aliens or other extra-terrestrial influences other than the energy from the Sun in the form of sunlight and gravity, and the Moon in the form of gravity.

Now, some secular scientists have stated that the most plausible potential designer that might exist would be aliens, because material extra-terrestrial entities are plausible, although not likely. In those cases, the scientists were entertaining a hypothetical that took the form of "if intelligent design were true, what is the most plausible way it could have happened", but they weren't actually saying they think that intelligent design is true - primarily because there is no evidence supporting the idea that intelligent design is true. There is no evidence for extra-terrestrial seeding of life or, to use the formal term "directed panspermia", but since it doesn't violate any of the known laws of the universe, a scientists might say it is plausible that it could have happened. The problem is, there's no evidence for it, just like there is no evidence for a designer deity.

12. There is no in between . . . the only one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds necessary for an "official proof".

Sadly, you have been let down by your education, because on this point you are simply wrong. We have found dozens of fossilized hominids. If you had done a bit of research on Wikipedia, you'd know this, because they have a fairly long list showing all of the hominid fossils that we have found. Not only have we found several examples of australopithicus afarensis, the species that "Lucy" was a member of, we have found several examples of the "in between" fossils you, in your ignorance, claim don't exist - australopithicus africanus, homo habilis, homo erectus, and on and on.

Also, exactly what is an "official proof"?

13. Does metamorphosis help support evolution?

Yes. Is there some reason you would think it doesn't? This is another question that makes me wonder what creationists think scientists do all day. Do they think that they sit around coming up with theories, and then when someone says "tadpoles metamorphose into frogs" they hit themselves on the forehead and say "darn, I forgot about them"? Evolutionary biologists are well acquainted with frogs, and butterflies, and moths, and all the other species that transform during their lifetimes. The fact that such creatures do this is not only accounted for in evolutionary theory, it is integrated into it and serves as a supporting piece of evidence for it.

14. If Evolution is a Theory (like creationism or the Bible) then why is evolution taught as fact?

Let's start off by noting that neither creationism or the Bible are "theories" as science uses the term. The Bible is a book of mythology that some people regard as being important. But it isn't actually a theory any more than a book of Greek mythology would be a theory. Creationism isn't a theory either, because creationism isn't a comprehensive scientific explanation supported by numerous facts and subject to potential falsification.

The crux of the problem here is that you seem to have a misunderstanding of what a "theory" means in science, and how theories relate to facts. In science, facts are trivial. You have brown hair. That's a fact. You have two eyes. That's a fact. What a theory is in science is a comprehensive explanation that takes those facts and weaves them together into a comprehensive whole. The branch of science that is used to make nuclear weapons and power plants is called "atomic theory". There is not going to be some point at which it will be renamed "atomic fact", because to call it "atomic fact" would be to be going backwards. That objects fall to the Earth when dropped from a tree is a fact. The explanation for why they do so is the theory of gravity. Theories in science are more important than facts.

15. Because science by definition is a "theory" - not testable, observable, nor repeatable why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school?

First off, you have a deep misunderstanding of science. In science a theory by definition has to be testable, observable, and repeatable. Einstein's theory of relativity was considered to be an interesting hypothesis, but what solidified it as a theory was that scientists went out and tested the predictions it made. One prediction, for example, was that heavy objects (like our Sun) would bend light as it passed by them, creating an effect that would allow an observer to see something that was actually behind the Sun. This prediction was tested in 1919 by Arthur Eddington and found to be accurate. Without the testing, the theory would have been interesting, but not useful.

And the simple fact is that the evidence for the theory of evolution has, in fact, been tested, observed, and repeated. By contrast, creationism and intelligent design have not been tested. There is no real plausible test that one could make for "creationism", and the handful of proposed tests for intelligent design have either been incoherent, or have resulted in strong evidence against intelligent design being true. There is simply no evidence supporting either the creation or intelligent design hypothesis, which makes them not science. You may as well have asked why astrology and casting magic spells isn't taught in schools.

16. What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase in genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?

The answer to your question is actually included in your question: Mutations. The most common way for mutations to increase information is for a gene sequence to be duplicated by mutation, and then altered. The idea that mutations can only destroy information or work with existing information is an unsupported claim that has been advanced by some creationist apologists, and there is simply no evidence that such a claim is true. Not only that, it is a claim that is contradicted by observed evidence, as scientists have actually observed mutations increasing information in the genomes of creatures in experiments.

17. What purpose do you think you are here for if you do not believe in salvation?

Once again, what does this question have to do with the truth or falsity of evolution? Many scientists and other people who accept the findings of science are believers, and believe in salvation just as much as you do. Whether we are here for salvation or not has no bearing whatsoever on whether the theory of evolution is true or not. I could stipulate for the purpose of this argument that "salvation" is necessary, and it would say nothing about whether evolution was true.

But to answer your question directly: People give themselves purpose. You chose the promise of salvation as your purpose, which is fine for you. But that's just an evidence free choice that you made. Why is it so hard for you to believe other people choose to find their purpose in other things?

Finally, what do you think we need salvation from? Being human? Being condemned by God? If you think God makes the rules, and the rules are what will condemn you, aren't you saying we need to be saved from God? Do you think we need to be saved from the rules you believe your God laid down?

18. Why have we found only 1 "Lucy" when we have found more than 1 of everything else?

There's only one "Lucy", because the term Lucy refers to a specific fossil. But Lucy was a member of the species australopithicus afarensis, and we've found numerous fossil examples of that species. Quite simply, your claim that we've only found one "Lucy" is a falsehood rooted in your ignorance.

To a certain extent, this kind of ignorance isn't your fault: Someone blatantly lied to you during your education, and you accepted their lie as being factual. On the other hand, you've clearly never actually tried to evaluate this claim at all, because if you had, you'd have found that there are many australopithicus afarensis fossils that have been uncovered over the last several decades.

19. Can you believe "the big bang" without "faith"?

Yes. This is a fairly standard creationist ploy - the claim that "it takes just as much faith to believe in science as it does to believe in my religion" - and it is both very tiresome and very stupid. Science is based upon evidence. The only "faith" you need to accept the findings of science is the faith that we can actually observe the universe around us, and that's not faith by any reasonable definition of the word.

The Big Bang theory is based upon the observations of the universe. Scientists weren't sitting around one day saying to themselves "we need to come up with a story about the origin of the universe". They were studying our universe, noticed that certain things, like the redshift of the galaxies, implied something, and then set about testing it by means like looking for the background microwave radiation of the universe. The made observations, figured out what they implied, and then tested to see if their conclusions were correct. That's how science works. No faith required.

20. How can you look at the world and not believe someone created/thought of it? It's Amazing!!!

This is another fairly common creationist ploy. It amounts more or less to "look at the trees, aren't they beautiful, they are so magnificent that they must be the work of a creator". The problem is, this line of thinking is simply wrong.

The existence of something is not evidence that someone created it. By itself, a thing's existence is evidence for its existence, and nothing more. It is only when something is put into context that something can tell us more. But what is the context of the entire universe? What are you comparing the universe to in order to determine that it must have been created? When we try to determine that something is created, or in other words, non-natural, we compare it to things that occur naturally. But if you say the entire world was created, what is your basis for comparison? You have none.

Further, while our world is, to a certain extent, amazing, it is hard to believe it was created. Most of the planet is uninhabitable for us. Many parts of the planet will kill you. Yes, beautiful flowers exist, but so do tapeworms and parasites that bore into the eyeballs of their hosts. If you step off of the Earth, every other place in the Solar System will kill you instantly. The world may be amazing, but it is also deadly and horrifying too.

21. Relating to the big bang theory . . . where did the exploding star come from?

You clearly don't understand the Big Bang theory, because there is no "exploding star". Some creationist "teachers" have confused the Big Bang with some sort of actual explosion of a preexisting entity, so that might be where this idea of yours comes from, but it bears no relation at all to actual Big Bang theory. The Big Bang theory states that all matter in the universe was at one point compressed into a singularity - a single point of immeasurably dense matter and energy, which then expanded (not exploded) - an expansion that is still continuing. Our observations of this expansion are what led scientists to the Big Bang theory. As to where the initial singularity came from, we don't know. The Big Bang theory only carries us backwards in time to a point after the inception of the universe called the "Planck Time". The theory says nothing about what happened before then.

22. If we come from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?

First, we didn't come from any monkey species alive today. We share a common ancestor with the monkeys we share the world with now, and that ancestor was probably a very monkey-like creature. Some members of that species became isolated from the others, and subject to the pressures of natural selection in their environment, developed into a different strain of monkeys. This process repeated several times until it resulted in the diverse array of simian species we see today. Evolution is not a line from one discrete species to another singular discrete species. It is a continually branching tree, with subsets of populations continually developing new branches.

Second, you are a white American. Your ancestors were Europeans. If your ancestors came from Europe, why are there still Europeans?

Biased Opinions     Home

Review - Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer

Short review: Some people believe in odd, weird, and downright crazy things like UFO abductions, creationism, psychic powers, and holocaust denial. Almost all of their ideas are wrong, and this book explains why.

Haiku
Belief in weird things
May be unexplainable
Shermer still tries to

Full review: Why People Believe Weird Things probably should have been titled Weird Stuff People Believe, and Why They Are Wrong. On the other hand, the subtitle of the book, Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, pretty much sums up what the book describes. Through the book Michael Shermer systematically debunks pseudoscience and superstition while making what seems to be a mostly unsuccessful attempt to explain why people are so persistently attached to beliefs such as holocaust denial and creationism that are simply demonstrably wrong as a matter of fact.

In his forward to the book, Stephen Jay Gould explains the need for skepticism, and the dangers of accepting pseudoscience as fact, drawing a connection between Michael Shermer's efforts and Carl Sagan's similar body of work. With that preliminary out of the way, Shermer begins the hard work of trying to unravel what it is about superstitious nonsense that draws fervent believers. Shermer opens by discussing his own credulous acceptance of various "weird things" that he indulged in to bolster his efforts at competitive cycling, detailing his various efforts to gain a competitive advantage. At one point, he and a group of cyclists sent several samples of a single person's blood for "cryptoxic blood testing", and in response received as many different diagnoses as they had sent samples. Finally, Shermer was working with a nutritionist who told him massive doses of megavitamins would help him win, and placed him on a regimen. The pills nauseated Shermer, so he began simply spitting them out when his nutritionist wasn't looking. At that point, Shermer realized that perhaps taking all claims at face value wasn't a particularly good idea.

Shermer uses the next section to sketch out what skepticism is, and how it relates to science. He then turns to defining pseudoscience and pseudohistory, explaining how each one respectively differs from real science and real history. A particularly notable example concerns attempts by an actual historian to point out the fallacies engaged in by a proponent of an Afrocentric pseudohistory that culminates in her dean telling her that "everyone has a different equally valid view of history", and that it didn't matter that what the Afrocentrist was claiming was physically impossible. Pseudoscience and pseudohistory start with their conclusions and seek out supporting evidence, real science and history start with the evidence and draw conclusions from that, no matter how uncomfortable or painful those conclusions may be.

Following on his description of what science is, and how it differs from pseudoscience, Shermer provides twenty-five fallacies describing how people fool themselves. Three are problems with scientific thinking, and which a careful scientist (and an honest skeptic) has to be on guard against. Eleven are common fallacies that are used by pseudoscientists and pseudohistorians to bolster their unreliable claims. Seven are common logical fallacies, and the remaining three are psychological problems with human cognition. In each case, Shermer explains what the fallacy is, how to identify it when it is used, how it affects human perception, and describes how to avoid falling victim to it, both in one's own thinking and when evaluating claims made by others. This chapter, more than any other, does the job of explaining "why people believe weird things". Or more accurately, how people fool themselves and others into believing weird things.

At this point the book shifts to specific examples of the weird things that people believe, and the reasons their beliefs are simply unfounded. One by one Shermer takes on E.S.P., near death experiences, cryonics, alien abduction stories (including a near surgical dismantling of the "alien autopsy" video), witch crazes both in the medieval period and the modern day, including an analysis of how accusation webs perpetuate and an examination of the "recovered memory" phenomenon, and the bizarre personality cult that has sprung up around Ayn Rand. Shermer then devotes a substantial portion of the book to debunking creationism and holocaust denial, in the process pointing out the parallels between the two systems of pseudo-belief. Along the way he dissects twenty-five common creationist arguments, most of which are still used by shills for creationism despite these arguments having been discredited years ago. As debunking holocaust deniers is Shermer's specialty, he spends an entire chapter of the book comprehensively demolishing their claims and demonstrating exactly how their claims of being unfairly persecuted as anti-Semites simply don't hold up to scrutiny. As detailed in the book, they are anti-Semites, and their claims that the holocaust was fabricated are simply unsupportable.

Although Why People Believe Weird Things is only somewhat successful at its stated objective of explaining why people continue to adhere to superstition and pseudoscience despite all the evidence to the contrary, it is a brilliant deconstruction of the various confused and illogical positions espoused by those people. Each of the pseudo-beliefs addressed in the book are thoroughly and completely debunked with ruthless efficiency. If one is not so much concerned with why people believe silly things, but is instead interested in why they are wrong to do so, this is a brilliant book. Even if one's primary interest is "why" this is still a worthwhile book, and well worth reading.

Michael Shermer     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher

Short review: You are what you pay attention to, so pay attention to things that matter.

Haiku
Paying attention
Shapes the world we reside in
And makes us happy

Full review: Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life is, more or less, half of a good book. The central claim of the book is that people tend to not just be more successful and productive, when they are more focused, but also happier. To buttress this claim Gallagher provides a collection of anecdotal examples and a handful of studies on the subject, making her case that there is a connection between focus and happiness reasonably well. However, the book seems to fall short of establishing that a focused way of life will cause happiness – it seems entirely plausible that the causal arrow might point the other direction so that happy people are naturally more focused. The book also gives no real advice for how to achieve a focused life other than to say "focus more and you'll be happier".

The concept of "paying attention" is something that most of us take for granted. But for the most part, we only notice "paying attention" when we, or someone we are trying to talk to is not. In Rapt, Gallagher begins by discussing the relatively recent development of the serious study of "attention", and exploring how this psychological phenomenon affects us. Although many people have the idea that even though they don't consciously remember all of the elements of a scene that they have looked at, that all of the information is filed away in our brain somewhere. But the reality seems to be that elements of that scene that we were not paying attention to effectively did not exist for us. Our world is shaped by the limitations of our attention. In effect, the world that we individually live in is created by the limits of our ability to focus.

With this knowledge in hand, Gallagher proceeds to illustrate the ways that focus can make our lives happier. She points out that people who are always trying their hand at new things are required to give their full attention to the task in order to master it, and such people tend to be happier than people who pursue the same mastered tasks ad nauseum. Those things that are new and difficult, but which was can master with sufficient work, our brain is engaged, and as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes it, we "flow", a kind of state in which our perception of time alters as our focus carries us away. Humans, it seems, are happier when dealing with novelty, and when the novelty wears off, what once made us interested and buoyant becomes commonplace and boring. The example is given of winning the lottery – people think that winning a lot of money will make them happy. And studies show that for short periods of time it does. But having lots of money soon becomes the ordinary experience for such people, and the excitement of having lots of money loses its allure. Because one no longer focuses on their good fortune, the money no longer provides happiness. This effect also goes a long way to explain why the wealthy are no generally happier than those of more modest means, and why the impoverished are not generally unhappier. For them, such conditions are normal, and thus cease to factor in their perception of well-being.

People who are told to focus on the "nice" things as they take a daily walk self-report a happier outlook than those who are told to focus on "bad" things, or simply given no instructions at all. In a sense, the reality we experience is bounded by our focus. This can be a useful observation, potentially allowing us to choose to focus on those things that provide us with a happier life. But this reality also poses some potential hazards – those whose focus is consumed by "bad" things will come to see the world as being irreparably damaged.  This kind of myopia can also lead to a person choosing to focus only on those things that confirm their chosen world view. This kind of focused attention may account for the tendency of some people to cling tenaciously to wrong-headed pseudoscience, or untenable prejudices. When one considers the narrowness of focus that we are all subject to, one can quickly see the necessity of the more objective analysis that comes from a communal and testable evaluation, such as that we see in the pursuit of science. Though we harbor the notion that we all share the same world, the reality seems to be that we each live in an individual world of our own choosing, even if our choice is often made unconsciously.

Competing with our focus is distraction. One might wonder if focus is so valuable to us, allowing us to accomplish tasks, and provide the key to happiness, why are we so easily distracted? The answer seems to be rooted in evolution: those of our ancestors who were too focused, missed the signals that warned of danger, and were, presumably, eaten by a lion or some other beast. This also explains why, when our focus is interrupted, our focus can shift so tightly onto whatever it is that distracted us – if the event that was significant enough to pull our attention away from our current task were one that signals danger, it would have behooved our ancestors to pay close attention to it. The difficulty is that until one focuses on the distraction, there is no way to tell whether it is important or not. So we are subject to distractions that are trivial or irrelevant, and our brain often treats them as being just as important as whatever we are doing at the time. And in the modern world, this tendency to distraction means that we are constantly fighting to keep ourselves focused on what is in front of us. Because we have a tendency to treat each distraction as equally important, when we try to multitask, we are unable to focus, and not only are we less effective, we are also less happy.

But the failing of the book is that while it offers the suggestion that a more focused life will lead to a happier self, it gives no particular advice as to how to accomplish this more substantial than "try new things", and "reduce the distractions in your life". These suggestions, while evidently true, are of little practical value. If people could avoid distractions, then they would do so. Simply saying "avoid distractions" is a banal, and mostly useless bit of advice. Perhaps this sort of criticism is unfair to Rapt. After all, if a book was published showing the connection between being unfit and a shorter lifespan, one would not automatically expect that it would also take on the task of advising the reader how to become fitter. But conversely, the author of such a book would also be writing in an environment in which books about diet, fitness, and personal health are commonplace, and thus when writing about the virtues of a healthy lifestyle might possibly feel no need to offer any kind of advice concerning how to achieve such a lifestyle. But with the exception of pop self-help books, there doesn't appear to be much assistance for someone seeking to try to obtain the benefits of a focused life. Consequently, when the sum total of the advice in this book amounts to little more than "operate on the edge of your competence", and "focus your attention on happy things", it feels decidedly unsatisfying.

Understanding how our brains work is one of the most interesting areas of study. Understanding ourselves allows us to better understand the world around us. Looking inward and figuring out how our own perceptions are formed gives us a way to evaluate how well those perceptions match up with the world around us, and if necessary, correct for them. Rapt not only explains how our focus makes us happier, but also reveals that we live in a world defined by what we focus upon. Although the book does not offer any suggestions as to how one could shift one's focus in a manner that would make one happier or more productive, it does offer some real insight into how our focus shapes the world we live in, and by extension, shapes us.

Winifred Gallagher     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

Short review: For most of human history, our world has been shrouded in myth and superstition. Science is the light that leads us out of the darkness.

Haiku
The world is shadowed
We need light to lead us out
Science is the way

Full review: Throughout his life Carl Sagan was a passionate advocate for science in general and science education specifically. Sagan clearly believed that an educated public was essential to a modern, pluralistic, egalitarian, democratic society, and attempted to do as much as he could from his position as a professor at Cornell University to promote the cause. And the kind of education that concerned him most was science education - partially because he had devoted his professional life to the pursuit of science, but also because he believed that understanding the reality of how the world around us works is a critical skill enabling a voting populace to be better able to make informed and effective choices. The primary means by which he worked to advance his goals was to publish books about science that would be accessible to the general public, culminating in the publication of The Demon-Haunted World.

The subtitle of The Demon-Haunted World is Science as a Candle in the Dark, a statement that reflects Sagan's justifiable belief that the truths about the universe provided by science are our only defense against the darkness of ignorance that dominates much of human history. To counteract the ever advancing shadow of pseudoscience, superstition, hokum, and other foolishness, Sagan prescribes a firm grounding in science and a familiarity with philosophy. Sagan starts by describing his own science education, asserting that while his own parents were neither scientists or readers, they encouraged their son's own interest in such thing. But Sagan also criticize the pre-university education inflicted upon him: learning facts and equations by rote, memorizing the periodic table of the elements, and other similarly tedious ways of imparting the dry knowledge of science while sucking the joy and wonder out of the discipline. Despite this tedium, Sagan preserved his love of science via independent study, reading voraciously from the public library. It was only once he had managed to slog his way through High School and reach the collegiate level that his burning desire to understand the universe was embraced and encouraged by the educational establishment.

Given this, it should come as no surprise that Sagan's solution is not to put children in classrooms memorizing facts, although he does acknowledge that there is value to learning facts and figures. His prescription is an effort to impart the joy of discovery in students, but to do so by encouraging and promoting creative thinking. As an example, he recounts an encounter he had with a cab driver in which the driver asserted a belief in a variety of somewhat silly ideas: frozen extraterrestrials, channeling, Nostradamus's prophecies, astrology, the Shroud of Turin, and so on. In each case Sagan had to point out that the driver's belief was almost certainly misplaced, primarily because the evidence supporting those beliefs was lacking. But Sagan didn't simply tell the driver that he was wrong, he attempted to explain why he was wrong. And at the same time, Sagan expressed sadness at an educational system that had failed to equip this man with the tools necessary to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

As an astronomer, Sagan often dealt frequently with UFO enthusiasts, who were convinced that not only were aliens real (a conviction that Sagan shared, but which he asserted was merely speculation), but that they routinely visited the Earth, abducted humans, performed bizarre medical and sexual experiments on them, and in some cases, lived among us hidden by clever disguises (all convictions that Sagan rejected as unsupported by evidence). In The Demon-Haunter World, Sagan explores the UFO phenomenon, found almost exclusively in the twentieth century of Europe and the United States, discussing the roots of the craze, its most prominent advocates, the anecdotes that purportedly support it, and the proffered evidence used to support its claims. In turn, Sagan examines each bit of UFO lore and explains exactly why the evidence supporting it is simply insufficient to reach the conclusions that UFO enthusiasts fervently believe to be true. Many of his arguments in this area are not new - UFOs have been reported since 1947, and Sagan has been grappling with claims put forward by believers for much of his career - but in The Demon-Haunted World Sagan assembles much of his collected thoughts on the issue into one place. Even though I had seen some of these arguments back in 1980 when I first watched the Cosmos television series, they are still fascinating reading.

But although Sagan hinted in Cosmos that the UFO phenomenon seemed to him to be more connected with superstition and religion than with any kind of actual events, in The Demon-Haunted World he argues explicit in favor of a connection, drawing a parallel between UFO abduction stories and the witch-burning hysteria of pre-modern Europe fueled by lurid stories of demonic visitations. Sagan convincingly traces the link between these tales, and the modern stories of UFO abduction with the only real difference being that imagined demon visitation often resulted in the condemnation and execution of thousands of people based upon nothing more than an unexplained dream someone had of being abducted and raped by demons. In a world in which claims need not be supported by evidence, the mere accusation equated to a presumption of guilt, and those presumed guilty were tortured until they confessed and required to name their accomplices, resulting in more arrests, more torture, and more accusations. Although this does not happen with UFO abduction stories, when the connection is show, it is chilling, because it demonstrates how close we are to a world in which people can be killed based upon nothing more than mass hysteria. A critical mind and a demand for evidence is often all that stands between us and barbarity.

Sagan, of course, does not confine his commentary to UFO sightings and witchcraft trials, but examines a variety of pseudoscientific beliefs including creationism, astrology, telepathy, "channeling", and so on. He recounts the tale of the psychic Jose Luis Alvarez who was scheduled to appear in Australia, heavily promoted as being able to channel the spirit of "Carlos", an ancient soul able to deliver prophecies and impart wisdom. Only after "Carlos" had appeared on Australian television, been written up numerous newspaper articles, and sold out the Sydney Opera House was the whole thing revealed to be a hoax. And with this, and the reactions to the revelation of the hoax, Sagan shows how charlatans of all stripes take advantage of the gullible, or merely unwary. And while the dangers of falling for the charms of a psychic are usually only of concern to the individual being gulled, the dangers of falling for pseudoscientific ideas can have far larger consequences in a society in which our health and welfare depend powerfully upon the application of science. People who refuse to vaccinate their children, people who deny the science of climate change, people who attempt to undermine the foundations of biology, geology, astronomy, and cosmology by advocating the teaching of creationism, they have all been misled about the nature of reality, and they consequently take actions that are foolish, and in some cases dangerously harmful.

The point of the book, however, is not just to point out that some ideas are simply wrong. No, Sagan wants to equip the reader with a tools to sort viable claims from fanciful ones. As he points out, if you are too resistant to new ideas, then you will miss out when new discoveries are made, whereas if you go the other way and become open to anything, you will be unable to discriminate between useful material and baloney. As an illustration, he introduces the idea that he has an invisible, floating, incorporeal, heatless fire-breathing dragon in his garage, and wonders exactly why anyone would believe his claim, and further wonders even if his claim were true, why the difference between an invisible, floating, incorporeal, heatless fire-breathing dragon and no dragon would matter. Sadly, too many people seem to be all too willing to accept claims that are no better than the assertion that an invisible, floating, incorporeal, heatless fire-breathing dragon is residing in Sagan's garage. To help rectify this situation, Sagan provides a "baloney detection kit" to arm the skeptical thinker. Sagan lists several ways to construct and understand reasoned arguments, and just as critically, to recognize fallacious and fraudulent arguments. To this end, Sagan gives a collection of testing tools to assess arguments, and follows with a list of commonly used logical and rhetorical fallacies. Sagan does not merely want to opine on whether a particular argument is sound or not. He realizes that this would only serve to inform the reader about that particular issue. His goal is clearly to create a cadre of individuals who can assess the claims that come their way and separate the wheat from the chaff.

It is not enough to explain how to determine true science from false pseudoscience and superstition, one has to explain why science itself is important. And to do this, Sagan creates a hypothetical in which Queen Victoria gathers the leading scientists of her day together in 1850 and asks them to create a better communications system. It almost goes without saying how silly an endeavor this would have been, and how the resulting product would be something of marginal utility and ludicrous design. But then he shows how, in 1850, James Clark Maxwell, without being directed to any particular purpose, and without any real idea of what his discovery might be used for, came up with the equations that defined electrodynamics. And by doing so, came up with the science that allows us to have radios and televisions, creating an integral part of our modern world, but a part that no one in 1850 could have possibly foreseen. The point is simply this: while we can be certain that science will define the future, we are almost certainly wrong about what that future will look like. To find that future, we need to have a populace with a comprehensive science education.

Throughout The Demon-Haunted World Sagan relentlessly hammers his point home: giving anecdotes about Frederick Douglas concerning the value of literacy, a discussion of Dr. Edward Teller's obsession with fusion bombs, and the creation of a public museum of science in Ithaca, New York. With these examples, and numerous others, Sagan eloquently demonstrates the need for a scientifically literate populace as a means to hold back the night. Although he is at times too forgiving of silliness, for example when he recounts his inability to sign a statement declaring astrology to be hokum, he explains his reasons well, and even if one does not agree, one can understand. And that is clearly the end goal Sagan had in mind: not that the reader would agree with him, but that the reader would learn enough to be able to understand, and by understanding, help to hold back the darkness.

Carl Sagan     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel

Short review: Sailors need to find out how to calculate longitude. England offers a prize. Clockmaker comes up with a solution.

Haiku
Dangerous sailing
Until unknown clockmaker
Solves it with a watch

Full review: Sailors have been able to calculate latitude almost since men first set out onto the ocean. Calculating longitude, on the other hand, is a technology that has only been perfected in the relatively recent past. Many of the famous explorers whose names students now commit to memory set out with no reliable method of telling how far east or west they were, resulting in many deaths and extensive hardships for the crews involved.

Dava Sobel's book details the story of the Longitude Prize enacted by the British Parliament, the bizarre and impractical solutions offered to win the prize, and the lifelong efforts of John Harrison, a man who finally fulfilled the conditions necessary to win the Longitude Prize, but due to the prejudices and conflicts of interest of the commissioners charged with awarding the prize, was never actually awarded the bounty, despite having the backing of King George himself.

The method for determining longitude is fairly straightforward. One must calculate the local time where one is, and compare it to the time at some known position, which is now always assumed to be Greenwich in the United Kingdom. The difference in the local time and the Greenwich time can be expressed in hours, minutes, and second, and then plotted on a globe, showing the longitude of the ship in question. The prime difficulty facing the aspirants for the Longitude Prize was how to determine Greenwich time when one was presumably hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Astronomers, who favored methods using stellar and lunar observations, eventually settled upon a method that involved tracking the path of the moon across the sky, comparing its location to the locations of designated guide stars, and measuring the distance between the Earth and the moon. This method was complicated and difficult, and required massive numbers of celestial observations to be made before the required charts could be made to begin with. This method was also somewhat unreliable - on a cloudy night, one could not locate the stars needed, many days out of the month the moon is not visible (as it is located on the opposite side of the Earth), and so on.

John Harrison, on the other hand, sought to build a very accurate clock. Once such a clock was set to, for example, London time, one could simply refer to the clock at noon local time, and determine by seeing how far away from noon the clock was how many minutes and seconds of arc one was from London. However, the clock would have to remain accurate over long periods of time, in humid conditions, and across a wide span of temperatures. When the Longitude Act was passed, clocks were not even accurate to within several minutes per day, and even an error of a couple seconds per day would cause the navigator to miscalculate a ships position by dozens or even hundreds of miles.

The book describes Harrison's attempts to build such a clock, eventually settling upon an oversized watch. The book also describes the hostility many of the astronomers on the longitude board evaluating his submission had towards him. While Harrison was a tradesman, and a self-educated mechanic to boot (earning the derision of many of the highly educated aristocratic astronomers on the board), he was their competitor for the extremely lucrative prize. Under the guidance of successive Royal Astronomers, the board imposed more and more difficult obstacles to Harrison's watch, until in frustration he appealed directly to King George. Eventually, with the King's assistance, Harrison was awarded a prize by a special act of parliament. The obstinate longitude board never awarded the full Longitude Prize to anyone.

Sobel has created a compelling story out of what could have been a rather boring event in history. In a roundabout way, Harrison's story explains to a certain extent why pirates and privateers were common before the 1800s, and vanished almost completely thereafter. One thing made clear (to me at least) is that many writers of historical fiction, or even fantasy, make sea travel in the pre-Longitude era too reliable, and too easy. It is probably the measure of the success of a technological advance that it becomes so prevalent and accepted that the difficulties faced in the days before are forgotten by the general public. On that score, Harrison's watch is one of the most significant technological developments in history.

One nitpick I have is with the subtitle of the book. It seems to me that the longitude problem was not a scientific problem, but rather an engineering one. That failing aside, this is an excellent book.

Dava Sobel     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins by Ian Tattersall

Short review: The hominid family is enormously complicated and difficult to figure out. It is also endlessly fascinating.

Haiku
We are the last left
A tangled hominid web
What makes us human?

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Some people think this may bias a reviewer so I am making sure to put this information up front. I don't think it biases my reviews, but I'll let others be the judge of that.

Full review: When I was young, one of the book sets my parents owned was the Nature Library series put out by the publishers of Life magazine. One of my favorite volumes in that series was Early Man, for the time a reasonably accurate presentation of the story of human evolution. That understanding is probably best exemplified by the "march of the hominids" contained on pages 41-54 of Early Man showing a fairly linear progression extending from Pliopithecus through the Australopthicenes through Homo Erectus until it reaches modern Homo Sapiens.  Although the depiction shows a couple of side branches, such as Oreopithecus and Panthropus, the overall thrust is of an orderly progression as one hominid evolves, holds sway for a period of time, and is then replaced by a successor species.

But even at that time, the story we had uncovered was not exactly linear, and the plate found on pages 74-75 of Early Man reveals this as a pair of advanced Australopithicines face off against a small band of Panthropus males - an imagined scene in which two hominid species are sharing the Earth and occasionally confronting one another. This image was fascinating to my young mind, and stuck with me ever since I saw it so many years ago. And in Masters of the Planet Ian Tattersall explains that over the last fifty years or so new discoveries have deepened our understanding of human evolution to the point where this scenario seems to have been more common than the present state in which a single hominid species stands alone. Rather than a trunk leading inexorably to us, hominid evolution seems to have been a bush, with many competing branches, in which all the others either died out (or possibly were pruned by our ancestors), leaving Homo Sapiens as the sole survivor.

In Masters of the Planet Tattersall lays out the fossil discoveries that have fueled our current understanding of the history that led to the current dominance of our species, along with the conclusions that have been drawn from those discoveries. The author walks the reader step by step through the history of anthropology, although because the oldest fossils were unearthed most recently, this tour is given in reverse order, with the most recent archaeological finds presented first and working backwards to the discoveries of the first neanderthal fossils in the nineteenth century. Through the journey through the fossil record, Tattersall explains the conclusions scientists have drawn from these artifacts and explores the various speculations engaged in when the available data is inconclusive. Most importantly, Tattersall explains the conclusions that previous evaluations of the data (which, at the time was even more incomplete than the incomplete picture we have now) led to, and how and why the general consensus has changed since that time.

The underlying theme of the book, as one might guess from the subtitle "The Search for Our Human Origins" is to explore exactly what makes us "human", and an attempt to determine at exactly what point in our evolutionary history we stopped being pre-humans or proto-humans, and actually became fully recognizable as human. Building his case on studies of our closest living relatives, the physical structures revealed by the fossils of our ancestors, and some faint traces of evidence about how those ancestors lived, Tattersall sorts through the various signature features that have been advanced in efforts to define what makes a human a human, and attempts to evaluate the points at which those traits may have arisen, and whether those traits are, in fact, the critical defining characteristics of our humanity. By the end of the book, the current picture of human origins is filled out, even though that picture, based as it is upon the fragmentary data that has made it through the eons to us, is blurry. It turns out we are not so much inevitable, as we are simply the strain of hominid that got lucky and outlasted its relatives.

What Masters of the Planet shows brilliantly is that while dimwitted creationists and "intelligent design" advocates are obsessing over irrelevancies like Piltdown man and trying to get their fairy tales into high school curricula, real scientists are ignoring their inanities and keeping busy doing actual work to uncover our true origins. And the picture they have uncovered, although more chaotic and confusing than the previous orderly progression from an ape-like ancestor to us, is also more interesting and most critically, more accurate. While there is nothing in this book that one could not have found out elsewhere, this book compiles all the material into one place so it can be seen as a whole, and the interconnections can be made readily apparent. Anyone interested in human origins will find this book both engaging and illuminating.

Ian Tattersall     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Asimov on Numbers by Isaac Asimov

Short review: A number of essays loosely tied together with the theme of "numbers" (although for some the connection is very tenuous). Most are interesting, some are not.

Haiku
Talk about numbers
Pi, e, and infinity
Which lake is biggest?

Full review: For several years running, Asimov wrote a regular column on general science for Fantasy & Science Fiction. These columns were later compiled into a series of books grouped by topic. Asimov on Numbers consists of those essays that Asimov wrote concerning math and (as one would expect) numbers.

In the first several essays in the book, Asimov takes on mathematical concepts like e, i, pi, and infinity – defining and explaining the terms, as well as attempting to give a little bit of history concerning their development. In later essays, Asimov discusses such "numbers" related topics as the metric system, roman numerals, and the structure of the calendar. The last few essays focus on taking about various geographical data, such as identifying the tallest mountains, or biggest lakes and islands (and coming up with multiple ways to judge which particular geographical feature gets the top spot in each category). Some of these essays can only be described as being about "numbers" in the very loosest sense, and probably appear in this volume mostly because they wouldn't fit into Asimov on Biology or any of the others in the series.

As I have noted elsewhere, Asimov's direct writing style, while sometimes a hindrance when writing fiction, is quite effective for non-fiction writing. His humor, while often groan-inducing, serves to leaven what could otherwise have been some interminably dull topics. The essays are intended for a general audience, so anyone who has studied mathematics to any great extent will likely not get much out of the essays other than Asimov's quirky and somewhat humorous take on various concepts. For someone who is almost entirely ignorant of anything beyond the most basic math, this book would be a decent, although sometimes meandering, introduction to the subject. Overall, this is a competent but unspectacular look into what could have been a relatively dry subject.

Isaac Asimov     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - The Wellsprings of Life by Isaac Asimov

Short review: The basics of biology as explained by Asimov.

Haiku
If you want to learn
Some basic biology
This is a good start

Full review: Asimov is most famous as a science fiction author, with good reason as he contributed some of the classic works of the genre: Foundation, The Caves of Steel and others. However, Asimov was probably a better science writer than science fiction writer. His straightforward and simple style translates better to conveying useful information than it does to creating eloquent fictional prose.

The Wellsprings of Life is a basic guide to biology and evolution. There isn't really anything here that one would not learn in a well-run high school biology class, there wasn't anything I hadn't seen before and I never progressed beyond high school biology. There were details I didn't remember (after all, how many people who don't go on to work in some biology-related field remember the names of the various phases of cell division), but there wasn't anything that I could not pick up quickly. The book is, of course, limited to the state of the science as it existed in 1960, when it was written, so a couple of nuances are missing, but there is nothing incorrect in the material presented (since our understanding of basic biology has not changed significantly since then - more advanced stuff, sure, for example, since it had not been discovered yet, Asimov misses much about the genetic code, but that doesn't detract from the material he does cover).

Despite this, I found the book very interesting and informative. Not because it provided new information, but because it presented it in an easy to follow manner, and, more importantly to me, organized it and showed it in context. Where the book excels is where it links up the various discoveries and shows how they relate to one another - Asimov is at his best when discussing how Darwin, Mendel, and other giants of the history of biology relate to one another, and linking their disparate discoveries into an overall framework for the reader. Unlike many basic science courses where various elements are treated individually, Asimov tried to show how each discovery built upon the others, and also show where advances in the field were ignored or derided due to personal animosities or political turf wars between those in the field.

In an educational environment where foolishness like "Intelligent Design" is being touted as a valid alternative to be taught alongside actual science, there can never be enough clearly written, concise books that provide actual scientific knowledge in a succinct and easy to follow manner. This book does that, and for that, I recommend it highly.

Isaac Asimov     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - The Collapsing Universe by Isaac Asimov

Short review: Asimov explains the basics of cosmology.

Haiku
Atoms, planets, stars
Neutron stars, black holes, white holes
Are cosmology

Full review: The Collapsing Universe is a nonfiction Asimov work that focuses on the birth, life, and death of stars, explains the creation and physics of black holes, and discusses the birth and potential death of the universe. Asimov's straightforward writing style, which can be a hindrance when he writes fiction, works to the book's benefit here, as the concepts, ideas, and facts are presented in a clear and easy to follow manner.

Though the book was published in the 1970s, and scholarship concerning the subject matter of the book has changed in some ways, the fundamentals of the field have not. As this book doesn't seek to do more than educate the readers on those fundamentals, the science discussed by and large remains accurate. Those who are already well-versed in physics won't find anything new or particularly insightful here: Asimov's science books were mostly intended to introduce an untrained person to the field and educate them to a reasonable understanding of the subject. The book is very math-light, as befits the introductory nature of the book.

For someone who wants a decent, non-math intensive introduction to cosmology this book would be an excellent resource. For someone already knowledgeable in the field, it would be nothing more than a diversion. If you have studied cosmology before, you can give this a pass. If you want an introduction to the subject, this book is a good way to start.

Isaac Asimov     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship by Isaac Asimov

Short review: Overpopulation is a problem. Asimov explains why.

Haiku
Too many people
Crowded onto Earth's confines
Will create problems

Full review: Asimov was always concerned about the possible overpopulation of Earth, and the negative consequences he foresaw would result. Overpopulation shows up many times in his fiction: the Robot stories, the Lucky Starr stories, numerous short stories (notably, for example, in The Winnowing). Asimov feared the consequences of an overpopulated Earth, and this volume, written for UNICEF, makes that abundantly clear.

It is difficult to argue with any of the information in the book - Asimov makes a very convincing case that the Earth will inevitably be asked to support more humans than it possibly can. In many ways, Asimov's estimates concerning how quickly population pressure will develop are too conservative: in the years since the book was published, human numbers have grown faster than he predicted.

The book loses some of its effectiveness, however, because Asimov harangues the reader at times, and gives prescriptions that are impossible to adopt in a manner that will be effective (requiring the altruistic coordination of many governments at least). While he does a good job at explaining the problem, he does a poor job at coming up with a workable solution. As a warning, the book is well written. As a guide to solving the problem, not so much. Overall, it adds up to a book worth reading, but not much more than that.

Isaac Asimov     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Introduction to Computer Information Systems by Geoffrey Steinberg

Short review: A very introductory textbook about information technology systems.

Haiku
Computer systems
Explained in one single book
Superficially

Full review: I used this book as the text of a basic computing class I took to satisfy an admission requirement for graduate school. Because I earned my undergraduate degree almost twenty years ago, I had never taken a formal course in computer information although I have been using computers since I was twelve. Introduction to Computer Information Systems is a basic general text about information technology. It is not a programming guide, and it doesn't give much more than a basic working knowledge of how computers, computer networks, and other technology related issues.

Because I have been using personal computers since I was in sixth grade, I was familiar on an informal basis with most of the concepts presented in the book. But most of what I know I had learned on my own via trial and error. Some of the information provided in this volume is so basic that it will probably only be useful to someone who has never even pressed the "on" switch on a PC. That said, the information is presented in a systemic manner that will probably fill in the gaps that being self-taught leaves for most people who have never studied the subject in an organized manner.

The book starts with the basics - introducing what information systems are, giving a brief explanation of what computers are and then moving on to an overview of the internet and World Wide Web, explaining in very basic terms how they are structured and how they work. The book then moves on to a description of basic computer hardware, software, and computer network structures. Later chapters start to get into applications: systems analysis, the rudimentary basics of programming, database management, and HTML. Most of these sorts of technical aspects of the book are fairly well-done, although the subjects are treated at only the most basic level. Later chapters on topics like e-commerce, security, ethics, and privacy, and the societal impact, are much less useful. In most cases, the basic nature of the information presented coupled with the rapidly changing nature of the subject matter results in a chapter that is not particularly informative and likely to become outdated in short order.

These quibbles aside, Introduction to Computer Information Systems is a serviceable text that will do an able job of informing someone new to computing about the basics of the field. While much of the information contained in the book will likely be material that someone who has bought themselves a PC and ventured out into the internet will already know, having it all presented in a comprehensive manner will probably still be useful for filling in the knowledge gaps of people who know the broad strokes already.

Geoffrey Steinberg     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Biased Opinion - Margaret Atwood Makes a Fool Out of Herself, Again.

Margaret Atwood may be the most inane literary personality in the world right now. I've already discussed Atwood's ridiculous denial of the fact that some of the books she has written are, in fact, science fiction. Now, not content with merely being a literary snob who doesn't know what she is talking about when it comes to genre fiction, Atwood has decided to jump headfirst into insanity with the speculation that the moon landings may have been a hoax. But rather than taking the word of a scientifically illiterate woman who happens to be able to string some words together in a pleasing way, let's see what Dr. Brian Cox, an actual physicist has to say about whether the moon landings happened:


As Dr. Cox says, you have to be a complete moron to even consider the question. An argument from authority isn't always persuasive, but the thrust of Dr. Cox's argument is that the mountains of demonstrable evidence that confirm that the Apollo program did, indeed, result in six manned landings on the moon (not merely one, as Atwood seems to think in her dimwitted speculation) are so substantial that anyone who doubts them is simply a certifiable idiot. And Atwood's reservations - harping on "deadly radiation belts", "rippling flags", and "strange shadows" - have all been conclusively and repeatedly debunked time and again. She also seems obsessed with the state of computer technology at the time, neglecting to note that before the existence of computers, actual humans proved to be pretty good at performing engineering calculations with little more than pencils, paper, and sometimes a slide rule. And of course, NASA actually did have computers that, while primitive, were perfectly adequate to the job that they were asked to do. Literally five minutes worth of investigation would have prevented her from making a complete fool out of herself. But that would have required some research into the topic before opining upon it, which seems to be something that is not Atwood's forte.

Biased Opinions     Home

Review - The Double Planet by Isaac Asimov

Short review: A pre-Apollo landing book about the science and history of the Earth and the Moon.

Haiku
The Earth and the Moon
Are a system of two worlds
Apollo unites

Full review: The Double Planet is a short science fact book that deals with the Earth-Moon system. Originally written in 1960 and revised in 1966 and 1968, the material contained in this book obviously does not include anything that was discovered as a result of the Apollo landings. To a certain extent, the book was intended to build up interest in exploring the moon, and the cover blurb even makes the somewhat misleading statement that the book contains "fascinating secrets of Man's first step across space - to the moon", even though the book itself does not contain more than a passing reference to the projected human exploration of our closest neighbor.

What the book does contain is a fairly decent introduction to the basic facts of the Earth and the Moon. Starting with the Earth, Asimov discusses how large it is, what it is made of, its orbit, its rotation, and several other physical details concerning our planet. To leaven the dry recitation of facts, Asimov also includes background information concerning how and why we know these things about the Earth, recounting the various creative experiments and painstaking observations made by scientists throughout history that led to the conclusions that are presented in the text. Asimov then moves on to discuss what we know about the Moon (or more accurately, what we knew about it as of 1968), once again interlacing the dry data with background concerning those who discovered the various facts about the Moon and how they went about doing so.

The book is written in Asimov's typically straightforward writing style. As I've noted before, this style can lead to some relatively dry fiction, but works quite well for a science fact piece. The book includes several photos taken by unmanned probes sent to the Moon by NASA, which was probably a decent selling point in the late 1960s, but are fairly mundane now, especially when contrasted with the photos taken by the various Apollo missions that followed. The most interesting element of the book is the timing: written originally just before Gagarin became the first man in space, and revised just one year before the Apollo landings began, the book gives a very readable historical perspective on what we knew about both the Earth and the Moon at the outset of the Space Age. In the decades since we have come to take for granted the vast amount of knowledge that we have gained concerning our universe that has been provided to us by our space endeavors. For that historical perspective alone this book is a decent addition to one's library and despite being more than forty years out of date, it is worth reading.

Isaac Asimov     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Video - The Backbone of Night

So here is another video in CallumCGLP's (Callum Sutherland) series of tribute videos to Carl Sagan. In this one, mostly drawn from Sagan's Cosmos series, Sagan talks about the meaning of the night sky, which seems to have been a source of fascination for humans for uncounted thousands of years. Sagan traces humanity's relationship with the stars and the mysterious band of light that spans the sky from our earliest speculation based superstitions to our present evidence based understanding of what they truly are. In parallel, Sagan draws the comparison to an individual's journey from ignorance to knowledge. In short, we all travel the path laid down by humanity as a whole, able to traverse intellectual territory that took our species as a whole centuries to cover in a single lifetime.

Unspoken in his discussion of the matter is the sad fact that so many desire to take us back to the days of superstition and darkness, rejecting reality in favor of the comfortable illusions falsehood provides. Sagan references the !Kung people of Botswana, saying they believe that the Milky Way is the "Backbone of Night", a modern day example of a superstition based guess at what the phenomena we see in the sky actually is. But the !Kung can be excused for their superstitions - there is generally no way for them to learn the actual answer, and thus they are left to muddle through as best they can. The same could be said for the ancient Greeks, left to try to come up with an explanation for what they saw in the heavens, they invented a fanciful story about Hera and breast milk. Lacking the modern technology that allows us to peer into the vast void between the stars, they had no capability to come up with anything better.

But for the modern purveyors of superstitious ignorance, such as Kent Hovind, Ray Comfort, or Ken Ham, there is no similar excuse. Their hawking of flim-flammery dressed up in a religious costume is simply inexcusable. Though Sagan addresses the fact that the body of superstition that served to promote the stars to gods resulted in a vast network of priests leeching parasitically off the rest of humanity, dedicated to propitiating the imaginary manifestations of our fears, but not so much to advancing our knowledge (and in some cases actively working to hinder our pursuit of knowledge), an issue that Sagan addressed in his book The Demon Haunted World. And now we have dishonest purveyors of anti-science like "Young Earth Creationism" and the misnamed "Intelligent Design" building "creation museums" that expose their laughable ignorance, and which would be laughable if so many people weren't sucked in by their complete bullshit claims. Not only that, these purveyors of nonsense seek to not merely halt or retard the progress of science, but to reverse it. Despite being destroyed every time they bring their anti-scientific religion-based hokum before a judge, they keep trying to dress up their religion in new clothes and hope that they can sneak it into science class.

And it is up to everyone who believes that our children should be given true knowledge to make sure that the worthless garbage that the Hovinds, Hams, and Comforts of the world try to wedge into our schools is kept out. Because the future of our children depends powerfully upon them having true and accurate knowledge, and not the half-baked Bronze Age superstitions of wandering desert tribesmen given a patina of respectability solely because of their age. And the creationist wingnuts keep trying to repackage their junk, even going so far as to engage in the hilariously poorly executed cut and replace job that resulted in a draft of the amateurishly bad creationist/intelligent design book Of Pandas and People that spoke about "cdesign proponentsists". There is no excuse for the scientific ignorance of the Discovery Institute and their satellite creationist allies, and Sagan clearly and succinctly explains why.

Somehow it is fitting that the anniversary of Carl Sagan's death is also the date that the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, eviscerating the intelligent design movement and forcing it to go back and try to come up with new clothes for their naked Emperor, was handed down. I think he would be pleased.

Previous video in the series: The Gift of Apollo.