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BOOKS - discussions, reviews and recommendations

2

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 605 ✭✭✭williamgrogan


    If you think, "The Emperor's New Mind" by Roger Penrose is crap, then don't even try and read his follow-up, "Shadows of the Mind". If anyone other than Penrose wrote it it would not even get printed. As I keep saying, if it looks like sh1t, smells like ......

    When someone writes a book with the intention of boring you to death, then it's a racing certainty he's bull****ting.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 605 ✭✭✭williamgrogan


    Meatproduct, read the reviews on Amazon and tell us which ones make more sense....

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0892817321/103-5012954-0687841?v=glance


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭MeatProduct


    Originally posted by williamgrogan
    Meatproduct, read the reviews on Amazon and tell us which ones make more sense....

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0892817321/103-5012954-0687841?v=glance
    I really don't see the point of this. Why don't you do this for every other book suggestion that is here? You seem very defensive.
    If more people are to be encouraged to post on this forum I think you will have to address the manner in which you post.

    Regards,

    Nick


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 10,501 Mod ✭✭✭✭ecksor


    Originally posted by williamgrogan
    If you think, "The Emperor's New Mind" by Roger Penrose is crap, then don't even try and read his follow-up, "Shadows of the Mind". If anyone other than Penrose wrote it it would not even get printed. As I keep saying, if it looks like sh1t, smells like ......

    When someone writes a book with the intention of boring you to death, then it's a racing certainty he's bull****ting.

    I haven't gotten around to reading either, but your post doesn't tell us anything about those books except that you didn't like them ...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 605 ✭✭✭williamgrogan


    I’m sorry but I don’t intend writing a more detailed review. I was simply supporting the previous posters pov. I think it’s clear what I mean. The only parts of the book that are of interest are not even related to the subject.


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  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 10,501 Mod ✭✭✭✭ecksor


    I missed the original comment (I actually did a search for "Penrose" after your post to see if I'd missed something and still missed it).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 605 ✭✭✭williamgrogan


    I really don't see the point of this. Why don't you do this for every other book suggestion that is here? You seem very defensive.
    The other books are good.

    Generally speaking, no one is going to read books that they believe will be rubbish. There are far too many good books to read.

    If this book actually undermined evolution then it would have caused a revolution in Biology. It didn’t. Many books have tried this type of thing in the past, Van Daneken (?), Worlds in Collision, Veliskofsky (?), etc. but they are generally badly written, contradictory, illogical, offer no proof and are a waste of time.

    I read all 50 or so reviews. It does make interesting reading. I asked that you do the same and then tell me what you thought. In other words did you tend to agree with those rubbishing the book or those praising it? Anyone buying books has to be able to analyse the reviews.
    If more people are to be encouraged to post on this forum I think you will have to address the manner in which you post.
    I can no more address my manner then change my genes. I am a programmer, we tend to be blunt. No insult intended. If I actually insult you, you will know as I will get banned.

    PS

    Thank you for calling me defensive. I am normally called agressive. :)


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 10,501 Mod ✭✭✭✭ecksor


    I am a programmer

    I had no idea that being a programmer explained so much.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 605 ✭✭✭williamgrogan


    I thought that you were one too?


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 10,501 Mod ✭✭✭✭ecksor


    I am.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭Sysiphus


    I hate to admit it but I have "Shadows...." as well, bus just can't bring myself to read it yet, I'm waiting for some kind or accident or terminal illness to strike, just to add to the experience.

    Has anyone read "Not Out of Africa" by Mary Lefkowitz?? Interesting debunkling of the book "Black Athena", and a rampant castigation of the recent (last 10 years) of the PC'ing of history so as not to offend etc. Would be nice to follow up all the leads in these types of books, just to be certain the debunking is fair though....

    How about "A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius", anybody read it or the foloow up "And You Shall Know Our Velocity" by David Eggers, very amusing and interesting, bit prozacie (neo-logisims, don't ya love 'em!). if you havn't tried, try, much better than "Vernon God Little"


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,011 ✭✭✭sliabh




  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 3,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Myksyk


    I'm half way through Janet Browne's second volume of her biography of Charles Darwin called 'The Power of Place'. It's a terrific read. She must have read every letter Darwin wrote (close to 10,000 in all!!!) as well as the correspondence of every person close to him. I recommend it highly for a deep insight into his character, his ideas, his family life and friendships, and the socio-political and scientific atmosphere of mid-late 19th century England.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32 Bucephalus


    Originally posted by MeatProduct
    Since Dawkins has come up I have a great book suggestion for the people that are skeptical about Darwinist evolution:
    "Shattering The Myths Of Darwinism" by Richard Milton
    ISBN: 0-89281-884-0

    Shows many big holes in current Darwinist theory. It turned my views on evolution upsidedown. It's in my top three scientific must-reads.

    Nick

    An interesting link to a debate involving Milton:
    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/milton.html

    More specifically about Milton:
    http://skepdic.com/refuge/altscience.html

    He used to run an "aternative science" column in a magazine I read - frankly, he seemed more interested in being contrary than proving his views. That or he's got a very sloppy view of how science works.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 241 ✭✭defiantshrimp


    Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a great book that certainly made me think about the world in a new light. It has a lot about how people interpret random noise (as distinct from information) to mean something. There is a financial slant to the whole thing but I’d strongly recommend it to anyone interested in scepticism or indeed the randomness of the world.


  • Registered Users Posts: 179 ✭✭topgold


    If you want to read about some of the elders on Boards, you might page to Chapter 12 in "Adventures of Code" and read about grunt life with Tom Murphy and other superheroes. The 314-page book by John Sterne is a good read especially for anyone who earned a wage packet coding applications in the 90s for Irish companies.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 396 ✭✭Rossonero


    "The Forgotten Soldier" - Guy Sajer
    I enjoyed reading this book more than I did watching any movie. It's the auto-biography of a French-born German soldier fighting on the Eastern front in WW2. It's so graphic and well told. It really felt as I was following beside him through all the harshness he encountered.

    Am currently reading "Cosa Nostra- a history of the Scisilian mafia"
    It's class so far.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 857 ✭✭✭davros


    Skeptical books, guys, skeptical books! :)


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Francis Wheen's recent How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the world and available, happily, in the best-seller section of Waterstone's earlier this week, is a worthwhile and occasionally hilarious outing. Given Wheen's regular round as a political columnist in several UK newspapers and magazines, not to mention a panellist on Radio 4's brilliant News Quiz, he necessarily spends more time dissecting the fetishes which affect the UK political scene than many other authors do. His (hopefully original) description of Blair's alleged 'Third Way' as something between the Second Coming and the Fourth Dimension had me in tears of laughter. Although he spends less time covering the regular stock-in-trade of skeptic authors -- homeopathy, creationism and the rest -- these are more than adequately covered elsewhere. Likewise, his coverage of some of Bush's utterances over the years is useful, though not as thorough as Mark Crispin Miller's excellent The Bush Dyslexicon which is a first class book, though, given the events of earlier this week, insufficiently read.

    Enjoy!


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 3,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Myksyk


    In a similar vein, Dick Taverne's 'The March of Unreason' has just been published and looks interesting although I'm only 30 pages in.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 114 ✭✭KCF


    It's not really a book about skepticism, but Christoff Koch's new book "The quest for consciousness: a neurobiological approach" is the best compilation of firm evidence that I have ever seen about how the brain works. Give it a read and you will be able to directly refute virtually all ungrounded speculation and mysticism about the nature of the mind.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 3,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Myksyk


    On a related note, Michael Shermer et al are organising a fascinating conference in Caltech on 'Brain, Mind and Consciousness' in the second week in May. People like Christof Koch, Ursula Goodenough, Francis Crick, V.S. Ramachandran, Susan Blackmore and Stephen Quartz will be speaking. I know two Irish Skeptics members who are going ... Lucky B@$*+~<s!!!!!!


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 3,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Myksyk


    I'm THOUROUGHLY enjoying John Gribbin's "Science: A History" at the moment and can't recommend it highly enough for anybody seeking a fascinating, quite comprehensive, yet easily digestible tour through the development of science from 1543 to 2001 (i.e. from Copernicus and Vasalius to Quantum Mechanics and M Theory).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 137 ✭✭Yossie


    I thought Dick Taverne's 'The March of Unreason' was good on eco-radicals, organic food etc, but lost me when he started to manned the barricades in defence of global capitalism.

    Has anyone read 'Higher Superstition' by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt? What did you think?

    Francis Wheen as a speaker would be very impressive! I know he talked at the Galway Book festival a year or so ago, about which I heard good reports.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 137 ✭✭Yossie


    PS That was my first post ;-)


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 3,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Myksyk


    Dick Taverne will be speaking for the ISS later on in the year so you can challenge him then on the global capitalism issue!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 137 ✭✭Yossie


    Dick Taverne will be speaking for the ISS later on in the year so you can challenge him then on the global capitalism issue!!

    I saw that alright. But i'll probably be a chicken-sh*t and just get him to sign the book :o

    Did you see that in the Irish Times Top 1000 Companies Index, ISS Ireland only came 638th? Do they threat you that bad? ;)


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,538 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    The invention that changed the world - Robert Buderi
    Americano-centric review of Radar. Explains where semiconductors come from and other supposedly "Alien" technology

    A short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson Nice intro to our scientific world view.

    The Runaway Brain - Christopher Wills, "The Evolution of Human Uniqueness"

    Terry Prachett - nice for presenting stuff from a different view.

    Duane T. Gish Ph.D - Dionosaurs by Design - Creationist dinosaur book "Perhaps a Parasurolophus could combine chemicals in his hollow crest and spray a combustible mixture, which would spontaneoulsly ignite when contacting the oxygen in the air." in ref. to Job 41:18-21 uses the competely different mechanism from the bombardier beetle to justify it.
    And incorrectly links "Bird Hipped" Dinosaurs to birds. ROFL


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 3,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Myksyk


    Bought an interesting looking book at the weekend: "Things we believe but cannot prove" edited by the bloke who runs www.edge.org (John Brockman). It has contributions from everyone and anyone in science. Will delve in when I've finished Robert Fisk's new book (not scepticism-related but depressingly brilliant).


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 857 ✭✭✭davros


    Myksyk wrote:
    Bought an interesting looking book at the weekend: "Things we believe but cannot prove" edited by the bloke who runs www.edge.org (John Brockman).
    Which reminds me, I meant to post a link to those contributions before...
    What I believe but cannot prove


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