2017-focus - Book Reviews

Rationality: From AI to Zombies

Internet rationality celebrity Eliezer Yudkowsky drags us through an epic logical journey to the land of the "Bayesian Conspiracy" and the idea that real rationality is about "winning."

3-stars

How Economics Shapes Science

Stephan reveals how economic incentives have made American science risk averse and turned our universities into lobbying superpowers and employment pyramid schemes.

5-stars

The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future

"The Bet" gave me a new framework for interpreting science/policy debates: Neo-Malthusians vs. Cornucopians. Once you see it, you can't stop seeing it everywhere you look. Sabin elegantly traces the intellectual lineage of this debate through the lens of the Ehrlich/Simon wager.

4-stars

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

This is the hardest I've laughed for any book in my 2017 reading theme. "Higher Superstition" is a wickedly perceptive takedown of the absurdities of the "academic postmodern left" and their "perspectivist" critique of science. Gross and Levitt defend the epistemological integrity of science

3-stars

Science: The Endless Frontier

"Science: The Endless Frontier" is a landmark in the history of American science because it launched the National Science Foundation. At FDR's request, Vannevar Bush wrote this report to lay out how science would be funded in the US after WWII. Bush's career - entrepreneur, dean of MIT,

3-stars

The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It

"The War on Science" does a good job of contextualizing the current science/politics debate but is unevenly written and methinks it smacks a bit too much of half-baked undergraduate political ranting. Otto's book gave me a better understanding of recent anti-science political history and helped me frame

3-stars

Making "Nature": The History of a Scientific Journal

"Making 'Nature'" feels like half the book it could have been. Rather than settling for a rather dry exposition of the journal's history, Baldwin attempts to enliven the narrative by exploring some of Nature's biggest controversies. Yet her effort falls short because she is unwilling to take a

3-stars

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

A timely but excessively cranky book. Nichols' "The Death of Expertise" rails against the public's rejection of expert authority. Nichols' goal was to present the strongest possible case for his point of view - namely that democratic "equality", sloppy news-ertainment, coddled university students, and universal internet

4-stars

Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions

"Rigor Mortis" explores how perverse incentives and a "broken" scientific culture are fueling the reproducibility crisis in modern biomedical research. Published in April, Harris's jeremiad was a perfect fit for my 2017 reading theme on "The Integrity of Western Science" and an excellent companion

3-stars

State of Fear

Remember that time in 2004 when Michael Crichton wrote a climate-change skepticism book? Neither do I. That's why I was so surprised to come across this book as I was researching my 2017 reading focus on "The Integrity of Western Science." In "State of Fear", Crichton

4-stars

Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

"The scientific method is the most reliable way of discovering the truth." That's how I responded when a friend recently challenged me to state my core beliefs. As I ranted about Popper on "falsifiability" and our conversation descended into the depths of definitional disputes, I realized

2017-focus

Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

"Bad Science" angered me more than any book I've read in the last few years. Dr. Goldacre lays bare the tactics used by people committing the worst crime I can think of - deliberate falsification and misrepresentation of scientific data. I get so worked up about this because:

5-stars

The Hunt for Vulcan: And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe

In "The Hunt for Vulcan", the head of MIT's writing program takes us on a fast-paced tour through some of the biggest controversies and discoveries in astronomy and physics. Throughout this short and thoroughly enjoyable book, Levenson weaves together explanations of complex science with their historical context in

3-stars

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

"The Psychopath Test" quixotically flits between psychological research, Scientology, mental asylums, corporate raiders, and Douglas Hofstadter's "Goedel, Escher, Bach" as Jon Ronson explores our society's relationship with madness. I chose this book because I've long suspected that a fair bit of psychological research is not particularly

5-stars

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I read "The Black Swan" seven years ago and I still think of it at least once a month. It humbled me and completely changed how I saw the world. I started college in the middle of the 2008 financial meltdown and Taleb offered a coherent intellectual framework

annual-focus

2017 Focus: The Integrity of Western Science

2017 is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg. His intellectual framework challenged the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church and set into motion a revolution that fundamentally changed the way people saw the world. What is the "Catholic Church"

science

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is a difficult, dense read that requires a fairly broad familiarity with the history of science. Often overly professorial in tone and frequently repetitive, the book is a tough slog. Yet this book is one of the cornerstones of the field of the