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A review by stellarsphyr
Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies by Geoffrey B. West
2.0
I really wanted to like this. Perhaps I was spoiled by the other pop science books like The Gene or Thinking Fast and Slow. But I couldn’t help but think of the criticism “There are too many pages in between the cover of this book!”
I felt like any time a discussion was getting interesting, it was stopped and referred to a later chapter. But instead of pursuing something more interesting or relevant in the mean time, often the same ground was covered. Over and over and over again.
I also felt like some of the observations weren’t compelling theoretically. I kept getting the feeling that some things wouldn’t hold up on further scrutiny and that the guidelines of scale (absolutely true) were being presented as unassailable laws rather than practical and interesting heuristics. At times, it seems like scalability in these terms isn’t falsifiable.
Take for instance a discussion on city size where the populations of New York, LA, and Chicago line up with a mathematical model. Yes, now, but I’m 1980 when Chicago and LA were nearly identical in terms of population, was it still true?
Further, I wanted some personal investment from the author. Some other narrative to help tie this together and help me see practicality more readily. The aforementioned books were great at this, and I still remember the author’s personal stories. West tries at times, but it doesn’t land.
It was the first time I was utterly bored with a pop sci/math book in quite some time.
I felt like any time a discussion was getting interesting, it was stopped and referred to a later chapter. But instead of pursuing something more interesting or relevant in the mean time, often the same ground was covered. Over and over and over again.
I also felt like some of the observations weren’t compelling theoretically. I kept getting the feeling that some things wouldn’t hold up on further scrutiny and that the guidelines of scale (absolutely true) were being presented as unassailable laws rather than practical and interesting heuristics. At times, it seems like scalability in these terms isn’t falsifiable.
Take for instance a discussion on city size where the populations of New York, LA, and Chicago line up with a mathematical model. Yes, now, but I’m 1980 when Chicago and LA were nearly identical in terms of population, was it still true?
Further, I wanted some personal investment from the author. Some other narrative to help tie this together and help me see practicality more readily. The aforementioned books were great at this, and I still remember the author’s personal stories. West tries at times, but it doesn’t land.
It was the first time I was utterly bored with a pop sci/math book in quite some time.