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kevin_shepherd's Reviews (563)
“It has often and confidently been asserted that man’s origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” ~Charles Darwin
2011 - A paleoanthropological “state of the union” address, encompassing some 7 million years of hominid evolution, but with considerable emphasis on the last 400,000 yrs (give or take a few millennia here and there).
Unfortunately for Darwin, the first major unearthing of an archaic human fossil (in this case, Homo erectus) didn’t occur until 1891, nine years after Darwin’s death. The discovery most certainly would have delighted him, but it could hardly have come as any big surprise. In the last 130+ years anthropologists, paleontologists, and sundry other enthusiasts have amassed a literal mountain of evidence supporting Darwin’s insightful hypothesis.
Dr. Chris Stringer gives a detailed overview of some of history’s most striking anthropological discoveries, starting with Eugène Dubois and his Pithecanthropus erectus, and aptly orders those discoveries into a semblance of logical progression and flow. Stringer’s presentation is, for the most part, methodical and academic, and I would be hesitant to recommend Lone Survivors to anyone with only a passing interest in human evolution. But, if your heroes and heroines have names like Leakey and Goodall and Wallace, and if your heartbeat quickens at the utterance of words like heidelbergensis and mitochondrial, then this is definitely your book.
*I would be remiss if I failed to note Stringer’s inclusion of my favorite WSU professor in his take on the prominence and utility of Neanderthal brow ridges:
“The eccentric anthropologist Grover Krantz even strapped on a replica brow ridge from a Homo erectus skull for six months to investigate its possible benefits, finding that it shaded his eyes from the sun, kept his long hair from his eyes when he was running, and also scared people out of their wits on dark nights.”
2011 - A paleoanthropological “state of the union” address, encompassing some 7 million years of hominid evolution, but with considerable emphasis on the last 400,000 yrs (give or take a few millennia here and there).
Unfortunately for Darwin, the first major unearthing of an archaic human fossil (in this case, Homo erectus) didn’t occur until 1891, nine years after Darwin’s death. The discovery most certainly would have delighted him, but it could hardly have come as any big surprise. In the last 130+ years anthropologists, paleontologists, and sundry other enthusiasts have amassed a literal mountain of evidence supporting Darwin’s insightful hypothesis.
Dr. Chris Stringer gives a detailed overview of some of history’s most striking anthropological discoveries, starting with Eugène Dubois and his Pithecanthropus erectus, and aptly orders those discoveries into a semblance of logical progression and flow. Stringer’s presentation is, for the most part, methodical and academic, and I would be hesitant to recommend Lone Survivors to anyone with only a passing interest in human evolution. But, if your heroes and heroines have names like Leakey and Goodall and Wallace, and if your heartbeat quickens at the utterance of words like heidelbergensis and mitochondrial, then this is definitely your book.
*I would be remiss if I failed to note Stringer’s inclusion of my favorite WSU professor in his take on the prominence and utility of Neanderthal brow ridges:
“The eccentric anthropologist Grover Krantz even strapped on a replica brow ridge from a Homo erectus skull for six months to investigate its possible benefits, finding that it shaded his eyes from the sun, kept his long hair from his eyes when he was running, and also scared people out of their wits on dark nights.”
Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
Paleoanthropologists, as a rule, spend their professional lifetimes in wishful pursuit of just one significant new hominid identification - Lee Berger has two.
“It just shows that you can never stop looking. Just because something has been studied for years doesn't mean that it can't still tell us new things”
Berger might be the most controversial figure in a profession populated with highly controversial figures. On the one hand, some of his contemporaries consider him a selfish and egotistical showman. On the other hand, he has “open-accessed” his projects for participation and study by scientists and students from all over the world, something no other paleontologist has ever done. I would think, if one were truly selfish and egotistical, one would restrict access to one’s own discoveries, ensuring personal credit for all comparative analysis and authorship (or co-authorship) of all scientific papers. In other words, if someone were selfish and egotistical one would behave like those scientists who claim that Berger is selfish and egotistical.
Australopithecus sediba
First discovered in August of 2008 by Lee Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew at Malapa cave, near Muldersdrift, South Africa. Sediba has been dated at roughly 1.98 million years old. That puts it in the early Pleistocene.
What I find most interesting about the early Pleistocene dating is that we already know of at least two other hominids that (co)existed at that time: Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster. (The more we learn about primate evolution the less our family tree looks like a tree. “Family Bush” anyone?)
Homo naledi
First discovered in September of 2013 by spelunkers Steve Tucker and Richard Hunter at Rising Star cave, near Krugersdorp, South Africa. Naledi has been dated at approximately 300,000 years old. That puts it squarely in the middle Pleistocene (Chibanian age).
Naledi’s place in the genus ‘Homo’ is still, in 2021, rather tenuous. Although there are a plethora of characteristics that naledi shares with Homo, its small brain size lines up more closely with Australopithecus and its curved fingers suggest a lifestyle that was more arboreal than terrestrial.*
I like Lee Berger (does it show?). He certainly makes paleoanthropology more accessible and more interesting. If it’s dry, excruciatingly academic analysis you are after, I suggest skipping Almost Human and opting for Tim White’s The Human Bone Manual instead…
*I’ve always felt that taxonomic arguments involving fossils, specifically hominid specimens, are a little idiotic. Let’s face it, everything that has ever lived on this planet, including us, is “transitional.” What we find in the fossil record are merely snapshots of kinetic evolutionary time. Our need to bracket and classify everything into discernible groups hamstrings some individuals’ understanding of evolution. This is one reason why that weak-ass “missing link” argument keeps rearing its scientifically illiterate head (I’m looking straight at you, Evangelicals
“It just shows that you can never stop looking. Just because something has been studied for years doesn't mean that it can't still tell us new things”
Berger might be the most controversial figure in a profession populated with highly controversial figures. On the one hand, some of his contemporaries consider him a selfish and egotistical showman. On the other hand, he has “open-accessed” his projects for participation and study by scientists and students from all over the world, something no other paleontologist has ever done. I would think, if one were truly selfish and egotistical, one would restrict access to one’s own discoveries, ensuring personal credit for all comparative analysis and authorship (or co-authorship) of all scientific papers. In other words, if someone were selfish and egotistical one would behave like those scientists who claim that Berger is selfish and egotistical.
Australopithecus sediba
First discovered in August of 2008 by Lee Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew at Malapa cave, near Muldersdrift, South Africa. Sediba has been dated at roughly 1.98 million years old. That puts it in the early Pleistocene.
What I find most interesting about the early Pleistocene dating is that we already know of at least two other hominids that (co)existed at that time: Paranthropus robustus and Homo ergaster. (The more we learn about primate evolution the less our family tree looks like a tree. “Family Bush” anyone?)
Homo naledi
First discovered in September of 2013 by spelunkers Steve Tucker and Richard Hunter at Rising Star cave, near Krugersdorp, South Africa. Naledi has been dated at approximately 300,000 years old. That puts it squarely in the middle Pleistocene (Chibanian age).
Naledi’s place in the genus ‘Homo’ is still, in 2021, rather tenuous. Although there are a plethora of characteristics that naledi shares with Homo, its small brain size lines up more closely with Australopithecus and its curved fingers suggest a lifestyle that was more arboreal than terrestrial.*
I like Lee Berger (does it show?). He certainly makes paleoanthropology more accessible and more interesting. If it’s dry, excruciatingly academic analysis you are after, I suggest skipping Almost Human and opting for Tim White’s The Human Bone Manual instead…
*I’ve always felt that taxonomic arguments involving fossils, specifically hominid specimens, are a little idiotic. Let’s face it, everything that has ever lived on this planet, including us, is “transitional.” What we find in the fossil record are merely snapshots of kinetic evolutionary time. Our need to bracket and classify everything into discernible groups hamstrings some individuals’ understanding of evolution. This is one reason why that weak-ass “missing link” argument keeps rearing its scientifically illiterate head (I’m looking straight at you, Evangelicals
There is a lot of information here to digest, mull over and sort through. Ehrman’s assertions are backed up by over 130 notations citing over 70 sources. This is no study for the faint of heart and anyone who is dismissive after a mere perusal is asinine in their approach.
All preconceptions aside, Misquoting Jesus is not an assault on the Bible. It is an intelligent, well composed refutation of the delusional concept of biblical inerrancy, and even though most of the scriptural inconsistencies (there are literally thousands!) are minor and inconsequential, many are not. Those who insist that the entire aggregate of errors, additions, deletions, and mistranslations are “trivial” either haven’t read the New Testament critically or just aren’t reading the same goddamn book as the rest of us.
All preconceptions aside, Misquoting Jesus is not an assault on the Bible. It is an intelligent, well composed refutation of the delusional concept of biblical inerrancy, and even though most of the scriptural inconsistencies (there are literally thousands!) are minor and inconsequential, many are not. Those who insist that the entire aggregate of errors, additions, deletions, and mistranslations are “trivial” either haven’t read the New Testament critically or just aren’t reading the same goddamn book as the rest of us.
"Men and women are made for each other, but their mutual dependence is not equal. We could survive without [women] better than they could without [men]. They are dependent on our feelings, on the price we put on their merits, on the value we set on their attractions and on their virtues. Thus women's entire education should be planned in relation to men. To please men, to be useful to them, to win their love and respect, to raise them as children, to care for them as adults, counsel and console them, make their lives sweet and pleasant," ~Jean-Jaques Rousseau, 1762
Although author Susan Alice Watkins gives respectful nods to pioneers like the Greek poet Sappho (650 b.c.e.) and Joan of Arc (1412-1431), her chronology of feminist history really begins with Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and her publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). She follows this up with 200 years of highlights and lowlights of the excruciatingly slow evolution and progression of women's rights.
Why is this taking so long? Why is equal worth not common sense? I look at the state of the world today and I see very modest change, and, in some arenas, no change at all. My edition of Feminism for Beginners was published in 1992 and it does not speak well of Ronald Reagan and his misogynistic policies. I wonder how Watkins would respond to 2016 and the election of a man who makes Ronald Reagan look like Gloria Steinem?
This is a nice introduction to feminist history and thought. My only complaint is with the illustrations, some of which are a little sophomoric and crude. Subject matter this important deserves better artwork.
Although author Susan Alice Watkins gives respectful nods to pioneers like the Greek poet Sappho (650 b.c.e.) and Joan of Arc (1412-1431), her chronology of feminist history really begins with Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and her publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). She follows this up with 200 years of highlights and lowlights of the excruciatingly slow evolution and progression of women's rights.
Why is this taking so long? Why is equal worth not common sense? I look at the state of the world today and I see very modest change, and, in some arenas, no change at all. My edition of Feminism for Beginners was published in 1992 and it does not speak well of Ronald Reagan and his misogynistic policies. I wonder how Watkins would respond to 2016 and the election of a man who makes Ronald Reagan look like Gloria Steinem?
This is a nice introduction to feminist history and thought. My only complaint is with the illustrations, some of which are a little sophomoric and crude. Subject matter this important deserves better artwork.
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
I wish my brain had the capability of projecting a little hologram of Bertrand Russell reciting What I Believe every time someone questioned my atheism. That way I could yell, “RELEASE THE KRAKEN!” and then sit back and watch all the self-righteous sanctimony vaporize under the concentrated beam of Bertrand’s irrefutable acumen.
“...nature is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy.”
I wish my brain had the capability of projecting a little hologram of Bertrand Russell reciting What I Believe every time someone questioned my atheism. That way I could yell, “RELEASE THE KRAKEN!” and then sit back and watch all the self-righteous sanctimony vaporize under the concentrated beam of Bertrand’s irrefutable acumen.
“...nature is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy.”
I picked up this book almost as a goof. After a tome or two on planetary physics and physical anthropology and the Spanish Civil War, I needed a break. Here, judging by its cover, was a humorous take on America’s unhealthy obsession with the human breast. I thought I’d learn a little history, have a few laughs, toss the book a star or two, and move on. I was so wrong.
Okay, I was right about one thing. It is a history lesson on this country’s sexually obsessive neurosis. But that’s really only a conduit for a very intimate and sometimes heart-wrenching autobiography.
To be honest, my thoughts about boobs had rarely gone much deeper than the objectification that my American self was programmed for. I had never really contemplated the psychological and cultural significance of breasts and bras and that deep, soft cleavage a guy could get lost in. Wait… what were we talking about?
Breasts. Boobies. Ta-Ta’s. Their presence announces to the world who you are. Their absence announces to the world who you are not. Their size is considered inversely proportional to intelligence. They make and break relationships. They make and break careers. They populate art works and advertising. They feed babies. And they kill thousands and thousands of human beings every year.
A Boob’s Life is Leslie Lehr’s journey. It’s her saga of growing-up and growing-older in a world replete with insecurities and implants, feminists and chauvinists, marriages and divorces, misogynistic politics and archaic ideologies, cancers and chemotherapies. I feel a little less flippant, a little more humble, and a lot more enlightened.
Okay, I was right about one thing. It is a history lesson on this country’s sexually obsessive neurosis. But that’s really only a conduit for a very intimate and sometimes heart-wrenching autobiography.
To be honest, my thoughts about boobs had rarely gone much deeper than the objectification that my American self was programmed for. I had never really contemplated the psychological and cultural significance of breasts and bras and that deep, soft cleavage a guy could get lost in. Wait… what were we talking about?
Breasts. Boobies. Ta-Ta’s. Their presence announces to the world who you are. Their absence announces to the world who you are not. Their size is considered inversely proportional to intelligence. They make and break relationships. They make and break careers. They populate art works and advertising. They feed babies. And they kill thousands and thousands of human beings every year.
A Boob’s Life is Leslie Lehr’s journey. It’s her saga of growing-up and growing-older in a world replete with insecurities and implants, feminists and chauvinists, marriages and divorces, misogynistic politics and archaic ideologies, cancers and chemotherapies. I feel a little less flippant, a little more humble, and a lot more enlightened.
"Until Darwin and the paleontologists came along to tack three million years of human life onto your history, it was assumed in your culture that the birth of man and the birth of your culture were simultaneous events."
Part allegory, part parable and part exemplum. I can't say that Ishmael was a life altering experience for me, but it masterfully articulated notions that I have long believed were true. Quinn's use of fiction to promote positive real-life change is nothing short of brilliant. Reading this gave me a sense of impending peril, tempered by cautious optimism and a call to action.
Part allegory, part parable and part exemplum. I can't say that Ishmael was a life altering experience for me, but it masterfully articulated notions that I have long believed were true. Quinn's use of fiction to promote positive real-life change is nothing short of brilliant. Reading this gave me a sense of impending peril, tempered by cautious optimism and a call to action.
Originally titled “A Psychologist at Leisure,” Nietzsche pummels popular 19th century ideology and icons with exuberance; wielding his denunciations not like a surgeon with a scalpel, but rather like a lumberjack with an axe.
• Nietzsche on theologians:
“Fancy humanity having to take the brain diseases of morbid cobweb-spinners seriously! - And it has paid dearly for having done so.”
“...we recognize no more radical opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of ‘a moral order of things’ still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with punishment and guilt. Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman.”
• Nietzsche on linguistics:
“‘Reason’ in language! - oh what a deceptive old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as we still believe in grammar.”
• Nietzsche on the concept of free will:
“...we know only too well what it is - the most egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of making mankind ‘responsible’ in a theological manner - that is to say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians.”
“The doctrine of the will was invented principally for the purpose of punishment - that is to say, with the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments - or the right for God to do so.”
• Nietzsche on Kant:
“The German has no fingers for delicate nuances. The fact that the people of Germany have actually tolerated their philosophers, more particularly that most deformed cripple of ideas that has ever existed - the great Kant - gives no inadequate notion of their native elegance.”
“I bear the Germans a grudge for having made a mistake about Kant and his ‘backstairs philosophy,’ as I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness.”
It’s not all smash & dash. Nietzsche has many good things to say about Hegel, Heinrich Heine, and Schopenhauer; saving his most glowing accolades for Goethe...
“He bore the strongest instincts of this century in his breast: its sentimentality, and idolatry of nature, its anti-historic, idealistic, unreal, and revolutionary spirit”
“...far from liberating himself from life, [Goethe] plunged right into it; he did not give in; he took as much as he could on his own shoulders, and into his heart.”
Nietzsche goes on to call Kant the “antipodes” of Goethe (the Nietzer never squanders an opportunity to kick Kant squarely in the proverbial balls!)
Twilight of the Idols is a hammer to the clay feet of our convictions. This is not on par with The Antichrist, but the gap is not all that large. 4 stars.
• Nietzsche on theologians:
“Fancy humanity having to take the brain diseases of morbid cobweb-spinners seriously! - And it has paid dearly for having done so.”
“...we recognize no more radical opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of ‘a moral order of things’ still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with punishment and guilt. Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman.”
• Nietzsche on linguistics:
“‘Reason’ in language! - oh what a deceptive old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as we still believe in grammar.”
• Nietzsche on the concept of free will:
“...we know only too well what it is - the most egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of making mankind ‘responsible’ in a theological manner - that is to say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians.”
“The doctrine of the will was invented principally for the purpose of punishment - that is to say, with the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments - or the right for God to do so.”
• Nietzsche on Kant:
“The German has no fingers for delicate nuances. The fact that the people of Germany have actually tolerated their philosophers, more particularly that most deformed cripple of ideas that has ever existed - the great Kant - gives no inadequate notion of their native elegance.”
“I bear the Germans a grudge for having made a mistake about Kant and his ‘backstairs philosophy,’ as I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness.”
It’s not all smash & dash. Nietzsche has many good things to say about Hegel, Heinrich Heine, and Schopenhauer; saving his most glowing accolades for Goethe...
“He bore the strongest instincts of this century in his breast: its sentimentality, and idolatry of nature, its anti-historic, idealistic, unreal, and revolutionary spirit”
“...far from liberating himself from life, [Goethe] plunged right into it; he did not give in; he took as much as he could on his own shoulders, and into his heart.”
Nietzsche goes on to call Kant the “antipodes” of Goethe (the Nietzer never squanders an opportunity to kick Kant squarely in the proverbial balls!)
Twilight of the Idols is a hammer to the clay feet of our convictions. This is not on par with The Antichrist, but the gap is not all that large. 4 stars.
Judging by the title, I half expected this to be some sort of tabloid takedown of Hawking’s legitimacy as a relevant and important cosmologist. I was wrong. If anything, Hawking Hawking is a biographical celebration of one of the most recognizable scientists of the 20th Century.
“…the vast majority of people who admired Hawking knew little about what he had done to deserve his reputation.” (pg 4)
Hawking’s Big Three
1. As a physicist, Hawking’s scientific legacy really began with his PhD thesis. Here he showed that the universe, in Big Bang theorem, had to have been birthed from “an infinitesimal but infinite blemish on the fabric of space and time.” A singularity. A place where all our mathematics go completely to shit.
2. Singularity aside, Hawking thought his biggest cosmological breakthrough came in the form of his quantum-mechanical calculations of universal wave-functions. This was the point in Hawking’s life where physicists cheered and theologians jeered; the point when Hawking took God and his necessity out of the equation. After Hawking successfully conceptualized a starting point for all space and time, “what place, then, for a creator?”
3. Be that as it may, the consensus among his peers is that Hawking’s biggest contribution to science was neither his singularity theorem nor his cosmological wave-functions; his most impactful breakthrough was his discovery of what is now known as “Hawking radiation” - a discovery that upended black hole cosmology and forever changed the applications of both quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity.
[spoilers removed]
“Hawking laid the foundations, and one after another his compatriots built an edifice upon them.” ~Kip Thorne, theoretical physicist, 2003
*Science Popularizer: (also known as science ambassadors) any person who attempts to help the public understand how science works, the findings of science, and how science relates to public policy; an interpreter of science for general audiences. Science popularizers may be scientists themselves or they may also be professional science journalists.
With the publication of his book, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Hawking transitioned from relevant scientist to phenomenal celebrity. A transition that was exponentially magnified by Hawking’s degenerative disability, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
It is here, in Hawking’s dichotomy of scientist versus celebrity, where author Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking sinks its proverbial teeth. Seife draws a stark contrast between public perception and reality. Not since Albert Einstein had anyone captured the world’s collective imagination the way Stephen Hawking did. And, much like Einstein, Hawking’s popularity overshadowed contemporaries of equal (or perhaps even greater) scientific importance.
“To compare Hawking to Newton or Einstein is just nonsense. There is no physicist alive who compares to Einstein or Bohr in ability. But those rather grottily researched little biographies of Galileo and Newton in A Brief History do rather invite you to put Hawking in that same sequence. In a list of the 12 best theoretical physicists this century Steve would be nowhere near.” ~John Barrow, theoretical physicist, 1992
This echoes a recollection Neil deGrasse Tyson, himself an astrophysicist and science popularizer, had of a physics conference in 1991:
“We all agreed that [Stephen Hawking] is a pretty smart guy, and that he is an excellent physicist. But we further agreed that he falls below a dozen other physicists from the twentieth century, most of whom the public has never heard of.” ~NdT (The Sky Is Not the Limit, pg 131)
Wherever one ranks Stephen Hawking on the 20th century’s cosmological scale of relevance, it was not Bohr or de Broglie or Dirac or Eddington or Fermi or Heisenberg or Planck or whomever that brought theoretical physics into the limelight of public consciousness, it was Stephen.
“Have you heard? Have you heard what Stephen has discovered? Everything is different. Everything is changed!” ~Martin Rees, cosmologist and astrophysicist, 1974
“…the vast majority of people who admired Hawking knew little about what he had done to deserve his reputation.” (pg 4)
Hawking’s Big Three
1. As a physicist, Hawking’s scientific legacy really began with his PhD thesis. Here he showed that the universe, in Big Bang theorem, had to have been birthed from “an infinitesimal but infinite blemish on the fabric of space and time.” A singularity. A place where all our mathematics go completely to shit.
2. Singularity aside, Hawking thought his biggest cosmological breakthrough came in the form of his quantum-mechanical calculations of universal wave-functions. This was the point in Hawking’s life where physicists cheered and theologians jeered; the point when Hawking took God and his necessity out of the equation. After Hawking successfully conceptualized a starting point for all space and time, “what place, then, for a creator?”
3. Be that as it may, the consensus among his peers is that Hawking’s biggest contribution to science was neither his singularity theorem nor his cosmological wave-functions; his most impactful breakthrough was his discovery of what is now known as “Hawking radiation” - a discovery that upended black hole cosmology and forever changed the applications of both quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity.
[spoilers removed]
“Hawking laid the foundations, and one after another his compatriots built an edifice upon them.” ~Kip Thorne, theoretical physicist, 2003
*Science Popularizer: (also known as science ambassadors) any person who attempts to help the public understand how science works, the findings of science, and how science relates to public policy; an interpreter of science for general audiences. Science popularizers may be scientists themselves or they may also be professional science journalists.
With the publication of his book, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Hawking transitioned from relevant scientist to phenomenal celebrity. A transition that was exponentially magnified by Hawking’s degenerative disability, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
It is here, in Hawking’s dichotomy of scientist versus celebrity, where author Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking sinks its proverbial teeth. Seife draws a stark contrast between public perception and reality. Not since Albert Einstein had anyone captured the world’s collective imagination the way Stephen Hawking did. And, much like Einstein, Hawking’s popularity overshadowed contemporaries of equal (or perhaps even greater) scientific importance.
“To compare Hawking to Newton or Einstein is just nonsense. There is no physicist alive who compares to Einstein or Bohr in ability. But those rather grottily researched little biographies of Galileo and Newton in A Brief History do rather invite you to put Hawking in that same sequence. In a list of the 12 best theoretical physicists this century Steve would be nowhere near.” ~John Barrow, theoretical physicist, 1992
This echoes a recollection Neil deGrasse Tyson, himself an astrophysicist and science popularizer, had of a physics conference in 1991:
“We all agreed that [Stephen Hawking] is a pretty smart guy, and that he is an excellent physicist. But we further agreed that he falls below a dozen other physicists from the twentieth century, most of whom the public has never heard of.” ~NdT (The Sky Is Not the Limit, pg 131)
Wherever one ranks Stephen Hawking on the 20th century’s cosmological scale of relevance, it was not Bohr or de Broglie or Dirac or Eddington or Fermi or Heisenberg or Planck or whomever that brought theoretical physics into the limelight of public consciousness, it was Stephen.
“Have you heard? Have you heard what Stephen has discovered? Everything is different. Everything is changed!” ~Martin Rees, cosmologist and astrophysicist, 1974
Charles Darwin set sail onboard the HMS Beagle on the 27th of December, 1831 and didn’t return to England until the 2nd of October, 1836. An accounting of this endeavor’s observations and discoveries was first published in 1839 as “Charles Darwin’s Journal and Remarks.” It was so popular that it was republished in 1845, this time as “Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches,” and then again in 1905 as “The Voyage of the Beagle.”
Rather than digressing into some long winded synopsis of a book that has been Goodreads reviewed over 500 times, I am going to limit myself to just three elements that caught my attention (you’re welcome):
One. Even though Darwin’s theory of natural selection was far from being fully formulated and articulated (see On the Origin of Species, 1859), the fingerprints of species mutability (read: Evolution) are all over this book. For example:
“…Chionis alba [the snowy sheathbill] is an inhabitant of the Antarctic regions. It feeds on seaweed and shells on the tidal rocks. Although not webfooted, from some unaccountable habit it is frequently met with far out at sea. This small family of birds is one of those which, from its varied relations to other families, although at present offering only difficulties to the systematic naturalist, ultimately may assist in revealing the grand scheme common to the present and the past ages on which organized beings have been created.”
Two. Compared to his contemporaries, Darwin was quite politically progressive…
“…it is impossible to doubt but that the extreme liberalism of these countries must ultimately lead to good results. The very general toleration of foreign religions, the regard paid to the means of education, the freedom of the press, the facilities offered to all foreigners and especially, as I am bound to add, to everyone professing the humblest pretensions to science, should be recollected with gratitude by those who have visited Spanish South America.”
And Three. Darwin was undeniably a staunch opponent of slavery. His abolitionist assertions are reiterated over and over again throughout Voyage of the Beagle—so much so that I had a hard time choosing just one example…
“On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate.”
To call Charles Darwin a “naturalist” is a time-saving summation—otherwise every biographer would have to write: biologist, geologist, anthropologist, biochemist, ecologist, paleontologist, botanist, zoologist, climatologist, ichthyologist, volcanologist, ornithologist, ethnologist, primatologist, etc., etc., etc.. All of these vocations are abundantly evident here; making this one of the best reads in history for science nerds (like me!).
Rather than digressing into some long winded synopsis of a book that has been Goodreads reviewed over 500 times, I am going to limit myself to just three elements that caught my attention (you’re welcome):
One. Even though Darwin’s theory of natural selection was far from being fully formulated and articulated (see On the Origin of Species, 1859), the fingerprints of species mutability (read: Evolution) are all over this book. For example:
“…Chionis alba [the snowy sheathbill] is an inhabitant of the Antarctic regions. It feeds on seaweed and shells on the tidal rocks. Although not webfooted, from some unaccountable habit it is frequently met with far out at sea. This small family of birds is one of those which, from its varied relations to other families, although at present offering only difficulties to the systematic naturalist, ultimately may assist in revealing the grand scheme common to the present and the past ages on which organized beings have been created.”
Two. Compared to his contemporaries, Darwin was quite politically progressive…
“…it is impossible to doubt but that the extreme liberalism of these countries must ultimately lead to good results. The very general toleration of foreign religions, the regard paid to the means of education, the freedom of the press, the facilities offered to all foreigners and especially, as I am bound to add, to everyone professing the humblest pretensions to science, should be recollected with gratitude by those who have visited Spanish South America.”
And Three. Darwin was undeniably a staunch opponent of slavery. His abolitionist assertions are reiterated over and over again throughout Voyage of the Beagle—so much so that I had a hard time choosing just one example…
“On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate.”
To call Charles Darwin a “naturalist” is a time-saving summation—otherwise every biographer would have to write: biologist, geologist, anthropologist, biochemist, ecologist, paleontologist, botanist, zoologist, climatologist, ichthyologist, volcanologist, ornithologist, ethnologist, primatologist, etc., etc., etc.. All of these vocations are abundantly evident here; making this one of the best reads in history for science nerds (like me!).