Thoughts on Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang's "Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance between Astrophysics and the Military"

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang have written a very depressing book on how warfare and states' pursuit of dominance have become increasingly intertwined with scientific pursuits. Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance between Astrophysics and the Military covers developments from early modern Europe to our time. While the book is informative and well-organized, it fails to answer or even address the biggest question facing the scientific enterprise for which Dr. Tyson has become its most public advocate: why is humanity not acting on the knowledge the scientific enterprise has produced in order to create a sustainable, just human society?

Film: We Believe in Dinosaurs

The IMDB entry for the documentary film We Believe in Dinosaurs will tell you that it explores the people behind the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter Park in Kentucky. I'm telling you it is an understated cry for anti-fascist action. And if you think that's a hyperbolic statement, then you haven't been paying attention to my entries tagged fascism at this blog and at my other blog. You are Günter Grass's Social Democrat.

Review: The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War by Eilleen Welsome

Eileen Welsome's The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War should be a cautionary tale for all people considering scientific and technological solutions to grave problems. People in authority -- intelligent, ambitious, competent, hard-working people who talk well, smell good and love their children -- will always place their goals above the harms their actions do to people they consider less consequential. As humanity approaches the cliff of the climate catastrophe, many beneficiaries of greenhouse gas emitting economic activities will propose technological remedies with unknown and unknowable consequences, and you can be sure that these proposals' main feature is they keep the people on top in the same relative position of privilege.

Welsome's book is like a compilation of "long-read" articles describing various aspects of the United States's military's dealings with nuclear energy during the development of the first atomic bomb and through the next few decades as it attempted to find tactical uses for nuclear weapons.

Reading List on Modern and Colonial Science in the Middle East by Nir Shafir

Nir Shafir has compiled, with the help of the Internet hive mind, a reading list on Modern and Colonial Science in the Middle East.

You can hear Professor Nir on episode 124 of the Ottoman History Podcast.

Decolonising Science Reading List by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

I maintain a “Decolonising Science Reading List” that is stuff that I have read &recommend. https://t.co/BQLWX2wLHE #racenstem #blackandstem

— Dr. Chanda 🇧🇧 (@IBJIYONGI) September 8, 2016

To Read: God, Nature, and the Cause: Essays on Islam and Science by Basil AlTaie

 The publisher is Kalam Research and Media.

Review: "Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything" by Philip Ball

Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything by Philip Ball
University of Chicago Press, Paperback, 9780226211695, 465pp. Publication Date: September 17, 2014

Today, citizens of the industrialized world almost universally consider curiosity to be a praiseworthy trait, and we consider it to be a fundamental attribute of the Scientist, the Jedi of Science, through which our place in the universe can be understood and our welfare enhanced. But humanity did not always consider curiosity to be praiseworthy.

It is certainly not evolutionary advantageous. How many curious hominids had their genetic lines snuffed out by eating unknown plants or entering dark caves or traveling to the next valley?

Review: God Sent Me: A Textbook Case on Evolution vs. Creation by Jeffrey Selman

Jeffrey Selman (website) was the lead plaintiff in a suit against the Cobb County, Georgia Board of Education which resulted in an order for it to remove a disclaimer from its public high school biology textbooks.

I've met Jeffrey twice in my activities for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the first time to lobby against Georgia's Religious Freedom Restoration Act legislation in March 2015 and the second time to hear him speak at our Augusta, Georgia chapter meeting about his book in August 2015.

Film: 1001 Inventions - World of Ibn Al-Haytham

Trailer to Omar Sharif's final film, the short film releasing later this year: '1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham.'

Merchants of Doubt Movie Trailer

I had reviewed the book upon which this documentary is based.

Review: The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond

I love popular science books. I hope that many would be translated into languages Muslims often speak, particularly Arabic, since many educated Arabs only read Arabic, unlike Urdu, for example, of which I'm told its educated speakers typically can read English.

One of the authors whose books I suggested should be translated is Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. His latest book, The World Until Yesterday: What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies?, also deserves the widest possible audience.

By comparing how modern and traditional societies handle war, raising of children, care of the elderly, health risks, religion, language and diet, The World Until Yesterday stretches our conception of the ranges of choices available to us in a matter similar to the best science fiction.

COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey with Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I've watched the first 7 episodes of COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I hope you are watching the series as well. Episode 7, The Clean Room, tells the story of Clair Patterson's studies measuring lead to determine the rate of decay of radioactive elements and thus the age of our planet. Along the way, he realized that lead pollution was increasing human exposure to lead, and he advocated for its regulation. Unsurprisingly, the petroleum and chemical industries resisted regulation and supported scientists who argued against Patterson's claims. This reminded me of Merchants of Doubt, a book I reviewed.

Full episodes are still available online.

Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt: Ibn al-Nafis, Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection by Nahyan Fancy

Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt: Ibn Al-Nafis, Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection by Nahyan Fancy.

"This book should be read by any historian of pre-modern science and medicine, not only by Islamicists," writes Leigh Chipman ... read more

Review: Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M Conway

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway. First edition, 2010, hardcover, 355 pages.

I'd had this book on my shelf for a while, but I was especially motivated to read it when I noticed that an entire chapter was devoted to contemporary attacks on Rachel Carson and the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to ban the use of the pesticide DDT in the United States in 1972.

Review: The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth by E.O. Wilson

The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth by Edward O. Wilson. I've reviewed other books by Professor Wilson.

This book is a Reader's Digest version of Professor Wilson's ideas as expressed in books like Future of Life and Social Conquest. It's meant to spread biophilia among the religious to get humanity in action to save biodiversity. Bill Moyers's 2006 show Is God Green? addresses some of this as well.

I thought that the most interesting part of the book was Wilson's explanation of biology as a discipline and how love of this branch of science could be inculcated in students, pages 103-61.

Review: The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson

The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson. I've previously reviewed his books The Future of Life and Anthill.

The bulk of this book describes the process by which Homo sapiens' ancestors became eusocial and how that led to multilevel selection. When a species becomes eusocial, group selection becomes an important element in the species' evolution.

For criticism of the concept of group evolution, read blog entry 1 and blog entry 2 from Jerry Coyne, the author of Why Evolution is True, a book I have in my possession and intend to read and review. I heard Dr. Coyne give a lecture in a suburb of Augusta, GA on February 4, 2013.

Being an expert in insects, the typical example of eusociality, E.O. Wilson shifts back and forth between describing the development of eusociality in ants and eusociality in anthropods.

The important thing for me, and for most readers of this blog, is Professor Wilson's final chapters where he presents conclusions on how this understanding of humanity should impact our religious and moral beliefs and ethical practices.

Review: Anthill by E.O. Wilson

Anthill by E.O. Wilson. I've previously reviewed his book The Future of Life.


This fiction book presents themes Professor Wilson has emphasized in his nonfiction books. The most important theme is the necessity of creative synthesis of capitalism and environmental protection. The lead character, Raphael Cody, learns that a beloved southern Alabama old wood forest surrounding a lake will be threatened by Mobile's expansion. In fact, his blue-blood maternal uncle is among the business elite advocating this development. Raphael leaves the study of the biosphere to complete a law degree at Harvard. Upon graduation, he returns and works as the legal counsel for the developer who purchased the property and who has previously converted woodland and wetlands to suburban Mobile sprawl. As legal counsel, he is able to develop a proposal which to a large extent preserved the quality of the land while advancing his employer's bottom line.

Ask Alison's Science Books for Everyone

Science educator and blogger Alison Monahan answers the question:

Would you put together a recommended reading list for a world citizen in 2013 to be in a good position to judge political and moral claims in the light of science today? 

Science - Ecology Books Translated into Arabic

I'm thinking of working to get some popular books on ecology and other scientific subjects translated into Arabic.

This blog entry, which I hope to update, contains links to books I've already found that meet this description.

I'm also keeping this list up-to-date on Delicious.

• Valuing the environment : economics for a sustainable future by David Glover - Arabic translation
• by David Glover - Arabic translation 
• List of David Glover's books translated into Arabic on Worldcat.org
• Series of books entitled "How does it work?" for young adult readers
• Straphanger by Taras Grescoe -- Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile -- Arabic translation
• Book by Frank R. Spellman and Nancy Whiting - Arabic translation
• Book by climate change denialist Ian Plimer, Heaven and Earth. Arabic translation - Rebuttal of book by Ian Enting. Rebuttal of book by John Price. 
• Fueling Our Future: An Introduction to Sustainable Energy by Robert L. Evans -- Arabic translation 
• Unauthorized translations of Carl Sagan books available via download

Review: The Future of Life by E.O. Wilson

The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson. (on PaperbackSwap)

I first heard about Edward Osborne ("E.O.") Wilson from a 2007 interview with Bill Moyers.

This is another of the books on science I've discussed. As I was listening to it, I wondered what humans fifty years from now, assuming humanity survives, will think about the humans who preferred acquiring consumer goods over preserving our planet's biodiversity? Or worse, the humans who were too busy killing each other, most assuredly for justifiable reasons, to notice that the planet was preparing to cull its most destructive species, home sapiens? Or even more unfathomable, large swaths of humanity spent all their time and effort worrying about which humans were indeed closer to God and immersed themselves in endless disputes over texts whose authors would be horrified that their works were cited as reasons for ego-assuaging religious one-upmanship.