Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

Book Review/Discussion

Science Corner: Dawn – A Proton’s Tale of All that Came to Be

I think some neutrinos did the cover art. (Cover image © InterVarsity Press)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a biophysicist, a writer, a theologian walk into a bar. OK, so that’s not actually how Dawn was written, but the diverse backgrounds of the three co-writers–Cees Dekker, Corien Oranje, and Gijsbert van den Brink respectively–do sound more like résumés for the cast of a niche joke than for collaborators on a novel. And not just any novel, but one that spans 14 billion years–from the instants after the Big Bang until the moment the manuscript was sent to the printers (or so it seems, given the current events mentioned in Chapter 23, “Space”). As the subtitle “A Proton’s Tale of All that Came to Be” suggests, the protagonist of this novel is also unique; I’ve never read a book from the point of view of a subatomic particle before. (Talk about your unreliable narrators; subatomic particles make up everything!) So what does a proton have to say?
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Science Book Review: Being You – A New Science of Consciousness

(Cover art © Dutton)

At various times while reading Anil Seth’s engaging and accessible Being You, I was reminded of the people in Helen Thomson’s Unthinkable, the subject of a previous blog post. Thomson was documenting the distinct experiences of people whose perception of themselves and/or the world around them depart substantially from what is typical: people who think they are tigers or dead or who can have their orientation to the world flipped instantaneously. Seth is giving an account more generally of why perception works the way it does, and so I found myself regularly wondering if his model accounts for the full breadth of perceptual experience. That is a testament both to how memorable Thomson’s accounts were and to how compelling Seth’s writing is that I believed his model probably could.
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Science Corner: A Planet of Viruses Book Review & Virus Appreciation

Space viruses. Sure, that sounds about right for 2022. (Image by Alexandra Koch)

I don’t know about you, but viruses have been on my mind a lot lately. One virus in particular, SARS-CoV-2 (a.k.a. COVID-19), continues to hold my attention way more than I would like it to. However, viruses are pretty amazing, and I learned to appreciate them when I read Carl Zimmer’s book, A Planet of Viruses. Like everything I have read by Carl Zimmer, who writes a weekly science column for The New York Times, this short book is a fun read, and it doesn’t require a background in biology, or any other science, to understand and enjoy. It explores the weird and wonderful diversity of viruses on Earth and how they influence the lives of humans — even when we don’t want them too.
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Science Corner: Null Set Book Review

All the world’s a pool table to Cas Russell, protagonist of Null Set. (Image by Tomaz Barcellos at Pexels)

Even in science fiction, pure math doesn’t get as much play as robotics or cosmology or genetic engineering. So the promise of a math savant as a protagonist with a title like Zero Sum Game was enough to get me excited for SL Huang’s debut novel. I was expecting something a bit more in the vein of Neal Stephenson or Ryan North, with explorations of mathematical concepts woven into the story. What I did not know is that Huang has a background both in mathematics and stunt performing, so her protagonist is an action hero who uses her gifts at computation to dodge bullets and break bones. So I didn’t get quite what I expected from Zero Sum Game, but I was better prepared to appreciate the sequel, Null Set. What the book may lack in mathematical depth, it makes up for in exploration of the problem of evil.
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Science Corner: The Dance of Life and Advent Pt 4

saturn jupiter photo
I hope this is an actual photo of Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction and not a rendering. I also hope some of you got to see it for yourself; it was too cloudy in Pittsburgh. (Photo by stevehfung )

Reading and writing about The Dance of Life and developemental biology reminded me of the time I was asked to write about a supposed flash of light occurring at the moment of conception. Articles like this one made the rounds on social media, getting everyone excited about a literal spark of life. Or at least I guess that’s what they were excited about; I didn’t really get it because I knew the light came from reagents scientists added to detect zinc and not the egg itself. I appreciated the opportunity to add clarity to the conversation and provide some insight into how science is practiced, but I’m pretty sure some folks felt like I was raining on their parade.
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