In Friend of Science, Friend of Faith, geologist Gregg Davidson explains how he maintains a simultaneous commitment to the Christian church and the academic science community. If those overlapping fellowships seem unremarkable to you, you may not find anything particularly new here although you may appreciate the opportunity to get to know Davidson and his take on the matters at hand. Although wide-ranging, the book is not a survey of the entire landscape of Christian approaches to science. Rather, Davidson gives his … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: Friend of Science, Friend of Faith
Book Review/Discussion
Science Book Review: Slime – How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us
Since I'm at the beach this week, it seems like a good time to leave you with a review of Ruth Kassinger's Slime, a broad survey of all the ways scientists and entrepreneurs are solving problems with algae. Algae have the potential to help us feed more people and provide better nutrition, to fuel transportation at personal and industrial scales, and to help clean up some of the environmental messes we've made. More than once while reading the book you may sense that algae sound too good to be true. Kassinger is clearly … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: Slime – How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us
Science Book Review: The Big Nine – How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity
Amy Webb, author of The Big Nine – How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, describes herself as a futurist, a job I wasn't entirely sure actually existed outside of science fiction. Sure, plenty of people reason about the future and some do so in rigorous and quantitative fashion, but often in very narrow and specialized areas--predicting stock markets or elections or planning for consumer trends. Futurism strikes me as needing more of a generalist, and Webb seems to fit the bill. She takes … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: The Big Nine – How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity
Science Book Review: Complexity – A Guided Tour
When I reviewed Underbug a couple of weeks ago, I supposed many readers would enjoy the storytelling skill of author and journalist Lisa Margonelli even though I was hoping for more science. Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell has plenty of math and science, which is fine by me yet may not be to everyone's taste. As it happens, the subjects of both books overlap; the complexity of termite mounds is one stop on Mitchell's tour. Notably, neither book offers a compelling conclusion to the search for unifying … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: Complexity – A Guided Tour
Science Book Review: Underbug – An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
I know the maxim, but you have to respect the aesthetic of cutting holes out of the dust jacket for a book about termites. I'm game for learning about termite biology anyway, and that attention to detail in the presentation of Lisa Margonelli's Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology sealed the deal. Imagine my surprise, then, when the book was not as much about termites as I was hoping. Termites feature prominently, but it's one of those "it was really about us all along" kind of stories. I suspect many … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: Underbug – An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology