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 club
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
Science Book Review: How the Body of Christ Talks
Given my interest in using contemporary science metaphorically, I could hardly pass up a book expanding on the church-as-body metaphor with human physiology and the practice of conversation. How the Body of Christ Talks by C. Christopher Smith is an invitation to deeper conversation for Christian congregations, although organizations of all sorts will likely find value in Smith's observations and advice. He prefaces these with brief vignettes about how our physical bodies work, all motivated by a central premise that … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: How the Body of Christ Talks
Science Book Review: The Revolutionary Genius of Plants Ch 7-9
We're on our final week discussing the English translation of Stefano Mancuso's The Revolutionary Genius of Plants, a colorful and wide-ranging survey of recent developments in our understanding of plant biology. Mancuso is particularly interested in what sets plants apart from animals, reasoning that we can learn the most from our biggest differences. Two weeks ago we focused on the decentralized nature of plants; last week we looked at how plants have to solve problems while staying in one place. In the final chapters … [Read more...] about Science Book Review: The Revolutionary Genius of Plants Ch 7-9