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Release Date: 2010-09-07
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| "Space + Gravity" isn't "nothing", it's "something"I can't stand books like these.
The two authors say we don't need God because the multiverse can be created from initial space and quantum gravity for the space to work on.
The obvious question is "Why is there space and quantum gravity instead of nonbeing?"
Hawking's nothing isn't nothing. It's space plus gravity. Space and gravity is like the DNA that created everything.
That's even more impressive! Which is more impressive -- creating something with lots of tools or with only one tool? Would you be more impressed if someone solved the Rubik's Cube with ten fingers or with one.
This is just the kind of thing you'd expect from a God. Creating a patch of empty space and then creating laws of gravity and the laws of M Theory so that the little drop of void would blossom into everything. Would you expect any less masterful workmanship from a God?
The authors posit a clumsy God and then say "Look, his workmanship is too masterful. The clumsy God can't exist."
Who created the laws of M Theory and laws of gravity? Why isn't there "nonexistence" instead of empty space and these laws to work on the empty space?
Physicists always think they're the only smart ones in the universe, but they can't even step out of their own shoes and put themselves in the place of their reader and answer these simple questions. Why is there empty space? Why are there these laws?
And they can't even define their terms. "Nothing" in normal English means nonexistence, nonbeing. In other words, no space, no laws, no laws of gravity, no systems where virtual particles flick in and out of existence and so on. Nothing means nonbeing of anything including empty patches of space and things for gravity to work on. Why can't they define their terms. They're supposed to be writing for a reader, not for themselves to enjoy.
It seems like they're so involved in their own narrow fields that they become inarticulate, unconvincing blinkered half-brains that don't answer and questions at all.
If they're not going to answer why there's something instead of absolute nonbeing, then they shouldn't advertise the book as addressing this question. It's bait and switch. Almost criminal.
And by the way, the book is in the mail to me so I haven't even read it. But I know because I've spend decades reading the same nonanswers to why there's something instead of nothing. So the above is my learned prediction. Prove me wrong. I'll see for myself in a week when the most likely stupid, dishonest, falsely advertised, and poorly thought and written book arrives. I'm finished with you Stephen and Leonard. Bye bye.
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Release Date: 2008-12-24
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| Frustratingly unfulfillingThis book has come as quite a disappointment to me. I am a avid reader of science books. I love genetics especially. I am a big fan of Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley. I haven't learnt anything new by reading It Takes a Genome. If you are already familiar with personal genomics such as 23andMe or deCODEme, you won't learn anything either. The book is very short (under 150 pages) and yet manages to be tedious, repetitive and poorly informative at the same time.
This book is clearly geared towards people who have absolutely no prior knowledge of genetics. Gibson's tone give the impression that he is addressing a bunch of teenagers. This may be because he does teach teenagers at the North Carolina State University. He keeps re-explaining basic concepts as if he was holding a lecture in front of an audience that needed to be reminded of what had been said a few minutes ago. His use of celebrities as examples and fast food for metaphors reinforce this impression that the book was written for adolescents. Gibson does not disguise his antipathy towards Richard Dawkins, insisting several times from the preface onwards that "genes are unselfish", and as if it was not clear enough find the need to explain in the notes at the end of the book that he chose the expression in reaction to Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene (which, incidentally, is a far more interesting read, even 30 years after its publication).
Even for those with very little knowledge of genetics, I wouldn't recommend this book. It is badly written and only concentrate on a few diseases. One of them, AIDS, has obviously no connection with the book's title, as it is not a genetic disease at all and is not caused by the modern way of life ! Yet there is a full chapter (out of 9) dedicated to it. If you want a good introduction to genetics and genetic diseases, go for Matt Ridley's Genome.
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Release Date: 1998-03-01
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
| A scientific breakthrough in it's day.If you have never read this book, you really should sit down and take the time to do do. You will learn a lot of what Darwin was thinking during the years after the Beagle voyage, and perhaps more than you wanted to know about pigeons.
If you do NOT believe in evolution, you should read this book anyway. If you have not than you have no basis to refute it, and can make only the most idiotic of arguments. After all, just about everyone alive now who HAS read it, has read Genisis too. Darwin did NOT invent evolution, it was around in his grandfather's time. His grandfather actually wrote about it. Darwin (and another actually) came up with natrual selection, not evolution. If there was never a Charles Darwin, there would still be evolution.
The person who said (sic)
"evolution is not observable or testable and therefore not scientific. and by the way who are the favored races "
OBVIOUSLY didn't read this book, and is only making a religious statement. And stupidly at that.
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Release Date: 2010-01-08
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
| A readable and interesting book that doesn't quite deliver on its titleGerms are a very important fact of our lives and a crucial part of the biosphere. However, the vast majority of the microscopic organism is not dangerous. In fact, many of them are beneficial for our lives and we would not be able to survive without them. The one that do cause disease on the other hand are much more noteworthy and have played a significant role in human history. This book explores the impact of virulent germs on many historical events and developments, and tries to present the case that virulent diseases have had a much more significant impact on civilization than it's oftentimes assumed.
The book's biggest strength are the parts that deal directly with the virulent diseases - their characterization and origin, the symptoms, the mortality rates, and the circumstances that led to their spread and influence. Here most readers will learn a few interesting and important new facts, and will probably have some of their misconceptions challenged.
Overall the case for the civilizational level effects of virulent diseases is not made all that strongly. The author is obviously neither a historian nor someone who can weave the kind of narrative that one expects from works of history. Oftentimes his claims are a bit too broad and not entirely supported by the evidence that he presents. He is fond of jumping to the extraordinary conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence, and is not clear in distinguishing facts (or at least scholarly consensus) from his own oftentimes wild opinions. On several occasions he resorts to low-level ad hominem attacks on historical figures, without ever presenting an iota of justification for such strong epithets. This is rather silly at best, and very unprofessional. Such practices make all of his claims rather suspect, and although several germ influenced civilization-shaping scenarios seem plausible, it is hard for an impartial reader to ascertain how credible they are. The "Further reading" list at the end of the book seems to be also the list of works consulted for writing of this book, which is not all that encouraging: most of these works are secondary or tertiary sources, and almost all of them are popular presentations meant for the general readership. This leaves one feeling that the author of this book is more of a well-informed intellectual, rather than any kind of expert in this field.
The most disappointing part of the book concerns the middle word from the title: genes. It turns out that there aren't any discussions of the genes in this book. Recent decades have seen a remarkable exponential growth of our understanding of DNA and genes, and these new discoveries and resources have been finding their way into all sorts of fields in disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, criminology and linguistics. It would have been interesting to know about some possibly new insights of DNA analysis as it pertains to microbiology of germs, but unfortunately there is no such discussion in this book. This is a shame, not least because the tilt did imply something of the sort to be found in here.
This is actually an interesting and very readable book if one does not expect too much out of it. I have enjoyed reading it and have learned many new and interesting facts about germs, but feel that it could have been a much stronger work.
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