A popular science book is an odd choice for a plane ride when you're aweary and the airline has ignored your many pleas (ok, barbs) for help (ok, vengeance). My Kindle I had mislaid? misplaced? left on the hotel bed! I slept through the flight anyway.
As a friend pointed out, this type of book will be bought by this type of reader. It's pitched at young people, to improve 'scientific literacy'. Only if your parents are scientists or you are failing science and have bought every study guide on your and the nearest continent (via Amazon.com obviously). Chances are you spend your nights hunched over something that steams or rattles, with a single study lamp that casts a halo of light around you. The equivalent of reading after bedtime under your bed covers.
There is one other reason you might read this book. The reason I have held off mentioning the author until now. (Was I sneaky enough? Or did you cotton on in paragraph 2? That's usually where it happens. Yep. Blogger Stats tells me so. No, not really. We're waiting for the pupil tracking implants. Not, not really.) It's one of the reasons I chose this book for my aweary, vengeance-d, Kindle-less flight. Richard Dawkins.
I hesitate here, wondering whether his name should begin a paragraph, have a whole paragraph to itself (room to stretch) or be hidden as it is. Should it even be on the cover of the book? Although endorsements from two other famous atheists would still be a giveaway.
Richard Dawkins is a famous - infamous - scientist. Yes, scientist. Contrary to popular opinion, he is not a professional atheist. We don't have popes. And if we did, he already has a job. Writing. (He's written more books than Danielle Steele. Ok, not quite. But still.) Notice how this is the first thing we tackle? No review says: "Bill Bryson tackles a range of subjects with thoroughness, but the airy-fairy-I-feel-'energy'-in-the-landscape factor is annoying." (Which he did FYI. And I was annoyed FYI.)
But this is actually relevant. If you had been consistently challenged over something like this with the virility of someone who feels passionately about something (feels, folks), would you be defensive or would you brush it off? Not being a saint, I would do the former. I might actually start graffiting walls or wearing leather jackets or hanging out in the hipster part of town. (*&$@ I already live there.)
Or poking at my bullies from the pages of my book. With a tone. You know the one. The one with feelings behind. The Magic of Reality is a good book and it addresses some of the fallacies in the Bryson book. Even though the book covers things I have already read about, precisely because I enjoy this type of book, the explanations and metaphors have changed how I visualise the concepts, so they are easier to pull out and elucidate at any moment. He has also given me better ways of evading? excavating? elucidating! them.
However, the 'true' here is between science and myth as explanations for, well, the world. You guessed it, with specific digs at Christianity. Enlightening sometimes, but often bullying. The true I was looking for was objectivity and our subjective viewpoint - not our experience of the world as metaphor, but what we can assume to be objective when our viewpoints are subjective.
Like the light spectrum and colour pondering, about whether colour is perceived differently by different people. (Answer is no FYI.) Or the tree falling soundlessly in a forest pondering. (Yes.) The philosophy of science pondering. (Maybe. All of the above. Who knows.)
Looking at it, that's a tall order for a book aimed at teenagers. If Pullman got away with blatant criticisms of Christianity without a peep from people with feelings though...
Both these authors capture a youthful exuberance (more abundant than the petty digs, I promise) at the world and how it can be explained. Even when talking about some of the myths, you can almost see Dawkins bobbing up and down with excitement. And if he graffitis a few walls, it's because he is so excited about the jigsaw puzzle of the world and being able to describe it, that he cannot contain himself. Feelings, again. Like colourful parasites.
So perhaps I did get what I was looking for in this book. I wanted someone to help me draw the line between subjective and objective. Until then, I view the world with suspicion. Dawkins didn't give me a slice of chalk and ruler; he gave me a glimpse of what it is like to view the world with excitement instead.
There is one other reason you might read this book. The reason I have held off mentioning the author until now. (Was I sneaky enough? Or did you cotton on in paragraph 2? That's usually where it happens. Yep. Blogger Stats tells me so. No, not really. We're waiting for the pupil tracking implants. Not, not really.) It's one of the reasons I chose this book for my aweary, vengeance-d, Kindle-less flight. Richard Dawkins.
I hesitate here, wondering whether his name should begin a paragraph, have a whole paragraph to itself (room to stretch) or be hidden as it is. Should it even be on the cover of the book? Although endorsements from two other famous atheists would still be a giveaway.
Richard Dawkins is a famous - infamous - scientist. Yes, scientist. Contrary to popular opinion, he is not a professional atheist. We don't have popes. And if we did, he already has a job. Writing. (He's written more books than Danielle Steele. Ok, not quite. But still.) Notice how this is the first thing we tackle? No review says: "Bill Bryson tackles a range of subjects with thoroughness, but the airy-fairy-I-feel-'energy'-in-the-landscape factor is annoying." (Which he did FYI. And I was annoyed FYI.)
But this is actually relevant. If you had been consistently challenged over something like this with the virility of someone who feels passionately about something (feels, folks), would you be defensive or would you brush it off? Not being a saint, I would do the former. I might actually start graffiting walls or wearing leather jackets or hanging out in the hipster part of town. (*&$@ I already live there.)
Or poking at my bullies from the pages of my book. With a tone. You know the one. The one with feelings behind. The Magic of Reality is a good book and it addresses some of the fallacies in the Bryson book. Even though the book covers things I have already read about, precisely because I enjoy this type of book, the explanations and metaphors have changed how I visualise the concepts, so they are easier to pull out and elucidate at any moment. He has also given me better ways of evading? excavating? elucidating! them.
However, the 'true' here is between science and myth as explanations for, well, the world. You guessed it, with specific digs at Christianity. Enlightening sometimes, but often bullying. The true I was looking for was objectivity and our subjective viewpoint - not our experience of the world as metaphor, but what we can assume to be objective when our viewpoints are subjective.
Like the light spectrum and colour pondering, about whether colour is perceived differently by different people. (Answer is no FYI.) Or the tree falling soundlessly in a forest pondering. (Yes.) The philosophy of science pondering. (Maybe. All of the above. Who knows.)
Looking at it, that's a tall order for a book aimed at teenagers. If Pullman got away with blatant criticisms of Christianity without a peep from people with feelings though...
Both these authors capture a youthful exuberance (more abundant than the petty digs, I promise) at the world and how it can be explained. Even when talking about some of the myths, you can almost see Dawkins bobbing up and down with excitement. And if he graffitis a few walls, it's because he is so excited about the jigsaw puzzle of the world and being able to describe it, that he cannot contain himself. Feelings, again. Like colourful parasites.
So perhaps I did get what I was looking for in this book. I wanted someone to help me draw the line between subjective and objective. Until then, I view the world with suspicion. Dawkins didn't give me a slice of chalk and ruler; he gave me a glimpse of what it is like to view the world with excitement instead.
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