I just finished reading Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.  The topic of the book is science, pure and simple.   I found the book enjoyable, stirring, enraging, and finally compelling.

Sagan starts the book with chapter after chapter of analysis of the utter stupidity of mankind.  UFOs, The Catholic Inquisition, Global Warming Deniers, Evolution Deniers, and any number of other topics are covered.  After summing up the mass idiocy that can exist in any human culture with a lack of critical thinking, Sagan dives into the scientific method and how science works.  Sagan frames good science as wonder + skepticism.  He discusses the error correcting mechanisms built into science: prediction, verification of prediction through experimentation, and peer review.  Sagan then drags out his famous Bologna Detection Kit, a useful set of rules to ferret out pseudo-scientific and anti-scientific arguments.  This simple set of rules comes in handy; you will be surprised how many fallacious arguments can be easily detected by one or more of these rules.

Sagan ends the book discussing the founding of The United States.  Many of the founders were amateur or professional scientists.  Sagan equates the good things in science with the good things in democracy.  In the end it dovetails well.  He makes a convincing argument that a public schooled in basic scientific methodology is also a good democratic public.

The United States now trails many other nations in science, math and reading.  People argue against the scientific fact of evolution.  In Texas, science textbooks have been stripped of the true age of Earth (around 4.5 billion years, not 6000 years).  Arguments are made that global warming isn’t real because, hey, all the scientists are liberals and are controlled by Al Gore.  For the price of a single attack helicopter we can fund SETI for 10 years.  Well, lets go buy an attack helicopter instead.  Sagan makes a devastating argument that much of the American public not only misunderstands the practice of science, but the don’t even grasp the fundamental principles.  So much for the hopes of our founders.  Yet Sagan encourages scientists and science enthusiasts to use patience, understanding and clear communication to educate the general public.

The Demon-Haunted world was published in 1997, but feels like it was written yesterday.  The themes ring true, louder and clearer now than they would have for me if I had read the book 12 years ago.  I highly recommend this book.  It is a real eye opener.

Having enjoyed reading The Tipping Point a year ago, I was interested in another Malcolm Gladwell book I stumbled across called Outliers: The Source of Success.  Outliers is by far the superior book, because not only does Gladwell continue to provide what is becoming his trademark way of weaving scientific studies, sociology, psychology and style, but he brings a very personal touch with Outliers that drives his point home.  I won’t ruin it for you, but I will say that Outliers provides several insights into the nature of success, and also into the nature of the type of super-star success obtained by the like of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others.

Be sure to read the book all the way through to the end.  My favorite part of the book was the Epilogue, which should not be read until the book is done. Gladwell’s tale of success in America takes a surprising, enlightening and personal turn in the end that really connected the issues he discussed in a real way for me.

This is one of the favorite non-fiction books I have read in a while.

About a year ago I started digging back into science fiction reading.  I wanted to spend some time getting back into something I had really enjoyed when I was younger.  As a goal I decided to start reading Hugo Award winning books.  In the last year I have read a number of great science fiction novels from a variety of sub-generas, but none have taken hold of my imagination like the works of Neal Stephenson.

About 6 months ago I picked up The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.  I had read an article about a reprinting of The Diamond Age which made the book sound fascinating, and it was a Hugo winner so it fit into my reading list.  Upon getting about 20 pages in, I thought nothing was further from the truth.  I wanted to put the book down and never see it again.  The story was confusing; it was being told from the perspective of about 7 different people most of whom didn’t interact with each other.  A coworker that had read the book some years before recommend I read to page 100, and if I still didn’t like it that I should quit.  By the time I got to page 100 I was enthralled with the book.  The depth in which Mr. Stephenson had researched numerous cultures and technologies was amazing, the characters he portrayed were multi-layered and real, and the various plots he was carefully weaving from multiple starting points had hints of dovetailing into something marvelous.  By the end of the book I was eagerly waiting for something fantastic, and the book did not disappoint.

It was with this experience that I purchased Snow Crash.  The publishing of Snow Crash predates that of the The Diamond Age by 3 years.  Snow Crash had apparently been the break through book for Stephenson back in the early 90s.  I dove right in.  This time I knew that the plot might be disorienting and splintered at first, but that I should pay attention and stick to it.  Snow Crash did not let me down.  Again I was impressed with the level or research Stephenson must have done in religion, ancient cultures, technology and various other subjects.  The characters and locations were futuristic yet real.  I found myself cheering for the Protagonist in the book (capitalized because that was his name) and his side-kick (which is what he referrers to her as).  The book has a wonder self-referential feel that one usually see from more mature, already-confident-from-their-success authors.  Stephenson knew what his world was, knew who his characters were, and knew what happened to them.  The book was a tour de force with no apologies.  When it ended I wished for a sequel which Stephenson has not written and probably will not.

I settled for the next best thing: I ordered a couple more Neal Stephenson book.  I have just cracked into my 3rd of his books, and am just now at that threshold where his initial introduction of characters is starting to turn to coherent plot.  Now I cannot believe that I ever disliked this style of writing.

I would highly recommend both The Diamond Age and Snow Crash to anyone looking for hard science fiction.  They are both well written, seem (for the most part) technically accurate, and will leave your mind racing after you are done.

I recently started “reading” The Princeton Companion to Mathematics.  I put “reading” in quotes (twice) because reading this book is work.  Just the introductory sections take serious effort if one is reading to completely grasp the subject matter.  The Companion covers a lot of ground, and I am only about 100 pages into a 1008 page book.  Why did I pick this brick of a book for my next reading?  Seriously, you could murder someone with this book (either by hitting someone over the head with it, or by making them read it).

I have become interested in a couple of math-heavy subject lately in computer science.  Artificial Intelligence and Bayesian Nets are just two subjects that require serious math knowledge.  It seems like I keep running into a wall of my own mathematical ignorance.  I started searching for math books to learn various topics.  It seemed like everything was either “Math for Dummies”, or too advanced for someone 10+ years passed their last math class.  The Companion was meant for those with advanced high school math and some college math, so I though it would be perfect for me.  And so far it has, but the 100 pages I have read have been some of the toughest I have ever read.

Something else tough about this book is its size.  Its huge.  Just finding a comfortable reading position can be difficult.  Sitting in our living room reading, I feel like I am behind the technological curve holding such a tome.  Rita sits in her chair comfortably reading her Kindle while I hold 1008 pages of hardcover book up.  Or rest it on the arm rest and try to position myself. Sheesh!

Still, I have gained some confidence in my purchase as I have gotten 100 pages deep into the book.  If nothing else, I have relearned some concepts I once knew and have also learned some of the right questions to ask.  I honestly don’t know if I will ever finish this monster, but I am confident that as long as I continue to put forth effort I will continue to reap the rewards.

I started re-reading The Fifth Miracle by Paul Davies this weekend. The book is about biogenesis aka the origins of life on Earth.  It got me thinking about a lot of other great non-fiction books I have read over the last few years.  I decided to author a new page on non-fiction books and hope to update it as I find new books to read.

A few weeks ago I became interested in trying to find some good sci-fi books to read.  I had been reading Culture books by Iain M. Banks.  At some point I lost interest in that fictional universe, and started looking for something else.

The idea occurred to me that I should read recent Hugo Award winning novels.  Like any good netizen, I looked up the list of winners on Wikipedia and found that I had already read several recent winners:

• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon
• Rainbows End – Verner Vinge
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling
• The Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson

In addition to these fine book, I had purchased American Gods by Sandman writer Neil Gaiman on vacation last year and had not managed to finish it.  So I selected it as my first book to continue with, and purchased Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, which should be arriving today.  If I should happen to get through even the most recent 10 or 20 winners, there are a lot of older books going back to 1953, and plenty of nominees as well.