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Mr. "Science Friction - Where the Known Meets the Unknown" by Michael Shermer, © 2005Skeptical religious doctrine enclosed. Shermer was a theology student when he first started college, he knows what religious folks say about his cause. Gould was instrumental in the authors career.Throughout this book, I had to keep on reminding myself or making sure of why I believed in God and Jesus, and the best I could come up with is that science, for all it's power and ability, it can not answer "Why." To be sure science is not studied to answer that, but to circle around it and try to get as much information as possible otherwise.
Why not have a simple one, two, three, or two, four, six scoring system. But this is a simple system, as he would have explained, that the players have accommodated themselves to, and there is little to no reason to change the scoring system, so it stays as confusing as ever.The last chapter is an eulogy for Stephen Jay Gould because Mr. Like the scoring for tennis is the same as it has been since its inception, yet it is vary convoluted and difficult to understand. He sort of like explains how sometimes things change and sometimes not.
I do not think he cares if people believe in God of not, just that they have to believe in science as well. It is also interesting about how he parses history into various simple to complex developments. Mr. Shermer relates the loops to history and reoccurrences that seem to happen.
But there was a surprise in `Exorcising Laplace's Demon' where he starts to discuss loops and repeating loops, the subject of "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid," another book I am reading right now, sort of (heavy going, you know, I am not all that smart). He also understands that they need to defend the position that they have had for the past hundred and fifty (150) years or more. After all, how are you suppose to talk on the phone if you do not believe in it working.His big story in this book is about evolution, as you might expect.
He sites "Germs, Guns and Steel" by Jared Diamond but I was never sure to what effect. He reminds me of the boorish know it all at a cocktail party you can't wait to get away from.There are several examples I could site of what seems to be the basic problem I had with this book and that is the idea that he and science are right and everyone else is wrong. I was confused as to whether he was agreeing or disagreeing with the conclusions. Science he assures us is the only way to the truth because it is completely objective, implying that no scientist has ever skewed data to reach the conclusion he or she wanted or needed. I wouldn't mind if it were a matter of merely pointing out the con men that use religion for their own purpose but you start to lose my interest when you generalize everyone in a group and than start the name calling. I bought this book hoping for something akin to Penn and Teller's B******t. I like to think of myself as a skeptical thinker and was hoping to see these psychics and televangelists get a little comeuppance but all I got was a guy who is way too enamored with himself and his chosen profession. I know several smart compassionate people who also happen to be religious just as I know smart compassionate atheists.
In one chapter Shermer attacks historians for using other than comparative, scientific methods. In one chapter, Shermer takes historians to task for not using objective methods when evaluating events of the past. Or maybe I just didn't understand what he was talking about. For someone who prides himself on being a skeptic that doesn't seem like very critical thinking to me. I'm not a scientist but I do pride myself on being able to follow technical writing but several of the essays here are presented in a dry fashion and I had a hard time holding my attention. As far as I'm concerned it's not religion that causes conflict but the "my group is right" mentality of all special interest groups. This book is definitely not laymen friendly (in my case anyway). I am not religious by any means but I found his constant carping against religion tiring.
I have read Diamond's book and it seemed to me Shermer was drawing the same conclusions but presenting it as a wholly original idea proving his point. Speaking of which, there was way too much discussion on the naming of the Bright movement and I can't help but think this would only be interesting to a Bright.I think I could have lived with the God bashing if there had at least been something interesting here. Pretty petty for a man of science I thought. I wasn't expecting to be recruited to the Brights movement.
This has been done pretty well before (Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" for example). Many of these are simply defending/asserting very obvious points that are easily recognized by most people, things like the rejection of creationism as a science, the importance of skepticism, etc. The attempt strikes me as fairly naive, but oh well. There isn't a way to apply the postulates and principles of these fields directly to a subject like history.
Shermer is no scientist either, and its appearant from some of the writing and examinations of various scientific concepts; it's obvious that the author is written by a non-scientist. Unfortunately, Shermer's honest attempt to make history more scientific was betrayed by a highly irrational methodology. I'll be brief here. The book is alright, and as someone who is interested in science and the philosophy of science, I had fun reading it. He does a good job on these. We should keep in mind that evolutionary biology, and chaos math especially, are very strict scientific fields.
These essays in science friction however fall miserably short of success. So what he actually does is to take the broad implications of the scientific fields and tweak them so they become somewhat applicable to society and human interaction. Why does he apply chaos theory and evolutionary biology towards studying history, why not string theory or the implications of general relativity. I suppose I understand what he is TRYING to do, which is argue that fields like history could stand to be more concise if we were to consider a scientific, meaning strong deterministic explanations for why events take place in history. However, there are a handful of chapters in which Shermer tries to scientify history, discern patterns, and just generally make the case for greater quantification of history. Equally silly are his arbitrary selections of eras in history to which he applies his "model". I'm not a scientist but I found the book to be a little too simplistic.
The approach is incredibly silly on a number of levels, beginning with the premise itself. He claims to apply chaos theory as well as evolutionary biology to historical periods, and from this application he arrives at a handful of truisms that most gradeschoolers recognize. The book is just a collection of some 12 or 13 essays about various scientific (sometimes barely) issues. His attempts to do so are incredibly absurd.
I would give it five stars except that one chapter on his personal family encounter with death seems out-of-context and sappy. Shermer blows away many common myths and exposes the way our faulty thinking gets us in trouble, It is similar to Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer," as a psychological explanation of why we cling to certain beliefs.
What Michael Shermer does is try to encourage healthy skepticism without such excessive skepticism that we can't draw conclusions. Shermer goes beyond analysis and sees science as the next stage in the evolution of morality beyond organized religion stating that, "What we really need is a new set of morals and an ethical system designed for our time and place, not one scripted for a pastoral/agricultural people who live 4000 years ago". Too much faith in conventional wisdom can lead to stagnation while too much questioning can lead to paralysis by analysis and chaos. The Skeptic philosophy is a non-partisan, scientific movement using the tools of logic and the scientific method to determine the truth or falsity of claims both large and small. There are two kinds of people in the world; those who question what they see and hear and those who prefer to leave the contemplation to others.
I have to say that I prefer the books of Martin Gardner but Mr. The chapters range from breezy and readable to extremely dense as in the chapter `Exorcising Laplace's Demon'. Skeptic targets range from New Age mysticism to fundamentalist Creationism to Holocaust deniers.Mr. As a long time reader of Skeptic magazine I have to warn other readers that you may find many of the chapters in Science Friction very familiar. In fact Mr. The articles range from an ill-advised attempt by a group of atheists, agnostics and progressives to label themselves as `Brights' to an analysis of the true cause of the mutiny on the bounty. Shermer quotes Paul Kurtz saying, "If there are any lessons to be learned from history, it is that we should be skeptical of all points of view, including those of the skeptics"As the founder of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer knows a little something about skepticism. Shermer so don't expect any overarching theme.
Society is a delicate balance between these two forces. Later he states that, "Just as science has been our candle in the dark illuminating our path into the heart of human nature, science is our greatest hope for the future, showing us how best we can utilize our natures to ensure our survival." I'm not sure that science is quite up to the task of defining morality but I do agree that it holds a better chance than fundamentalist Christianity.Science Friction is a collection of articles written by Mr. Shermer is a fine heir apparent to the king of debunking. Mr. Shermer along James (The Amazing) Randi and Martin Gardner have essentially created a new skeptic movement.
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