The Gaming Den

Kaelik wrote:I will be traveling on airplanes kind of a lot soon, because that is a thing I do around Christmas most years.

As such I require things to be read.

Generally speaking I like sci-fi/fantasy, but probably, if there's much of that I already have found it, I just bring it up as an aside. The main thing I'm looking for recommendations for would be non-fiction books about philosophy/science/sociology/scholarship.

The problem is, they need to not make over use of charts and diagrams, which narrows the field, since those things usually convert like garbage on my kindle.

I've been reading Seeing Like a State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State). I would call it a social sciences book. Libertarians who read it tend to enjoy it a lot I think, which may be a warning sign regarding its quality. I've found some of the author's observations to cohere with my own experiences.

phlapjackage wrote:This year I read some of Stephen Jay Gould's books and found them interesting. I don't usually read serious philosophy/science/sociology/scholarship, but his stuff was pretty readable to me.

Ever Since Darwin
Wonderful Life
The Panda's Thumb

Gould's a bit dated by now though. Wonderful Life in particular has been largely upended by a cladistics-based understanding of the same data. Not that it's not still worth reading, but something to be aware of.

Mechalich wrote:Gould's a bit dated by now though. Wonderful Life in particular has been largely upended by a cladistics-based understanding of the same data. Not that it's not still worth reading, but something to be aware of.

I would love to read a good book with this kind of information, that also makes the information as accessible as Gould made it. Do you have any recommendations?

The current gold standard treatise regarding the subject is The Cambrian Explosion, by Erwin and Valentine, but it is a textbook, meaning that it's both expensive and not intended for general audiences (also I haven't read it since my paleontological interests are focused from the Ordovician onward). You might try Life on a Young Planet, which I also haven't read but is at least focused in the same time frame. If you're interested in the biology of living invertebrates the most easily accessible (and certainly best looking) survey is Animal Earth: the Amazing Diversity of Living Creatures.

Now on the subject of early vertebrate evolution I have read, and do recommend The Rise of Fishes by Long (the 2010 edition). It is a textbook and therefore expensive (see if you can find a library that has it) but very readable and not especially technical with a plethora of helpful photographs and illustrations.

Gould lied about the data and its implications. I suggest finding a more honest author to learn about biology.

While I have a vague recollection of Gould being a douchebag. My memory files that classification as personal rather than professional. As such I append a "citation needed" for your claim, OS.

What, you're too lazy to search out your own data?

Try starting here.

The Dictator's Handbook is non-fiction and kind of within the fields given. I enjoyed it a lot and it doesn't have any charts that I can remember.

Occluded Sun wrote:What, you're too lazy to search out your own data?

Try starting here.

Oh look, OS has literally no idea what he is talking about, the thing he actually said (that Gould lied about data) is totally false even by his own pathetic attempt at citing, and the reason OS hates Gould is because Gould had the temerity to disagree with a guy who claimed black people were racially stupider.

Well, we dug to the bottom of the OS is mad at Gould well, is anyone even remotely surprised that at the bottom it turns out that OS's racism is behind it all? I confess to not being even remotely surprised.

Gould was the kind of old-school high-powered scientist who had a tendency to pontificate. He considered his opinion, even when he wasn't as well informed as he perhaps ought to have been, to be extremely valuable, especially towards the later period of his career. This sort of throwing around of the weight of accumulated knowledge was and is extremely common in science, though the dawn of information sharing via the internet has changed it somewhat. Paleontology, however, is an extremely slow-moving field and continues to incubate and retain figures like Gould in way more rapidly moving disciplines like genetics largely do not.

Gould in particular was notable for holding on to very controversial opinions in the field and getting into arguments with other prominent scientists (many of whom, like Dawkins and E.O. Wilson, of which the same thing could be said). His skill with a writer, which put him in the public eye and fed his ego, may have actually contributed to this by making in harder to back down.

As a writer on evolutionary biology speaking to the public Gould was one of the most effective voices of the 20th century - he's far more readable than Dawkins for certain. The only real argument against reading his writings now is that they're old - Wonderful Life was published in 1989 and is now over a quarter-century old. It, and much of his other writing, largely predates the seismic change that ran through paleontology and evolutionary biology generally through the broad acceptance of cladistics - which occurred primarily in the 1990s because the PCR reaction was developed at that time, making large-scale genetic analysis practical.

It is difficult to overstate the impact cladistics analysis has had on evolutionary biology and systematics in the past twenty years or so, unfortunately it is also difficult to explain what cladistics is and how it works (even as someone with a background in taxonomy and graduate research under his belt I'll confess that I've never quite mastered some of the more complex elements) and I'm not aware of any popular science work that gets things right. Naming Nature by Yoon gets it almost perfectly wrong and I'm not aware of anyone else who's tried to tackle the subject.

Occluded Sun wrote:What, you're too lazy to search out your own data?

Try starting here.

No, I'm too lazy to search out your data, dipshit.

I'm not going to go research every racist nutjob's claims. That's the whole point of "citation needed". If you make dubious assertions, then you must back them up. Not expect other people to do your legwork.

Occluded Sun wrote:Gould lied about the data and its implications

I read a law blog for funsies, and one thing the law-talking guy says is that you know a claim is baseless when it makes a very general claim and doesn't mention specifics about what the claim is actually about. I think that definitely applies here.

phlapjackage wrote:

Occluded Sun wrote:Gould lied about the data and its implications

I read a law blog for funsies, and one thing the law-talking guy says is that you know a claim is baseless when it makes a very general claim and doesn't mention specifics about what the claim is actually about. I think that definitely applies here.

To be fair, he might have just been trying to hide his racism, since according to OS

"The data" is "Black people have tiny brains next to my big giant white brain."

and "the implications" are "therefore I'm write in my belief in the racial inferiority of black people, and we really should keep them as slaves for their own good."

I mean, I could understand why a blatantly racist monster might want to hide the specifics of what they believe even if they thought they had a good case.

Gould lied about so many things it's tedious to narrow them down.

If you make dubious assertions, then you must back them up.

I'll remember that if I ever feel like making dubious assertions.

In the meantime, the various controversies surrounding Gould are so well-documented and easily accessed that there's little point in citing them rather than merely mentioning their existence.

If you rely on evidence people present to you, you'll be very easily lead by people presenting only evidence that helps their cause. Actual skepticism requires searching out data, not sitting back and waiting for it to be delivered on a silver platter.

To return to the topic of book recommendations, here's one:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Occluded Sun wrote:To return to the topic of book recommendations, here's one:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

I've never heard about this book, but now that I know it has the seal of approval of the racist advocate of slavery who believes black people are biologically stupider, who thinks that he should never have to prevent evidence of his claims, I can safely file that under "books I will never read."

It's written by Carl Sagan and focuses on critical and skeptical thinking, and yes we can see the irony here in it's submission.

The story within of the invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire is an amusing side mental experiment.

I also recommend the Principia Discordia, although I don't think many here will get the joke.

Also, by all means read works by Steven Gould. Impulse was particularly good, I thought.

phlapjackage wrote:I would love to read a good book with this kind of information, that also makes the information as accessible as Gould made it. Do you have any recommendations?

Largely as a result of this discussion, I finally got around to reading The Monkey's Voyage by de Queiroz, a text I'd been meaning to read for some time. That's the book you want. While the primary subject is different - biogeography instead of structural development - it covers many of the same theoretical topics and actually expands on the Gouldian 'decimation' hypothesis directly through the mechanism of dispersal. It's not quite as accessible as Gould from a writing perspective (that's a high bar) by not overly technical - notably de Queiroz manages to discuss the implications of the cladistics revolution on his subject without getting bogged down too heavily in the statistical complexity of the field (which is immense).

Mechalich wrote:Largely as a result of this discussion, I finally got around to reading The Monkey's Voyage by de Queiroz, a text I'd been meaning to read for some time. That's the book you want. While the primary subject is different - biogeography instead of structural development - it covers many of the same theoretical topics and actually expands on the Gouldian 'decimation' hypothesis directly through the mechanism of dispersal. It's not quite as accessible as Gould from a writing perspective (that's a high bar) by not overly technical - notably de Queiroz manages to discuss the implications of the cladistics revolution on his subject without getting bogged down too heavily in the statistical complexity of the field (which is immense).

This is probably along the lines of what I'm looking for, thanks! I'm not at all knowledgeable about these fields and so unless the writing is interesting, I know I'm going to put the book down after a few pages.

Sea Change by S.M. Wheeler is a bizarre but rather well done novel. Read it recently, would recommend.

I've been on a non-fiction kick over the last few months. I'm ready to escape reality again.

I've never really delved into space operas. What's a good space opera to read?

Coincidentally, I am on vacation this week and have read the first Hard Luck Hank book and the first 3 The Expanse books (all sci fi, def not hard sci fi). Liked em all and expect to continue reading more this week. I think expanse ones count as opera whereas hank does not. Also, at least as far the first book, hank could be fantasy if you only very slightly refluffed things.

Hiram McDaniels wrote:What's a good space opera to read?

I'd start with the classics: The Foundation and Lensman series.