Interested in reading books
- Thread starter indecizo
- Start date
You can't keep your pseudoscientific nonsense in one thread? Unless sometime between now and then everyone who knows mathematics and the scientific method is summarily executed and every university library burns to the ground, that is not happening at all. This is total nonsense, and frankly depressing when Penrose's 'The Road To Reality' is both available and not a total waste of paper.
Jef
He's Dead, Jim
Member
Actually, I didn't read the book you suggested but, by the description, you couldn't pay me enough to read that pseudo-mystical-religious, self-help thing if that's the case
Actually, I take my suggestion back. Chomsky may be a little dense, complex so counter-productive for first readers, maybe.
This is a light and very interesting reading about the tv and manipulation:
http://books.google.es/books/about/On_Television.html?id=ULkSUBPvrpIC&redir_esc=y
The book I suggested is a fiction novel about a talking gorilla that's an allegory for post-modernist philosophy. The subtitle is admittedly stupid.
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
"left in the dark" which is a free ebook. Its about the evolution of man and shows how important diet is to evolution. it puts forth the theory that all modern humans are actually brain damaged and that human ancestors were mentally and physically superior to us. It backs up these theories with lots of facts.
... and that neither author is a recognized scientist... and that one author didn't bother looking into either 'Is this actually long enough to undisputedly beat the world record for longest time without sleep?' or 'Will the Guinness Book of World Records recognize an attempt at a record that poses significant enough health risks that they tell people not to try because they won't recognize it?', which does not bode well for claims that someone is even vaguely competent at checking facts...
Jef
Jef
as of today on wiki
"Human beings are expected to live on average 49.42 years in Swaziland and 82.6 in Japan"
the book talks alot about the gradual increase in life expectancy, the gradual physical changes, the increase in the length of childhood which facilitates the growth of the brain. It even pinpoints moments in history where mass produced refined grains caused significantly smaller skeletons over the following generations. It also dispells myths that modern humans were smaller.
it could be bullshit but its more informed than your post
As far as you know, and since you didn't look into whether or not the authors were twits that's a bit of a tossup...
Jef
Jef
El_Gato
I love this gain
He's Dead, Jim
Member
I'll help!
1. He's not a serious political scientist; he's a political theorist, and there's a huge difference. Serious political scientists engage in positive, as distinct from normative, analysis. Chomsky is essentially a guy with opinions looking for some sort of philosophical-political framework to support them. If you like that kind of thing, by all means, go for it. But that makes him no better than a highly educated talk-show pundit.
2. He engages in insane, outrageous false equivalencies with regard to U.S. foreign policy and other superpowers. It's true that the U.S. did some highly questionable things during the Cold War to roll back communism, but if you look at our foreign policy on balance, the Soviet Union was waaaaaay worse. Again, this is symptomatic of his being an opinionated author, not a serious political scientist. For example: "From my personal experience there are two countries in which my political writings can basically not appear. One is the U.S. within the mainstream with very rare exceptions. The other is the USSR." That is a ridiculous exercise in false equivalence.
3. Chomsky prides himself on being a libertarian socialist or an anarcho-syndicalist or whatever kind of outmoded turn-of-the-century utopian ordering principle happens to be in vogue among bohemian academics. I guess you can believe whatever you want, but I think it's functionally useless to society and intellectually dishonest to support the establishment of a system of government that is both completely unobtainable and not even very attractive for the vast majority of people.
Sorry for hijacking the thread hahah.
Re: the actual thread, anything by Stephen Hawking is also amazing. It's a little science-heavy, but reading it will fill you with a constant sense of awe at the universe similar to Sagan's writing.
1. He's not a serious political scientist; he's a political theorist, and there's a huge difference. Serious political scientists engage in positive, as distinct from normative, analysis. Chomsky is essentially a guy with opinions looking for some sort of philosophical-political framework to support them. If you like that kind of thing, by all means, go for it. But that makes him no better than a highly educated talk-show pundit.
2. He engages in insane, outrageous false equivalencies with regard to U.S. foreign policy and other superpowers. It's true that the U.S. did some highly questionable things during the Cold War to roll back communism, but if you look at our foreign policy on balance, the Soviet Union was waaaaaay worse. Again, this is symptomatic of his being an opinionated author, not a serious political scientist. For example: "From my personal experience there are two countries in which my political writings can basically not appear. One is the U.S. within the mainstream with very rare exceptions. The other is the USSR." That is a ridiculous exercise in false equivalence.
3. Chomsky prides himself on being a libertarian socialist or an anarcho-syndicalist or whatever kind of outmoded turn-of-the-century utopian ordering principle happens to be in vogue among bohemian academics. I guess you can believe whatever you want, but I think it's functionally useless to society and intellectually dishonest to support the establishment of a system of government that is both completely unobtainable and not even very attractive for the vast majority of people.
Sorry for hijacking the thread hahah.
Re: the actual thread, anything by Stephen Hawking is also amazing. It's a little science-heavy, but reading it will fill you with a constant sense of awe at the universe similar to Sagan's writing.
Thanks everyone. I'll totally check these books when I start my vacation. I appreciate even the LOTR recommendation, I may even start to read some fantasy or fiction some day but I want to focus more into science and all that stuff I said in the op.
egan.
daylightdies.com
I think Chomsky does some things well and one of them is explaining propaganda (of course another of them is torturing monkeys). I agree with your pundit assessment though to be fair your average pundit is more stand-up comedian than expert (think Anne Coulter).
I found him really interesting in my late teens. I don't know that I'd care much now, but I think he is good at explaining the undercurrents of press, power and motivations in a way that's both interesting and enlightening to young folks as long as you are capable of taking it with a grain of salt. It's easy to see why he drives polisci Docs up the wall though.
