Amazon.com's Best of 2001

I am going to say it clearly and succinctly: this brand-new book is one of the most important scholarly works of the year. Seeking to understand why some people were poor, homeless, criminally inclined, mentally ill, and in other ways socially inadequate, 19th-century theorists turned to the science of eugenics, the concept of genetically unfit people. This stunning book is an exploration of the profound contemporary resonance of this concept and how it directly contributed to such persecutions as the Holocaust.

Certain individuals were judged "degenerate" as early as biblical times, and the condition was viewed as a punishment for religious transgression. Noted author Elof Axel Carlson traces the idea that degeneracy was biologically determined and shows how the social application of the label changed throughout the last century as the new academic discipline of sociology emerged. Carlson describes the failures and abuses of the social movements in the United States and Europe with their sorry history of racism, anti-Semitism, and violations of basic human rights.

Carlson writes beautifully, but I want to warn readers that this is not a book to be looked at lightly. It probably couldn't have the power it does if it did not include the wealth of illustrations and extensive notes, but it is indeed a serious study of this disturbing science. As Carlson writes in his Introduction, "Readers of this book may feel uncomfortable, as I certainly did, when they realize that there is a lot of mythology associated with the origins of the eugenics movement. It is embarrassing to see many strange bedfellows in the development of the idea of unfit people, and it should give us pause if we believe that the Holocaust could have been predicted from its earliest roots." I shivered when I read that statement. --Charles Decker ... Read more

Reviews (1)

the finest work on Eugenics to date
This book is by far the best I have ever seen on this facinating topic. It is an extremly insightful work that is a pure joy to read. Mr. Elof Carlson is a brillant writer and this is some of his best work. I feel it is the quientessential work on Eugenics ... Read more

Book Description

This collection illuminates Popper's process of working out key formulations in his theory of science, and indicates his view of the state of the world at the end of the Cold War and after the collapse of communism. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Fun read, but there are many better.
I am a long-time Karl Popper fan. I've read all but, I believe, 4 books of his. To my knowledge, this is his shortest at 161 pages - all consisting of essays. This is also the book of his that is the least original. If you're a long-time fan, you've read these ideas before. If you are a newcomer, there are better books to start with.

For all that, the first essay, "The Logic and Evolution of Scientific Theory" is the best short summary of Popper's views on science that I've read. The second essay is also a good summary of Popper's theories of body/mind interactionism, an odd position for a modern theoriest to hold.

The second half, although quite unoriginal (I've started to realize that Popper's views on freedom, democracy, open society, etc. were better expressed by James Madison)is still quite interesting. Also, this book, I'm quite sure for the first time, gives us Popper's views towards international policy. 'Waging Wars for Peace', an excerpt from a radio interview, is pretty timely in 2003 and reminds us that there can be no thing as an absolute pacifist. Not destroying someone certain to kill only postpones. The title essay, at 6 pages, is another timely celebration of technology; timely because many on the right and left (for different reasons about different techonologies) are preaching against technologies while failing to see the many good sides.

All in all, a quick and fairly worthwhile read. The experienced reader of Popper, again, will find nothing new here. [...]

A Taste of Popper
This book is a collection of 15 lectures/speeches/interviews that Popper gave at various points throughout his career (earliest 1958, latest 1994). They are organized into two sections (1) those related to natural science and (2) those related to history and politics. The first section relates to theory of science and knowledge in an evolutionary context with the process of problem solving at the core. In the second section Popper addresses problem solving more generally ("all life is problem solving") and shares his thoughts on subjects such as war, peace, communism, and interpretation of history.

This book has the weaknesses and strengths that you would expect from a work not originally intended to be published in written form. The benefits are that the chapters are fairly brief and easy to read. Also, Popper's style is nearly anti-academic as he tries almost too hard to simplify the material in order to make it understandable to all. The primary drawbacks are that the book can't be well organized and there are significant repetition and overlap in ideas. Additionally, the book doesn't provide the level of detail that one normally expects in a book by a major thinker.

This is the first book of Popper's that I've read. I became interested in his work by being briefly introduced to some of his thinking from other authors. This book did not provide enough detail to satisfy my interest in Popper, but it served to confirm to me that he is a first rate thinker and that his other works should be near the top of my reading list. I especially enjoyed the surprise of reading Popper's thoughts on Saddam Hussein and the threat of nuclear weapons - highly relevant to our situation today (early 2003). There is no doubt where Popper would stand on the current debate about Iraq.

So this is a good book to get a taste of Popper or maybe for a quick review of some of his thinking if you are already familiar with him. However, this isn't the best book for studying Popper's ideas in detail. ... Read more

Book Description

The origins of technologies that shape the world around us, illustrated with hundreds of evocative photographs and specially commissioned diagrams, reconstructions, and plans.

Stone choppers, eyed needles, camel saddles, chariots, and contraceptives: the past is paved with remarkable inventions. The latest book in this popular series takes us on an eye-opening and unusual journey through early human innovations—some fundamental and others intriguing or bizarre. An international team of scientists, archaeologists, and historians reveals seventy of the most extraordinary inventions, from two-and-a-half million years ago up to the early medieval period.

The book begins with the basic technologies of stone, fire, woodworking, ceramics, metallurgy, glass, and weaving. We watch Stone Age flint-knappers at work and look over the shoulders of early metalworkers as they fabricate glittering ornaments in copper and gold. Some of the most fundamental questions of the past are addressed. How and where did agriculture evolve? How did Romans and others heat and plumb their dwellings? What roles did cooking, food preservation, and fermentation play in the development of ancient cuisine? How did the wheel and cart change human life? When did the first roads appear, and when did long-distance seafaring begin?

Later sections look at the origins of hunting, war and sport, art and science, and personal adornment. Weapons of war evolved from spears, bows, and arrows to swords, shields, catapults, and crossbows. The book examines the earliest human art traditions—body painting and tattooing—and traces the beginning of writing, the early use of codes and ciphers, and the origins of calendars and astronomy. 515 illustrations, 250 in color. ... Read more

Book Description

Popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould debunks the idea that evolution is progressive. He shows how the misinterpretation of data results in bad science and bad social policy. ... Read more

Reviews (41)

Good stuff, bad format! OR Why cheetahs don't run marathons!
Having read many of Stephen Jay Gould's collections of essays with much satisfaction, I was quite excited to try him in the book-length format of "Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin," expecting it to allow him more room for deeper investigation and fuller development of his "excellent" ideas. Instead, 230 pages allowed Gould, one of science's foremost essayists, to be more exhausting than exhaustive.

His topic is interesting and important: how misconceptions about systems and distorting mental representations of them cause false perceptions of trends. Gould walks the reader through elementary statistical method and makes the abstract real and personal by recounting his own harrowing experience with cancer. He then uses the well kept data of baseball to demonstrate the narrowing of over-all variability in a system being perceived as a directed trend, in this case "downward" as .400 hitting disappears. Gould then combats ideas of "progress" being inherent in natural evolution, explaining that since first life was of the simplest organization ("You can't expect a lion to jump out of the primordial soup"), things could only become MORE complex, not less so. Vast time has therefore delivered more sophisticated organization in some organisms as a result of natural selection, but this does not replace or repudiate life's bacterial beginnings, which Gould takes great joy in showing still "rule" our planet. Instead, the most complex of organisms, a group to which we of course belong but which would have and could have existed without us, only represent expanded statistical variability of the entire system. Finally Gould contrasts the inefficient and random nature of biological evolution with the swift and purposeful development of culture and argues for the elimination of the misleading term "cultural evolution." The most overarching theme is that while representations of systems with a single number or attribute can sometimes be useful, we must recognize that these constructs are of our creation and can be very distorting because they are less than the whole, the "Full House" of the title.

Gould could have accomplished all of this in half as many pages as he presents to us in "Full House." The "book" suffers from two types of redundancy. The most annoying and inexplicable kind is simple repetitiveness, phrases and entire sentences used many times throughout, reminiscent of Homeric epic, and not typical of Gould. The other tautology found here is necessary for scientific journal writing, but tedious to the general reader. While I respect Gould's pride in not "dumbing-down" his work for the public and making them dig in and read hard, unless one is a sabermetrician (studying sport statistics) I am afraid a lot of this stuff is stupefying.

When addressing the "German virus" that created the greats of classical music and wondering where the modern equivalents are, Gould asserts that popular demand of novel form has been unfair to latter-day composers of music because all forms have been exhausted. He then dismisses rock music. Perhaps he has tongue in cheek, but I suspect elitism and codgerism. Gould must recognize that society and technology make the music, and jazz, rock, and rap are certainly innovative, if not inherently progressive.

Gould states in the introduction that "Full House" is a companion to "Wonderful Life," another book-length work of his. While I will next read this for his always fascinating ideas, I look forward to returning to the short essay format which made me a Stephen Jay Gould fan.

I Miss Him Already!
As a long time fan of Professor Gould's essays, I hoped that this full-length work would be equally entertaining and informative. I was not let down. "Full House" contains the author's usual combination of wit, insightful anecdotes, encyclopedic knowledge of biology/geology/paleontology, and wonderful literary style. The reading was all the more poignant in the light of Professor Gould's recent death, and I could not help but wonder if science will ever again have such a brilliant spokesman.

Rather than tackling a specific aspect of natural history, in "Full House" Gould strives to make a philosophical point about the way we (mis)understand systems: "The variation of a 'full house' or complete system should be treated as the most compelling 'basic' reality; averages and extreme values (as abstractions and unrepresentative instances respectively) often provide only partial, if not downright misleading, views of a totality's behavior" (p. 100). The full meaning and greater implications of this statement are difficult to understand at first reading, which is precisely why Gould has written an entire book (see comments below) on the subject.

To breath some life into this statistical idea, Gould discusses two main subjects: the disappearance of .400 batting averages from professional baseball, and the fallacy that evolution is inherently directed towards creating more complex organisms, with Man as the ultimate culmination. Baseball and evolution? Yes, these are admittedly disparate topics, but I liked the variety. After all, I believe the crux of this work is the general statement about our understanding of systems, not one system in particular. So be warned, if you're seeking a book strictly about biology or natural history, this is probably not the best choice.

Much of the criticism here on Amazon focuses on the book's unnecessary length and its redundancy. I must agree that there were several points at which Gould seems to be repeating himself. It feels like he had more to say than he could possibly fit into his usual essays, but not quite enough for an entire book. I wonder if he felt compelled (either by himself or maybe his publisher) to expand the work to at least 200 pages. Depending on your interest in the material, the length might be a real drawback, or simply a slight nuisance. I was not particularly bothered and finished the book in two days.

Even if you are not fully persuaded by Gould's argument, or if the book seems unnecessarily long, I hope you will enjoy the reading. Gould is (alas, was) a brilliant and engaging writer, in my humble opinion. The proper anecdote, allusion, or quotation was always at his fingertips and he knew when to make the reader laugh. (I could not restrain my chuckles as he lambasted M. Scott Peck's fatuous equation of love and evolution [p. 27]). This book contains a fine mix of intriguing content and great writing. I would recommend it to anyone seeking a quick read that will stretch the brain a bit.

Natural selection is not a synonym of progress
This book is a forceful illustration of some basic theorems presented by G.C. Williams in his book 'Adaptation and Natural selection': 'there is nothing in the basic structure of the theory of natural selection that would suggest the idea of any kind of cumulative progress' and 'Evolution was a by-product of the maintenance of adaptation'.

Gould corroborates these theorems by showing that the main modus of life on this planet is and has always been 'bacterial'.

He explains clearly that the second law of thermodynamics is only valid for closed systems, not for the earth.
He stresses also that cultural changes are fundamentally different from Darwinian evolutions. The former are Lamarckian, the latter are forced by the less efficient process of natural selection.
But Gould warns rightly that the enormous technological revolutions are not necessarily cultural or moral improvements because of the real risk of, e.g., environmental poisoning or a nuclear catastrophe.

One needs a basic knowledge of statistics to fully understand the book.

In his vigorous and persuasive style, S.J. Gould puts some good-looking scientific and moral ideas into a coffin.
Not to be missed.

not an essential read, but a pleasant one
I come to the book partly as a result of a direct self-study on the issues of creation-evolution-design debate, and partly because i like SJG's writings. At this point i am rereading some of his collections of essays in order to psych myself up for the week or more that his 'brick' _The Structure of Evolutionary Theory_ will take. I don't like baseball and had only skimmed this book previously, so for a couple of easy reading hours it occupied my mind.

It is basically about how to think about statistics. Summed up on pg 169ff. "Life's necessary beginning at the left wall. This is a takehome message from the excellent example of the drunkard's walk, pg 149ff. Left wall's are 'no one can earn less than zero dollars', 'no one can live and weight less than 50 lbs'. but Bill Gates can make enough money to skew the income and wealth curves so they look like capital 'L's. "Stability throughout time of the initial bacterial mode", most of the world's biomass is bacteria, no you or me. "Life's successful expansion must form an increasingly right-skewed distribution", this is the reply to evolution as progressive complexity to eventually produce US, thinking, creative, human beings. We are the >.400 baseball score, we are the very few that prove the rule that the masses are bacteria. "The myopia of characterizing a full distribution by an extreme item at one end", "Causality resides at the wall and in the spread of variation: the right tail is a consequence, not a cause", The only promising way to smuggle progress back into such a system is logically possible, but empirically false at high probability" and "Even a parochial decision to focus on the right tail alone will not yield the one, most truly desired conclusion, the psychological impetus to our yearning for general progress-that is, the predictable and sensible evolution to domination of a creature like us. endowed with consciousness."

It is not an earth-shaking book by any means, rather a collection of essays where the most interesting part is his explanation of dealing with cancer, which apparently is what he died from nearly 20 years after the first diagnosis, and the reasoning about statistics that started with his predicted death rates from it as he lay there in a hospital bed.

The drunkards walk could have been greatly enlarged, so for instance, by the addition of multiple drunkards bumping into each other, thus temporary right walls. Much like the biosphere is a changing mosaic of different species and different individuals.

But like all his essays, it is time well spent, not just to get a new example or more ways of handling data, but for the pleasant time with SJG and his excellent writing.

Some very good points - if a bit strained philosophically
It is sad that Dr. Gould was taken away so soon. He always made interesting points, offered some startling insights, and was generally fun - he was even acerbic in a fun way.

He wrote this book for the general audience, of which I am a part. I cannot hope to challenge his or even approve of his professional points. I don't really have the training. But I can offer impressions. It seems to me that when he is talking about science he is very good and gave me quite a bit to think about. Honestly, he gave me some new views on distributions and natural selection that will stick with me.

I found his sociological and philosophical conclusions drawn from these observations to be somewhat strained and overburdened his evidence a bit. He really doesn't address the concept of decadence much as it relates to the dying out of things. For example, baseball could very well be played better than ever and yet not be played as well as it could be because of secondary desires such as home runs instead of base hits.

What fans want to see leads to a selection in a style of play that pleases them and brings in money. Then money is the point of the game and not pure excellence in play. Therefore, the best athletes of all time could be playing the game and yet their style of play would be less effective than it could be because of what the fans want to see. But wouldn't a style that led to more wins be adopted? Certainly, no one would adopt a losing strategy. But maybe the optimal difference is only slight but pleasing the fans brings in so much more money that it changes the way everyone plays the game. Football did this to make their game a passing game - which fans like more. Clearly, with the rules and styles all supporting the pass, no team can be based primarily on the run as they used to be.

Anyway, the book has some very interesting points to make, it isn't a difficult read, and I think you will get some good food for thought. Enjoy! ... Read more

Book Description

The latest volume in Joseph Needham's magisterial revelation of China's premodern scientific and technological traditions introduces medicine. Five essays are included by Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, edited and expanded upon by the editor, Nathan Sivin. The essays offer broad and readable accounts of medicine in culture, including hygiene and preventive medicine, forensic medicine and immunology.Professor Sivin's extensive introduction discusses these essays, placing them in their historical and medical context, and surveys recent medical discoveries from China, Japan, Europe and the United States. ... Read more

Book Description

This book surveys the history of American technology from the early 17th century to the present, focusing on the key individuals, ideas, and systems that have shaped the important technological developments throughout American history. Cowan demonstrates how technological change has always been closely related to social development, and examines the important relationship between social history -- the family, women and work, and the home -- with that of technological developments in the factory, business, and the scientific community. In a fascinating concluding chapter, Cowan examines the vast social implications of recent technological developments, and how these technologies are causing crucial changes in America's political, economic, and social structure. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very Broad
Very broad overview of American technology starting with the beginning of the United States all the way through fairly current biotechnology. There are a few good stories in here and the second half is by far the best. I really liked the sections on the railroad, the automobile, radio communication, penicillin, and the section on the birth control pill was by far the best. Is it true that doctors and researchers weren't allowed to talk about birth control till past the early 1950's in the United States? Here's an interesting quote...

"In short, by 1880 if by some weird accident all the batteries that generated electricity for telegraph lines had suddenly run out, the economic and social life of the nation would have faltered. Trains would have stopped running; businesses with branch offices would have stopped functioning; newspapers could have not covered distant events; the president could not have communicated with his European ambassadors; the stock market would have to close; family members separated by long distances could have not relayed important news to each other. By the turn of the century, the telegraph system was both literally and figuratively a network, linking together various aspects of national life- making people increasingly dependent on one another."

Y2K, ay? ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

"More than a history of science; it is a tour de force in the genre."—New York Times Book Review

A dramatic new account of the parallel quests to harness time that culminated in the revolutionary science of relativity, Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps is "part history, part science, part adventure, part biography, part meditation on the meaning of modernity....In Galison's telling of science, the meters and wires and epoxy and solder come alive as characters, along with physicists, engineers, technicians and others....Galison has unearthed fascinating material" (New York Times).

Clocks and trains, telegraphs and colonial conquest: the challenges of the late nineteenth century were an indispensable real-world background to the enormous theoretical breakthrough of relativity. And two giants at the foundations of modern science were converging, step-by-step, on the answer: Albert Einstein, an young, obscure German physicist experimenting with measuring time using telegraph networks and with the coordination of clocks at train stations; and the renowned mathematician Henri Poincaré, president of the French Bureau of Longitude, mapping time coordinates across continents. Each found that to understand the newly global world, he had to determine whether there existed a pure time in which simultaneity was absolute or whether time was relative.

Esteemed historian of science Peter Galison has culled new information from rarely seen photographs, forgotten patents, and unexplored archives to tell the fascinating story of two scientists whose concrete, professional preoccupations engaged them in a silent race toward a theory that would conquer the empire of time. 40 b/w illustrations. ... Read more

Book Description

An enlightening and fun look at scientific discoveries and the often wacky and accidental ways in which they have led to some of the most important inventions--by award-winning journalist Ira Flatow. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Racy motivational stories from science.
The stories are motivating for those who want to
know more about science. Recommended reading
for students (15-60 age). The book is well written,
easy to follow and hard to keep down. My mother read the
book at my home, and loved it too.
- Mosh http://www.cs.albany.edu/~mosh

Interesting trivia
I found this book while browsing the shelves of Half-Price Books in Bellevue. What I was looking for was some light, entertaining non-fiction--something I could read a chapter or essay of and then put down. I had been having trouble maintaining my concentration on a single book for very long, possibly because my work life had been so erratic recently that I was having trouble slowing my mind down to focus on any one thing. This book filled the bill perfectly.

Basically a series of essays by Flatow, host of Talk of the Nation: Science Fridays and former NPR correspondent, in which he examines basic inventions that weíve grown to accept as necessities from light bulbs to lasers. Oftentimes what weíve come to know as "the story" of the invention, like Benjamin Franklinís kite experiment, is but a brief moment in the chain of events that led to the mass production or use of the object or phenomena. Flatow makes a wonderful argument that more than the common wisdom "inventor" should be credited with the discovery, while never belittling the genius of creation.

The tone is never dry, and the subjects--blenders, televisions, telephones, Velcro, Teflon, nylon, etc.--are stuff from everyday life. At the least, the book provides some interesting trivia on applied science.

A science book for the average Joe
I've been a fan of Ira Flatow's for many years. I first heard him doing stories on NPR's "All Things Considered", reporting on any news of the day that had even a hint of science in it. I lost track of him for a few years when he became the science correspondent for "Talk of the Nation" - that program was on in the middle of my work day and I couldn't listen to it. But I did manage to catch his stint on PBS's "Newton's Apple", and my only complaint was that the show didn't last longer.

It's a real pleasure to discover that Flatow has written a book that is just as easy for the average person to understand as his reports on NPR and his demonstrations on "Newton's Apple". "They All Laughed" tells the stories behind several inventions that we all take for granted. And you can figure out the theme of each of these stories by the title of the book - when each of these items, gadgets, etc. first came out, the general reaction was basically, "WHY?"

Along the way, Flatow gives us some information that we might not be aware of. I for one did not know that the story of Ben Franklin and the kite was just that - a story. It's true that Franklin flew the kite, but it's not true that the kite was struck by lightning.

My personal favorite among all of Flatow's stories is the one about the invention of Silly Putty. I remember playing with the stuff as a kid and marveling that I could press it onto a comic strip, lift it up, and VOILA! A reverse image of the comic. I never asked who invented Silly Putty, but now I wish I had.

If there is an audio version of this book I hope it's Flatow who's doing the narration. I'd buy it in a New York minute.

Few laughs, fascintating not
I read this one after finding it mentioned in Bill Bryson's Made in America. Since the former isn't very interesting, it's no surprise that this one isn't either. If you want chatty anecdotes about the inventors and their madness, this is for you. If you want to see how inventors have really made an impact on the twentieth century and living standards, then you'll have to dig a bit harder.

Light Science with Humor
Although I bought this book for a different intention, I still found the book valuable, in that is went over some inventions from the past that is in everyday use where at the time of its inception, it was deemed ludicrous. Light bulbs, fax machines, teflon, nylon, silly putty, television, computers, video games and many more things that we today are so at home with. Easily written for the young adult with a style that is likeable. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In our overstimulated, color-saturated society it is easy to forget the impact of color in the dull world before cheap dyes and plastics. Colors is a delightful little book, highly illustrated and packed with intriguing information. It traces the history of dyes and pigments from cave paintings to modern textiles. The book's four sections cover the uses of color in ancient times; its development and refinement in the Middle Ages; the explosion of supply and demand after the Renaissance; and the triumph of industrial chemistry in synthesizing and inventing colors. Production processes often paralleled those of alchemy, giving an almost magical quality to colors. Dyes were expensive in medieval Europe and could increase the price of a cloth tenfold; thus color was used to indicate social status, with aristocrats in bright robes standing out against the drab mob. Since antiquity, writers have compiled technical manuals on dyeing and pigment manufacture, often using more ancient texts, so that a great many antique recipes and techniques have been preserved. We learn, for example, how Indian yellow was made from a concentrated extract of the urine of cows fed exclusively on mango leaves (which was not healthy for the cows). Every page of the book has interesting tidbits of information, such as the derivation of blue jeans (from bleu de Genes, Genoa blue, a form of indigo). Clearly written and well-designed, Colors reminds us of the powerful ways color permeates our lives. --John Stevenson ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A treasure chest of interesting trivia
I am a Color Manager for one of the worlds largest paint companies and even though I have been working with pigments for 15 years I have found this book to be a treasure chest of interesting trivia that I didn't know or had long forgotten.
But this book is not just for chemists. If you are like me interested in art, especially paintings, you will find that this book gives you a wealth of information and facts that one can use to better understand the development of art through the centuries.
I can highly recommend this beautifully illustrated booklet which is fun to read to everybody (not just color nerds like me). ... Read more

Book Description

Although Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper debated the nature of science only once, the legacy of this encounter has dominated intellectual and public discussions on the topic ever since. Kuhn's relativistic vision of science as just another human activity, like art or philosophy, triumphed over Popper's more positivistic belief in revolutionary discoveries and the superiority of scientific provability. Steve Fuller argues that not only has Kuhn's dominance had an adverse impact on the field but both thinkers have been radically misinterpreted in the process.

Reviews (3)

Fuller Goes for the Jugular!
Those of you familiar with Fuller's magnum opus, Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times, will know that this guy pulls no punches when it comes to passing judgments on people and events. This time he's decided to strip down all the footnotes and present the case straight -- Kuhn was a coward, at least by Popper's standards. Now, those of you who have read this far might wonder why should anyone care, since these are just a couple of philosophers of science. However, it goes to the issue of just how seriously these people took their ideas. As Fuller presents it, Kuhn had the luxury of working in elite institutions and took full advantage of it -- ignoring the larger world, even though it was engulfed in a 'military-industrial complex' largely driven by science, of which he was the most famous theorist. The rest of his contemporaries (notably Popper and his students, not all of whom were leftists) decried the use of science in this fashion, typically by appealing to their own theories. But Kuhn kept quiet. Luckily America won the Cold War, and so the comparison with Heidegger that Fuller raises at the end of the book now seems far-fetched. But that's the only reason it seems far-fetched.

I'm amazed how easily people can let Kuhn off the hook. The relevant point of judgment is not what one now thinks with 30-40 years of hindsight but what one would have made of Kuhn's inaction back in 1970. It's too easy to excuse people's cowardice when the world turns out OK inspite of their inaction. By the way, for the record, Fuller is an American and if being younger disqualifies you from making historical judgments, then I think we're all doomed to everlasting ignorance.

A DISAPPOINTMENT
KUHN VS. POPPER: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF SCIENCE

As a working scientist, I approached this little book with interest, for four reasons. First, Thomas Kuhn's perspectives on scientific progress have seemed correct to me since my first reading of his classic "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", back in the 1960s. Second, the views of Karl Popper that I have come across - with respect to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen problem of quantum physics (which Popper first formulated) and on the nature of mind (together with John Eccles) - have always struck me as well thought and informative. Third, I have heard about the Kuhn-Popper debates over the years. Finally, my own area of research (nonlinear science) seems to offer a clear example of a Kuhnian revolution.

On the positive side, the author - Steve Fuller, a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick - gives a well informed account of the academic background to the famous 1965 meeting of Kuhn and Popper and he help the reader to understand how the "debates" were (and are?) largely between acolytes of Kuhn and Popper. He also provides a useful glossary of the terms used in philosophical discussions.

Beyond these features, the book is disappointing. Rather than informing the reader about the subject implied by his title, the author devotes the majority of his pages to promoting his own ideas about what scientists should and should not be doing, closing with a chapter curiously entitled: "Is Thomas Kuhn the American Heidegger?'' This is a stretch. Martin Heidegger, after all, was a Nazi, whereas Kuhn, with a doctorate in physics, elected to teach humanities majors about the nature of science. Although Fuller's point is that Kuhn had a "negative responsibility" as an influential person to struggle against the US military-industrial complex and the Vietnam War, I don't buy it. As an active member of the antiwar movement in Madison during the early 1970s, it seems to me that participating in such activities involves decisions that people make for a variety of reasons, most of which would be unknown to a commentator separated by an ocean and a generation.

Alwyn Scott
http://personal.riverusers.com/~rover/

The Kuhn paradigm, among other paradigms
This is a very good, and somehow hilarious, account of the debate between Popper and Kuhn, with its resemblance to another well-known debate, that between Popper and Wittgenstein. The author of a recent intellectual biography of Kuhn returns to the fray here, with a somewhat acidic critique of Kuhn's influence on the methodology of science. Fuller seems to side with Popper here, up to a point, and exposes the confusing and not always healthy influence of Kuhn's thinking on a whole generation of thinkers who never quite understood who Kuhn was, or the ambiguities of his background. ... Read more

Book Description

Advance praise for Philip Plaits Bad Astronomy

"Bad Astronomy is just plain good! Philip Plait clears up every misconception on astronomy and space you never knew you suffered from." —Stephen Maran, Author of Astronomy for Dummies and editor of The Astronomy and Astrophysics Encyclopedia

"Thank the cosmos for the bundle of star stuff named Philip Plait, who is the worlds leading consumer advocate for quality science in space and on Earth. This important contribution to science will rest firmly on my reference library shelf, ready for easy access the next time an astrologer calls." —Dr. Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, and author of The Borderlands of Science

"Philip Plait has given us a readable, erudite, informative, useful, and entertaining book. Bad Astronomy is Good Science. Very good science..." —James "The Amazing" Randi, President, James Randi Educational Foundation, and author of An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural

"Bad Astronomy is a fun read. Plait is wonderfully witty and educational as he debunks the myths, legends, and 'conspiracies that abound in our society. 'The Truth Is Out There'–and it's in this book. I loved it!" —Mike Mullane, Space Shuttle astronaut and author of Do Your Ears Pop in Space? ... Read more

Reviews (24)

Bad Astronomy made fun
As an amateur astronomer, I took great pleasure reading Philip Plait's "Bad Astronomy". The book handles the debunking of common myths with hysterical humor. I could not put the book down. Each chapter was entertaining.

Finally we have a text that not only puts the Coriolis Effect where it belongs but explains basic astronomy principles in lay terms. It is better than reading an astronomy textbook. Where else could you read about why skies are blue and why the earth has seasons than in this humorous tome.

Plait gets a little more serious as he talks about the more delicate subjects of the Apollo "hoax", Velikovsky, UFOs, and Astrology. This was appropriate since many people believe in these unscientific hypotheses. He approaches these subjects in a nonoffensive, objective and scientific manner.

Being a movie fan, I particularly enjoyed the chapter entitled: "Bad Astronomy Goes Hollywood." Here Plait unveils all of the Bad Astronomy we see every day in science fiction movies. In his list of Top 10 offenses, the Star Wars series is guilty of no less than 8 of them. That does not make Star Wars any less enjoyable, but it is fun to know the difference between science and Hollywood.

I give this book 5 stars. I think it would be entertaining for anyone with any interest in astronomy regardless of how much or how little they know about the subject matter.

A welcome addition to any science lover's library
Misconceptions creep into the science of astronomy perhaps more than any other science. Surveys have found that even college graduates carry persistent misconceptions or even wildly incorrect ideas about the phases of the moon or the cause of the seasons.

For the past several years, astronomer Phil Plait has been battling these misconceptions, as well as the flood of just plain bad astronomy (hence the name). Plait's web site has built a loyal following, and I have been a frequent visitor there almost since its inception. For people like me, the book "Bad Astronomy" is a logical extension of the web site. For newcomers, it will be a welcome addition to your libraries.

In addition to chapters on lunar phases and the cause of the seasons, Plait adds a detailed (and fairly technical) account of tides, the coriolis effect (as applied to toilet bowl water rotation), why the sky is blue, the moon size illusion, and many, many others.

Digging a little deeper into the "current issues" genre, Plait also tackles Velikovsky, UFOs, creationism and astrology. His writing is very clear and should be accessible to anybody interested in science and the battle against pseudoscientific nonsense.

Regular visitors to the web site will be familiar with Plait's crusade against those who persist in believing that the Apollo moon landings were faked. Plait's site led the charge against this nonsense, and he includes a treatment of the topic in his book as well.

Bad Astronomy is lightly illustrated with a mix of schematic drawings (to illustrate for example, tides or the moon size illusion) and black and white photographs. Some of the chapters could certainly have benefitted from more lavish illustrations, and perhaps even some color plates (the chapter on the Apollo "hoax," for example, needed some additional photos to help dispel the most common objections). However, the format of the book (paperback) and the expense (between $11 and $14) dictated the conservative approach, I'm sure.

The chapters are well balanced in size. With a topic per chapter, and 24 chapters totalling 257 pages, you won't find an indepth treatment of any of these topics, but enough to surely whet your appetite. He also provides recommendations for additional reading, both book and WWW, in an appendix.

In the larger context of "defense of science" writings, Plait joins other such notables as Carl Sagan, Martin Gardner, Robert Park, Stephen Jay Gould, and Michael Shermer. Plait's contribution is a welcome one, and he is poised to take his place as a defender against bad science.

Bad Science Encounters Good Science
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Answer true or false to these ten statements:

1) The sky is blue because it reflects the blue color of the oceans.
2) The seasons are caused by the Earth's tilt.
3) The Moon's phases are due to the shadow of the Earth falling on the Moon.
4) The bright glow of a meteor is not caused by friction as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere.
5) There are no stars seen in Apollo Moon-landing pictures thus proving that these landings were staged.
6) The Hubble Space Telescope is bigger than all Earth-based telescopes.
7) Stars in the night sky do have color.
8) The Moon is bigger near the horizon than when it's overhead.
9) In the southern hemisphere, winters are much warmer than those in the northern hemisphere.
10) X-rays are emitted from the eclipsed sun but these X-rays do not damage your eyes if you look at the eclipsed sun.

If you answered true to any one of statements 1,3,5,6,8,9 or false to any one of statements 2,4,7,10, then you can use the help of this book to clear up your misconceptions!

This book, by Dr. Phillip Plait (creator of the bad astronomy internet site), corrects 24 common misconceptions of astronomical science. This book divides these misconceptions into five parts. All science is fully explained so the reader does not have to have extensive scientific knowledge. As well, there are diagrams and black-and-white photographs to aid the scientific discussions. Finally, there are recommended books and recommended internet sites for those who want to know more.

Part one explains three misconceptions that occur in the home. The second part deals with five misconceptions about the Earth and Moon. Part three unravels eight misconceptions regarding things in the night sky (such as stars, planets, and meteors). The fourth part is concerned with five bad explanations of various events (such as the Moon-landings and UFOs). Lastly, part five is a special section covering three astronomy topics (such as bad astronomy in the movies).

For those who have a science background (such as myself), don't feel tempted to skip a section because you feel you know the correct answer to a misconception. This is because each chapter contains much important detail. For me, I found that for those sections where I felt I knew the correct scientific answer, I still learned a lot because other interesting information was presented to enhance the discussion.

Finally, I did find an error in the UFO section. This section implies that no amateur astronomers have seen UFOs. Actually, the majority of amateur astronomers have not seen them but a small minority have seen them.

In conclusion, we are bombarded by bad science every day. In order to turn bad science into good science, you have to start reading good science books. This book is a good place to start!!

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Highly recommended.
Finally, I found out why stars appear to twinkle while planets do not. As with most things in our universe, the reason was simple, logical, and yes...scientific. That also describes the tone of Phil Plait's book. It is a must read for anyone interested in learning how our world works and in defending oneself against disinformation.

I once saw a Harvard-produced video titled "Our Private Universe", which documented how tenaciously we cling to our incorrect beliefs. As one of the people in the documentary stated in defending his absurd understanding of how vision works, "My ideas make sense to me!" Dr. Plait's book will help nearly everyone move from their private universe of misconceptions learned by rote to the actual universe of scientific discovery and scrutiny.

In a time when clear thinking may save us all from real catastrophe, Bad Astronomy paves the way for anyone interested enough to invest a little time.

The book is a fun read, filled with wit and humor. I promise you will enjoy it.

I really really enjoyed this book...
...despite the fact that the author is an extremely poor poker player who never bluffs (successfully).

But nonetheless this is a good book. On second thought, I feel like the whole thing about his poker skills is not really relevant to the quality of the book. In fact I am sorry I brought it up. Really. Very sorry. So ignore that part. Just focus on the book, not the poker thing. Block it out of your mind, please.

He's not too good at black jack either. There I go again with the irrelevance...God, I gotta control myself. ... Read more

Book Description

“An engrossing report.”—Booklist “Vividly captures the challenges and privations [Dr. Linenger] endured both before and during his flight.”—Library Journal One of the most gripping space survival stories of the 20th century is now available in paperback. Few episodes in man’s exploration of space can compare to Off the Planet—Dr. Jerry Linenger’s dramatic account of space exploration turned survival mission during his 132 days aboard the decaying and unstable Russian space station Mir. Not since Apollo 13 has an American astronaut faced so many catastrophic malfunctions and life-threatening emergencies in one mission. In his remarkable narrative, Linenger chronicles power outages that left the crew in complete darkness, tumbling out of control; chemical leaks and near collisions that threatened to rupture Mir’s hull; and most terrifying of all—a raging fire that almost destroyed the space station and the lives of its entire crew. ... Read more

Reviews (42)

A very human astronaut's tale
I was wrong. I picked up Jerry Linenger's long-overdue book expecting it to be a somewhat bland account of an astronaut's existence aboard Mir. Instead I found it to be eminently readable, and a truly facinating tale, with enough intensely dramatic content to keep me reading beyond each chapter heading. Other reviewers have mentioned his account of the fire aboard Mir - a very harrowing description indeed, but I was fascinated by some of the smaller vignettes, such as his terror at standing on the end of a robotic arm, thrust out and away from the shuttle, feeling like he was in perpetual freefall off a cliff. I've read many books by and about a lot of space explorers, and it was nice to find a solid, human account of life as a recent NASA astronaut. All too often these days the astronauts just seem to be the same person going up on the same shuttle doing the same things, and little is known about them beyond their names. Thank you Jerry for humanising the shuttle-Mir program. But above all else I wish to congratulate him for a superb book written without the ubiquitous ghost-writer. The words are his own, and I feel he's crafted this book superbly. I certainly enjoyed it a great deal, and wish it every success.

A Great Glimpse of Life in Space
This book is easy to read and has lots of good pictures, so when I first thumbed through the pages I thought it was going to be another PR job for NASA. Much to my delight, when I actually "dug in" I discovered an original, candid and insightful discussion of US-Russian collaboration and of the author's experiences on Mir. Sure, Linenger comes off as a "right stuff" astronaut: after all, you can't earn a series of degrees and succeed as a military officer, as a physician, and a spacefarer unless you have outstanding qualifications and high self confidence. Despite the author's occasionally overbearing "can do" mentality, Linenger offers a balanced view of life aboard an aging Space Station. It is full of useful but usually tasteful detail on how people survive psychologically and relate to one another under prolonged isolation and confinement. The stories are interesting, and in the telling Linenger gives us insights into everything from interpersonal to international relations. I finished this book reminded that living and working in space is a complex, multifaceted endeavor that defies simple analysis. Dr. Linenger's book not only entertains, it increases our understanding of people in exotic and stressful environments. I have read at least two other major books about life on Mir, and still found this one engaging and informative.

The truth about life on Mir
Jerry Linenger wrote "Off the Planet" to describe his out-of-this-world (literally) experiences on the Mir spacestation, as an American astronaut working with the Russians. This autobiographical book goes into Jerry's adventures with Mir's copious mechanical problems, his reflections on life on earth, and the politics of the cooperative space program between Russia and the United States. I received this book after Jerry spoke at a conference I attended. I do not usually read books in this genre, but to my surprise, it was an entertaining read and I ended up purchasing another copy for my father.

The format of the book is not exactly chronological. Each chapter could be a standalone essay, focusing on a different event or issue on Mir. The early chapters introduce Jerry, and show the progression of his career up to his training for Mir. The last few chapters go into Jerry's newfound perspective on existence, and the difficult adaptation back to earth life.

Jerry's writing style is as direct and unceremonious as his speeches. He explains complicated scientific issues with ease, and even this liberal arts major could understand what he was talking about. He talks about lofty topics, like Russian-US relations. Then he'll move on to discuss how astronauts use the bathroom, or the difficulties of eating pretzels in space.

There have been quite a few criticisms of this book. Some have said that Jerry is egotistical. If he hadn't admitted this fault in the book, I wouldn't have noticed it. It seems appropriate for an accomplished astronaut to be proud of his work. Others claim that there is another side to the story, but there is always another side to the story. I know that I am reading about Mr. Linenger's perspective of the events on Mir, and I can put it into context with other published works.

I already agree with the sentiments with which Jerry Linenger sums up his book. He tells us that we should live each day as if it is our last, to enjoy all the natural bounties that the earth gives us, and to value our precious time on the planet. Each breath of oxygen and moment in the sunlight should be cherished. I completely agree. One way that this book has changed me is that it has made me more aware of the space program. When I hear about unmanned landings on Mars or even events on Mir, I perk up and listen more closely than I had in the past.

A Good Book About One Astronaut's Life Onboard Mir
Jerry Linenger is a former NASA astronaut who spent just over 132 days in space, most of it aboard the Russian space station Mir. During his stay, Dr. Linenger accomplished many first for an American astronaut. He became the first American to conduct a space walk from a foreign space station and in a non-American made spacesuit. During this five hour EVA, he and his Russian crewmate tested the newly designed Orlan-M Russian-built spacesuit. He and his crewmembers also performed a flyaround of the Mir in the Soyuz spacecraft, undocking from one docking port of the station and redocking at a different location.

While living aboard the MIR space station, Jerry Linenger and his two Russian crewmembers faced numerous difficulties, such as the most severe fire ever aboard an orbiting spacecraft, clearly the best written and most interesting section of the book, the failures of onboard systems (oxygen generator, carbon dioxide scrubbing, cooling line loop leaks, communication antenna tracking ability, urine collection and processing facility), a near collision with a resupply cargo ship during a manual docking system test, loss of station electrical power, and loss of attitude control resulting in a slow, uncontrolled tumble through space. In spite of these challenges and the added demands on their time due to the repair work, they still accomplished all mission goals: the space walk, the flyaround, and the completion off all the planned U.S. science experiments. All of these harrowing adventures and many others, plus the grind of his daily life aboard Mir, are recounted in this book.

I would have to agree with the numerous other reviewers that feel the Jerry Linenger has a big ego, but as someone who has had a lot of contact with astronauts over the years, his ego is only somewhat greater than the norm. The first example of this personality trait, is the title. The title states that he spend five months on Mir, but his stay on Mir, was just a little more than 4 months (132 days total mission time minus the travel time to and from Mir, about five days). There are lots of references to "I did ..." and he seems to forget that all of the hardware onboard any space vehicle has been designed for easy astronaut use to assure success. I know because that's what I do for a living.

All things considered, this book is definitely one of the better astronaut biographies and covers a period of human space flight that is not frequently examined, the Space Shuttle era. Furthermore, Dr. Linenger deserves kudos for writing the book himself.

a great book about living in space
this book shows the truth about living in space. the author describes all the hardships that he and the crew went through ... Read more

Book Description

Alchemy can't be science--common sense tells us as much. But perhaps common sense is not the best measure of what science is, or was. In this book, Bruce Moran looks past contemporary assumptions and prejudices to determine what alchemists were actually doing in the context of early modern science. Examining the ways alchemy and chemistry were studied and practiced between 1400 and 1700, he shows how these approaches influenced their respective practitioners' ideas about nature and shaped their inquiries into the workings of the natural world. His work sets up a dialogue between what historians have usually presented as separate spheres; here we see how alchemists and early chemists exchanged ideas and methods and in fact shared a territory between their two disciplines.

Distilling Knowledge suggests that scientific revolution may wear a different appearance in different cultural contexts. The metaphor of the Scientific Revolution, Moran argues, can be expanded to make sense of alchemy and other so-called pseudo-sciences--by including a new framework in which "process can count as an object, in which making leads to learning, and in which the messiness of conflict leads to discernment." Seen on its own terms, alchemy can stand within the bounds of demonstrative science.

Book Description

The Untold Story of the American Entrepreneur Who Helped Build the Atomic Bomb and Defeat the Nazis.

Legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the twentieth century -- Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and others -- at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, in the late 1930s. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.

Jennet Conant, the granddaughter of James Bryant Conant, one of the leading scientific advisers of World War II, enjoyed unprecedented access to Loomis' papers, as well as to people intimately involved in his life and work. She pierces through Loomis' obsessive secrecy and illuminates his role in assuring the Allied victory. ... Read more

Reviews (29)

Fascinating portrait of a brilliant man of science &business
The subject of Tuxedo Park, Alfred Loomis, is an absolutely fascinating individual whose life story is so unique and so amazing that, were this book fiction, the reader would likely not believe it. Loomis, who undoubtedly was a brilliant left-brained rational thinker, was educated as a lawyer, rose through the ranks of a law firm, then quit to become one of the wealthiest bankers on Wall Street. He foresaw the 1929 stock market crash and cashed out beforehand, and then gave up his finance career to educate himself so that he could work on the very leading edge of scientific research in multiple fields, including biology, physics, astronomy, and (at the very end of his life), computer science. Because he possessed immense wealth, brains, and leadership qualities, as well as patriotism and a savvy understanding of geopolitics, he became a key individual who put together the multiple scientific labs and projects that helped the Allies win World War II.

Jennet Conant succeeds admirably in the primary objective of her book: to describe the many technical and leadership contributions Loomis made to the scientific efforts, especially the development of radar systems, that ultimately produced victory for the Allies in World War II. She makes a very strong case that without Loomis's leadership, the development of both radar and the atomic bomb would have been delayed, endangering the Allies' chances of success and resulting in many more lives lost. Loomis's World War II efforts and achievements occupy half the book; the remainder covers the rest of his biography.

Besides being a fascinating, engrossing story, Tuxedo Park has much to teach the reader. The common impression is that the development of the atomic bomb was the greatest scientific achievement in the Allies' victory; however, as one of the scientists says, "radar won the war, and the atomic bomb ended it". Radar was the weapon the Allies used to defeat the Germans' submarines, superior air force, and rocketry. Tuxedo Park also shows the interconnected web of relationships at the pinnacles of the worlds of science, academia, government, and business in the mid twentieth century. Rational thought alone does not produce results; all accomplishments involve humans, and Loomis was able to navigate these worlds and relationships with remarkable aplomb. The book also shows the negative side of Loomis and genius in general: the toll it exacts on family life, and the depression and suicide that plagues certain families.

I have only minor quibbles with Tuxedo Park. Loomis's pre-World War II achievements were so impressive and interesting that I would have enjoyed more detail about those years. When Conant describes the many inventions of Loomis and others, I often had difficulty visualizing them; some line drawings would have helped. And there are a few errors in the book, such as referring to the RAF when the author means the USAF.

I would recommend Tuxedo Park to anyone interested in biographies of scientific figures, as well as anyone who would appreciate a history lesson on the role science played in winning the last major world war.

Tuxedo Park is an impressive achievement
Tuxedo Park is a factual history lesson, in a vein similar to The Devil in the White City, only without the serial killer.

Tuxedo Park takes place a bit later, pre-World War II. It starts with the death of one of the scientists who used to visit Tuxedo Park, a veritable fortress of technology and leisure. The suicidal scientist posthumously published a fictionalized book about the goings on there and sold it as science fiction. It was so bizarre that of course, nobody suspected, although the primary subject of the novel, Alfred Loomis, knew better.

Alfred Loomis is the star of the story, a rich entrepreneur with an all-consuming, frightening intellect. He applies his own cold, nearly inhuman methodology to business and science and excels at both. Loomis is also charismatic and connects with people in a way that makes him irresistible. A veritable human whirlwind, he swept people up and sometimes left them broken and lost behind him, most notably his wife whom he tried to have committed and left for a younger woman.

Loomis invented electrocardiograms (those brainwave doohickeys that draw jagged lines as a patient sleeps) and radar and made fantastic leaps in refining the science of sonics and magnetics. If the book has a moral, it's that money brings freedom, and Loomis was the freest man on Earth. He developed what he wanted, hosted who he wanted, encouraged projects he felt had vision, and had enough influence to determine the course of events in World War II.

What's so striking is that the world needed Loomis. The author, Jennet Connant, makes striking connections that identify just how significant Loomis' contributions (and machinations) were in ensuring victory over the Axis powers. From the atom bomb to the British radar systems, Loomis' fingerprints are on them all. And it was through sheer force of will, coupled with his massive wealth that made things happen.

The book suffers from the same problems as Devil in the White City - some parts are more boring than others. It's entertaining to read about Loomis' inventions, but I had difficulty distinguishing between the various scientists. There are so many intellects that are hosted by Loomis that they start to run together; on the other hand, the book features a lot of familiar faces like Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and others. Still, the physics and complexities of the inventions, along with the internecine squabbling drag in some places.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the book is when one British physicist embarks on a journey to bring all the technological advances of Britain to America with just himself and a trunk full of highly classified documents and devices. The thought of what could happen to that trunk (and how it nearly gets lost a few times) is nerve wracking and the makings of an excellent short story or role-playing adventure. It's the kind of scenario that is usually considered to be bad form by a writer - but it really happened.

Fortunately for us, the trunk made its way safely to America. The book really picks up as the devices Loomis raced to invent are finally implemented in the war. And then, when the action finally gets going, the book is over. There is definitely a feeling of the passing of something great that people could only look at indirectly and never touch - just like the intentional destruction of the Chicago World's Fair, Loomis Tuxedo Park is abandoned, his "rad lab" of scientists disbanded, only to backstab each other during McCarthy's "Un-American" committees. Worse, Loomis' divorce left his family sharply divided - like all things, Loomis treated his relationships with an intellectual clarity that was less a romance and more calculated odds. When Loomis felt his wife was not measuring up, she was discarded along with his other failed experiments. It dims, but cannot diminish completely, Loomis' personality.

Tuxedo Park is an impressive achievement. It manages to record the origin of the American scientist, the belief that technology is inherently good, and sharply frames the slow, lumbering bureaucracies that run everything from medical achievements to military advancements. In comparison, Loomis and his teams are breathtakingly nimble at a time when the world needed speed and decisive action most. It is an important part of history and a sharp reminder that rich men, should they choose, could do great good or terrible harm. Loomis was that rare combination of brilliance and wealth that creates freedom - an aberration not likely to be seen again in my lifetime.

Life changing....what a life this man lived.
Never have