1 comments about Einstein And Culture.

1. We are all born into a culture that determines a lot about our existance. Einstein was born at a time when his discoveries in science were possible. For three centuries the world had run on Newton's theories. Any deviation from those theories was heretical. But by the time Einstein was ready to publish his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 there were enough pinpricks at the edges of Newton's theories so that the world was ready.
   
   Much earlier than 1905 and Einstein's theories would have been dismissed as gibberish, if indeed he hadn't suffered the same fate as Galileo and put under house arrest. As it was, Einstein became Time Magazine's Man of the Century, an honor no one else could come close to claiming.
   
   Much later and it is quite possible that Einstein would have been rounded up with the rest of the Jews and killed. Perhaps his great achievements would have been discovered by others, perhaps not yet.
   
   This book examines the culture of Germany at the end of the 1800's and how this helped to prepare the ground for him to work and produce his theories. It is a book that presents a somewhat different view of Einstein and his work.

5 comments about The Man Who Invented the Chromosome: A Life of Cyril Darlington.

1. This biography of Cyril Darlington is of a renowned scientist who enjoyed a long career, first as a microscopist exploring the workings of the chromosome, then as a leader in the fight against Lamarckism, Lysenkoism, Marxism, and suppositions on the equality of men. His early career was built primarily on a book, "Recent Advances in Cytology" which brought together a coherent picture of the chromosomes and their role in evolution. Perhaps a key insight, new with him, was that though the chromosomes contained the hereditary information, they could be understood better by seeing how evolution affected them as well.
   
   Darlington was a confirmed materialist, hard headed scientist, but was positively attracted by controversy, and a rather intolerant, arrogant character to boot. He had many enemies, but was a forceful and prominent public voice, who relished his role. This combination makes for a lively biography, and deserves serious consideration by anyone interested in the history of the development of the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary thought. He was a driving force for much of it.
   
   Darlington was during the 1940's to the 1980's a sort of early version of Richard Dawkins, and was opposed for many years by JBS Haldane, who was a sort of early version of Stephen Jay Gould. Many of the controversies, being rooted in deep-seated views of human nature, have hardly changed. There is the Marxist version of a faith in the malleability of man by wishful thinking, opposed by hard lessons drawn from science, evolutionary theory and the observation that man is a creature acting in accordance with hereditary behaviors which have developed differently in different races. Not for Darlington the notion that race is a "social construct" or that IQ is a "reified" useless hypotheis, the same for all races. He was a sociobiologist well before the term was invented.
   
   The first part of the book that deals with Darlingtons cytogenetics is not the easiest read, dealing as it does with a pretty arcane subject in perhaps a little too much detail, even for the informed reader. The old controversies about such things as parsynapsis vs telosynapsis, are enfolded in a vocabulary that will be intimidating to many readers. I wish, though, that he had covered in a little more detail the methods of cytogenetics, the stains used, the sample preparation methods, and so on. Just how hard was it to prepare an informative experiment? A little more about the influence of Darlington's cytological insights on the conventional modern practice of the art would have been welcome too.
   
   No matter--skip on to the major part of the book where Harman covers the course of the debate over the nature of man and the insights brought by an evolutionary perspective. The meat of the book is here.
   
   In his later years, as for all scientists who live a long time, the main developments in his science began to become too much for him--molecular biology, psychometrics, and a bevy of new techniques were to add much that he could appreciate, but could contribute very little. Exploring the big picture, speculating, theorizing and publicizing became his game, and we are better off for it.
   
   Harman has done a splendid job in this biography--he writes clearly, and has a very good understanding of his subject. It is based on exhaustive research and interviews and will be the definitive work for a long time. The many pictures bring the story to life, and make for a lively read. I enjoyed the book a lot and even re-read much of it for a second time!



2. Harman has produced one of the deepest books about biology and evolution I have encountered in over 30 years of more-than- amateur interest in the field. He has been able to pinpoint the true paradoxes of life: foresight versus randomness, the individual versus the group, the past as against the future. And he has done so with a wonderful pen: understated, deeply intelligent, deeply modest. I believe that while lesser intellects may not comprend its true value, really smart people will recognize it as nothing short of a brilliant book.



3. This personal biography is really a biography of biology in the 20th century. any one interested in how scientific and cultural/political ideas interact, and in how scientists have attempted to understand large issues like human culture and history with the help of small evidences, like genes and molecules, will have a ball reading this lovely, well written book.



4. I thoroughly enjoyed this engaging and fascinating tale of one of the most controversial and thought provoking scientists of the twentieth century. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in science, biography, and history.



5. I am not a scientist, but very much enjoy biographies. I read this book on a friend's recommendation, and literally could not stop turning the pages. Darlington, the man and the scientist, is truly brought to life on these pages.

   I found the story behind Harman's `unlikely scientific hero' consistently engaging. The author does a superb job of seamlessly weaving together the many colorful strands of the social and scientific fabric that served as backdrop to Darlington's life. With Harman as a guide, the reader gains a unique first-hand appreciation for Darlington's days, reliving them as heady times for genetics in particular and for society as a whole.

   A must-read for all those in the know. Amongst the best biographies I have come across.

No comments about Science on the Texas Frontier: Observations of Dr. Gideon Lincecum.

1 comments about Let Newton Be!.

1. More than any other I have found, this book brought Isaac Newton to life: as a brilliant human being, but still just a human being, with as broad a spectrum of flaws, quirks and vulnerabilities as any of us have. It shows him more as some of his contemporaries may have seen him, before the publication of the Principia began to transform him into a shining demigod of the Enlightenment. It does shine a light on his admittedly obsessive (but still sensible, focused, meticulous and sincere) investigations of theological and alchemical claims that mattered greatly to his generation. Many of these investigations proved to be fruitless, but that does not diminish the man. For these claims lost much of their interest to later generations precisely because the new analytical tools that Newton published in the Principia enabled revolutionary advances in physical knowledge that rapidly pushed alchemy and theology onto the sidelines of intellectual history.

   Truly a wonderful, balanced and satisfying collection of essays, each written by an expert in a particular perspective on Newton's life and work. I would welcome publication of similar collections of lucid, expert essays on Robert Boyle and Charles Darwin.

4 comments about Build the Perfect Beast: The Quest to Design the Coolest Car Ever Made.

1. As someone who was involved in this project, the story is unbelievable but true. It is trully amazing to me that the car was ever built after so many years of frustration, but it was.
   ... The finished car is mindboggling and has received great press as a car and work of art. Nick Pugh is a genius and deserves all the credit in the end to complete the car when he could have walked away from it a hundred times. There is nothing like preserverance and a dream to overcome every sort of obstacle imaginable starting with no money. Durring the Don Quiote journey no one knew how Mark Christensen would interpret this ordeal. It was so painful for so many years. The finished book was very different then I would have imagined it to be. No one involved saw any of Mark's writing until the book was printed. But then again Mark has a amazing way of seeing events unfold from his own perspective. Please read the book. I think you will find it great read.



2. It is almost great, and I don't think it's Christensen's fault that it isn't. It is clearly the portrait of an obsession that consumed his life--all his money, his home, his family, but frankly, the editing leaves something to be desired. Several times while reading this book I turned to my wife--an editor--to ask if a confusing passage made any sense. It never did. This is a terrible frustration in an otherwise engrossing book.

   In a way, it reflects the naivete that Christensen himself exhibits--why did a man who, frankly, knows almost nothing about cars think he can shanghai one of the most brilliant young designers of his generation and build a supercar for peanuts? Because he didn't know any better, is why. It's the same reason he doesn't know you can't run a car on water, and why you can't expect to raise millions of dollars without some sort of business, and why he gets suckered in by half the shysters in California. The force of his will and his dream are almost enough to overcome the obstacles of his ignorance and blind faith. If I had a million dollars, Mark, I'd give it to you.




3. Build the Perfect Beast is the story of Mark Christensen's 5-year effort to fulfill his childhood dream: Build the perfect hot rod. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Christensen wanted to drive one of those high-performance street machines that all the California cool kids drove. As a high school or college student, however, he never had the talent or money to put together his dream vehicle. He never got past the tearing down part of the process. Until he met Nick Pugh, a talented young designer who has, since the events described in this book, gone on to bigger successes. The dream car Mark and Nick set out to build is the Xeno, a million-dollar one-of-a-kind fantasy on wheels. The book details the ups and downs -- mostly brief ups followed by prolonged downs -- of this process. Mark, an author, not an engineer, has vision to spare. Nick, a brilliant designer, refuses to let engineering realities interfere with his vision. The people that are attracted to the plan, lend their financing, and then walk away, are captured by the vision and become true believers, but, inevitably, are driven away by the complexities and vagaries of the other people involved. Mark puts himself into debt financing the car -- they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money, and that of investors, trying to make the car work. Less a story of personal triumph than a story of the weary reality of chasing a dream, this book is nonetheless satisfying to read. In the end, the car is built, but not the way anyone planned, and not the way anyone wanted.

   Along with the engineering, design, and financial issues that haunt the protagonists, Christensen also weaves his own biography into the story, describing his lifelong dream of hotrods from grade school through the present [the book ends about 1995]. I found the biographical story more interesting than the car story, but by the end they have weaved together into a whole.




4. OK, I have dreams of some day building my own super car with a massive mid mounted V8, incredible performance, etc. This is a book about a couple of guys who had the dream to go out and do it.

   Mark Christensen is a writer who meets a designer, Nick Pugh, who is at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Nick has just made (ca 1990) auto design obsolete, and everyone at the school has become his clone or disciple. Mark convinces Nick to shy away from the big automakers and build the car, with the promise of $100,000 from a friend. The rest of the book goes on to describe two things:

   1) The way Mark and his friends grew up in the car-crazy 50s and 60s with dreams of making super hot rods to impress the chicks.

   2) The years long process of trying to build their perfect beast.

   I'll say this about Mark's writing: I will do whatever I can to try and find the rest of his body of work. His sense of narrative and way of making events pop off the page is astonishing. I have not had this strong a desire to keep reading deep into the night since the last Nabokov novel I read. This man is a credit to writing and is to be admired for his wordcraft. His sentences evoke the images of a 40ish
   guy reliving the triumphs, failures and regrets of "a generation that grew up under a tremendous lack of oppression". His hot rodder stories make you ache for the chance to make right the butchery that perfectly good iron suffered for the sake of "cool" on hot summer nights. The tales of the huge wheeling dealing finances, backed with barely being able to pay his rent bring all the dreams of automotive excess to shocking clarity. Its spine-tingling, laugh out loud, whack your forehead and groan all in one easy to carry hardback!

   This novel has reinvigorated and frightened me all at the same time about my crazy schemes to make my own car. I believe it within the realm of possibility for me to turn my dreams someday into metal and fiberglass. I now know vividly just how hard a road it can be.

   The characters in this very true story (the evolution of the design and pics of the final car, which is for sale, are available, wend their way through a wonderful array of characters from flimflam men, conspiracy theorists, alternative fuels, patent attorneys and the whole of SoCal speed shop and fabricator culture in their pursuit of the perfect machine. The cast of characters is numerous, the pace is hectic and the humor is everywhere, along with yearning, hope, fear and desperation.

   This is simply the best bit of non fiction I have read in years.

   Read it.

   RangeR "Oh no! Now he's reviewing books too!" BoB

2 comments about The Story of Television: The Life of Philo T. Farnsworth (Telecommunications (New York, N.Y. : 1974).).

1. "The Story of Television" is a reprint of a book originally published in 1949 when television was just becoming a commercial reality. It provides a historical perspective that is well worth reading for several reasons. First, RCA, having won the battle to commercialize television also claimed credit for its invention. With the demise of RCA, we are rediscovering the accomplishments of Philo Farrnsworth. Second, the author, George Everson, was one of Farnsworth's financial backers and close associates who witnessed first hand the birth of television. Third, the current books about the life of Farnsworth depict him as the struggling inventor battling the giants of industry only to be crushed by them. Everson portrays him as a well know and respected scientist who despite enormous technical odds was eventually able to triumph.



2. STUPID EVEN A 5 YEAR OLD CAN WRITE BETTER

No comments about Letters of the Wright Brothers.

No comments about Nikola Tesla - Electric Genius (Biography).

5 comments about The Roswell Legacy.

1. The Roswell Legacy was a welcomed publication. It was nice to see a book by Major Marcel's son finally on the market. Though it did deal with family matters and family quite a bit, I found that it dealt with many of the personal problems with family members including the fact that both Major Marcel and his wife as Jesse states in the book - became alcoholics. He speaks also of the effect that the Roswell Incident and its many years of secrecy had on his entire family including his own children. He states that even to this day due to the Roswell Incident there are riffs in his family. My reading about the tragic family situations both with his own family and Major Marcel's touched my heart and I thought, "How sad this has happened to them." I immediately decided I would attempt to reach Jesse by phone and invite him for an interview on my Blog Talk Radio show. I wanted to help him reach out, tell his story, and also assist in vindicating his Father in some way. I was able to contact him and he agreed to do the interview on BlogTalk Radio along with his friend Stanton T. Friedman. I asked him if there was anything in his book he did not want to discuss. His repy was, "I don't think so." However, in the course of the interview, I found this not to be the case. There were several questions mentioned in the book that he chose either not to comment upon or just skirted the question completely. I let all that pass. For a few days after the show, I thought about 'Why did he answer the questions the way he did or not at all?, when his answers did not agree with the way they had been written in the book. I wound up doing a second show on BlogTalk addressing these concerns and reading from The Roswell Legacy the answers that should have been easy for him to give. I finally took both shows totally out of my archive section. If you would like to hear these shows, you can at BTR, Saturday, March 29th, 2008, 5 pm ET - The Charn Parker Show or download them from the archives anytime after the broadcast. I do think this was a good book, however, I question now the validity of what was written.



2. Jesse Marcel Jr. has written a touching vindication of his father, Jesse Marcel, the Security Officer the military asked to look over the debris field on Mac Brazel's farm back in June of 1947. The author was an 11 year-old boy living with his parents near the military base at Roswell New Mexico, and he personally saw and touched parts of the debris as his father excitedly told him it was "not of this world."
   
   The basic story is well known, and Jesse Jr does not provide anything beyond the known facts and research that anyone could do. But the book is a valuable contribution to the legacy of Roswell because the author, besides the fact that he was part of it, focuses on the elements that keep people from believing the debris was from a crashed space ship. Starting with what he sees as a denigration of his father. He shows us in great detail that his father, Jesse Marcel, was technologically astute and well-trained in all aspects of military radar and balloons. It is just not possible that he would not have recognized any kind of balloon in use by the military. The government has admitted that its first claim, that the debris was from a weather balloon, along with the infamous picture of Marcel with the "debris," was a falsehood and a cover-up.
   
   But their more recent report on the Rosell incident claims that the debris was from Project Mogul, which was balloons sent high in the atmosphere to "listen" for evidence of Soviet nuclear testing. However, the author thoroughly researched Project Mogul and shows how this simply does not fit the facts. He states with certainty that the Mogul materials were nothing like what he saw in the family kitchen that night in 1947. He had a chance to personally examine some of the Mogul materials, so his opinion here is based on real knowledge. Beyond that, he researched which Mogul balloons were aloft at the time that could have landed on Mac Brazel's farm, and none of them fit. And beyond that, the debris field was much larger than what you'd get from a Mogul balloon, and, since the Mogul materials were ordinary, the military usually didn't even bother to collect downed balloons. So why, in the Roswell incident, did they scrape up every last piece of debris and have it flown, with armed guards, to Wright-Patterson?
   
   The book is somewhat disorganized and unorthodox in its layout and organization, but I found the rather homespun approach an indication of its authenticity as the real thoughts of the author (and his wife too). No spin here, just an honest recounting of memories and what the incident did to the Marcel family. I was saddened to read that his father became more cynical and took up drinking excessively as he grew older, contemplating the years he had to keep quiet and listen to his government put out "facts" he knew to be false. In his later years, he did talk about it somewhat, including telling Linda Marcel (Jesse Jr's wife) that what he saw in 1947 was "not of this earth."
   
   Everyone has their opinion and debunkers will always be with us, but Jesse Marcel Jr has kept faith with his father's belief that both the father and the son held in their hands pieces of something that came from "out there."



3. 
   I though this book was poorly written and documented.
   
   1. What about Bessie Brazel? She saw the wreckage first hand too and reported it as a crashed weather balloon (of which others had previously crashed on the Brazel farm). She also described the printed symbols on the crash debris that Jess believes to be from another world.
   
   2. If the crash was so significant as reported why wasnt there anything on radar reported? Or sighted by others such as fire balls, etc.? Also in your own words the material was indestructible which begs the questions - well then how and why could something like that crash and break up? Does not add up.
   
   3. On one hand your father could not reveal top secret programs to your family but on the other hand could reveal something much more signifcant - a crashed saucer from another world? Is'nt this contradictory?
   
   4. Surely if your father was close to you as you suggest he would have told you more about what he knew - what he saw and heard concerning this event - but nothing more is reported in your book. Why?
   
   5. Is there the possiblity that this is a cover up of something totally unrelated to what we are being led to believe it is? Could it be your family was used in this regard to dissiminate disinformation?
   
   6. You selectively list sources in your book to back up what you say and leave out what does not support your thesis. For example - Mac Brazel reportedly hearing a large explosion - but leaving out Bessie Brazel's testimony. Suspect.
   
   7. The debris you mention in your book as "possibly from another world" by your own account is: plastic, foil, and metal beams. Hardly the stuff a saucer from "another world" would be constructed of AND very similar to what the MOGUL devices were constructed of. Bessie even describes tape and basal wood being among the wrekage as does Mac Brazel. Why did you leave this information out of your book and how do you explain their accounts?
   
   8. You talk about the possiblity of being threatened in your book. However the fact is that your book indicates you have never been threatened. Could it be that you are not a threat? After all seeing foil, plastic and tiny metal I-beams is not very significant is it?
   
   9. How do you jump to the conclusion that this material, which could also have easily been constructed here on earth is 100% from a flying disc or craft from another world. I don't see the connection. Please advise.
   
   These are just a few of my limited observations. If anyone can shed more light on this Id be very appreciative.
   
   Best Regards to All.



4. The hype about this book is overated.
   1 one quarter of each page in the book is blank,I cannot see any reason for this.
   2 Most of the book relates to his life story,his wifes life story,some people that he has met and a bit of their life story.
   3 I cannot for the life of me see where there is anything new in the book that has not already been revealed and stated in the past.
   4 The only reason, that I can see in this book, is his confirmation of what happened in the past was true, but this has already been written about by many other authors and video/dvd releases over the past many years and is what everybody already knows that had occured anyway.
   My expectations about the truth being revealed was let down dramatically.
   One last final comment is the expectation of having a hardback edition and personally signed by Jessie Jnr as promised by the promoters but typically, never eventuated.
   To me this book is a dead set ripoff for what you get.



5. Now with release of The Roswell Legacy, Jesse Sr. will finally be vindicated and the world will learn the truth. With a forward written by the renowned Ufologist, Stanton Friedman, this book clears the air.

No comments about Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography.