Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, by Steve Pinker.
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I take some issues with this guy's politics, but the factual content of this book is stunning, and there are lots of great quotes and zingers. This is not some sort of fuzzy psychobabble book; quite the opposite.
His theme is that The Enlightment kicked humanity out of ignorance into a virtuous loop of improvement, and it's still going on.
(Of course he doesn't give engineers enough credit.)
The gloomy downers in this group should read this one.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
lunatic fringe electronics
Read it years ago. I meet Steve Pinker from time to, and I've argued with h im about the real existence of "back to the stone age" greenies, which stri ke me as an invention of the radical right. He claims to have run into peop le who claim to have run into people like that, but I cite you as the kind of gullible twit who believes in that kind of invented hobgoblin.
Nonsense. He's primarily a successful author (as well as an eminent psychologist) who has enough sense to listen to his publisher about the right-wing fantasy content he needs to put into his books to let them sell to the likes of John Larkin.
Penguin Books??? I'm not going to bother researching this rambling idiot, but somebody is paying him to foist this fraud upon some segments of the population for much more basic reasons than humanism.
I bought a copy of "The Selfish Gene", but I haven't started it yet.
I'm confused when people disparage some author, for only 'writing for money'. First off, so what if they are writing to make money. and second I don't think making money is the driving motivation for most. Mostly I figure they want to share their ideas. (and getting some scratch back makes it doable.)
I would read "The Blind Watchmaker" first, the writing is somehow clearer, it holds your attention better and it's actually entertaining too in its way.
I sort of felt I knew a little about evolution, but that book was literally a series of revelations - "ah yes of course, /that's/ how it works!" and so on.
He's on the TED Talks circuit, he's a talker, he talks and talks and talks, and these idiots think we want them to let us in on their narcissistic fantasy world?
The only linguist worth listening to is Noam Chomsky, he actually says something, he teaches and enlightens his audience.
It's all science popularisation. I found "The Selfish Gene" a bit obvious b ecause I'd read too many other popularisations first. Some are pitched a bi t further up-market than others, and some people have done loads of interes ting work that really ought to be made more widely available.
I liked David Archer's "the Long Thaw"
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Princeton University Press touts it as being about climate change, but the climate change involved is mostly the end of the last ice age, and what geo logy can tell us about it.
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He's popularising his work, and the work of a lot of other authors in his f ield.
The other book of his that I like is "The Ancestors Tale", but for different reasons. Basically it reads like a textbook that you can dip into anywhere and find something interesting (especially the Archaea, IMHO).
OTOH, "The Blind Watchmaker" is a beautiful exposition of the reasons, rationale and evidence for Natural Selection, written for the intelligent man on the Clapham omnibus.
but somebody is paying him to foist this fraud upon some segments of the p opulation for much more basic reasons than humanism.
Steve Pinker isn't any kind of fraud, but an eminent psychologist. He does write popular science books, and they sell well, and make him and his publi sher quite a lot of money. The message is spun in a way that keeps the read ers happy and numerous, but he's infinitely less obnoxious than authors lik e Charles Murray ("The Bell Curve") who pander to their right-wing readersh ip by spreading deceptive mis-information (which isn't actually lying, but is frequently incomplete).
t, but somebody is paying him to foist this fraud upon some segments of the population for much more basic reasons than humanism.
s write popular science books, and they sell well, and make him and his pub lisher quite a lot of money. The message is spun in a way that keeps the re aders happy and numerous, but he's infinitely less obnoxious than authors l ike Charles Murray ("The Bell Curve") who pander to their right-wing reader ship by spreading deceptive mis-information (which isn't actually lying, b ut is frequently incomplete).
The bell curve is basically right. (have you read it, rather than read about it?) Asians are 'smarter' than Europeans, than Africans. The difference is less than a SD. 5-10%. (?) (It should also be noted that ~90%* of human genetic diversity is in Africa.) (men and women are different too.)
One is not a racist by observing facts. Given the larger genetic distribution, and stipulating that the next Einstein comes from the tails, we may be missing more 'Einsteins' in Africa than in Asia. (you could substitute genius for Einstein if you like.) George H.
*I'm semi-making that number up.. it's probably too small.
Boots-on-the-ground observationally speaking my girlfriend has taught English as a second language at the university level for the better part of a decade now to classes of mostly Chinese and Korean students, also to classes of mostly Eastern European students, etc.
At least when it comes to reading and writing there seems to be little noticeable difference between the performance of the mostly Asian classes to anyone else. There are Asian students who are exceptional students, Asian students who are dull as rocks, and everywhere in between.
If the distribution is skewed in comparison to the white students it must be a rather small skew. It seems mostly unnoticeable in practice.
Something that is noticeable is Asian ESL students from mainland China tend to have fewer "street smarts" than Asian students from Korea, Taiwan, or the subcontinent/Middle East, students 25 years old who don't know how to buy a train ticket and take a train from point A to point B not uncommon. These are all students from wealthy families, mind you, the kind of family that can afford to send their child to university overseas. The wealthier they are the worse it seems to get.
These aren't introductory classes mind you they're for graduate students with a decent level of proficiency, the equivalent of a college-level composition class for native English speakers
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