Some reading combining culture and science
One of the funnier book descriptions I’ve come across:
From Cambridge University Press. I like the gratuitious bit about the “long period of stagnation through the Middle Ages.”
Usually, I come upon humanists who pretend to be scientists, or scientists who pretend to be journalists, or scientists who pretend to be humanists of a more grandiose sort (i.e., gurus) … not scientists who adopt this sort of workmanlike – dare I say, paint-by-number – humanistic idiom. “This strangely neglected topic,” writes the historian Lucky Jim in his sad-sack article on medieval shipbuilding; this is an exemplar of the idiom I mean. I don’t imagine that precipitation is a neglected topic, though I can guess why not all of this material was previously gathered into one book.
There are various book series by Reaktion that do the “natural-‘kind’-as-cultural-artifact” thing rather well. This is not exactly the sort of book that Precipitation is. Precipitation is more scientific.
Speaking of offbeat humanistic treatments of the sciences, today I learned that the great documentarian Errol Morris has written a book about Thomas Kuhn, who once threw an ashtray at him. According to Tim Maudlin, the book has considerable merit. (The other book that Maudlin reviews looks good, too.)
Karin is reading and getting a kick out of the first “Bridgerton” book, which is not my cup of trash, though I can respect it. I certainly do admire the titles in that series. “The Duke and I.” “The Viscount Who Loved Me.” “An Offer from a Gentleman.” Etc., etc.
From Cambridge University Press. I like the gratuitious bit about the “long period of stagnation through the Middle Ages.”
Usually, I come upon humanists who pretend to be scientists, or scientists who pretend to be journalists, or scientists who pretend to be humanists of a more grandiose sort (i.e., gurus) … not scientists who adopt this sort of workmanlike – dare I say, paint-by-number – humanistic idiom. “This strangely neglected topic,” writes the historian Lucky Jim in his sad-sack article on medieval shipbuilding; this is an exemplar of the idiom I mean. I don’t imagine that precipitation is a neglected topic, though I can guess why not all of this material was previously gathered into one book.
There are various book series by Reaktion that do the “natural-‘kind’-as-cultural-artifact” thing rather well. This is not exactly the sort of book that Precipitation is. Precipitation is more scientific.
Speaking of offbeat humanistic treatments of the sciences, today I learned that the great documentarian Errol Morris has written a book about Thomas Kuhn, who once threw an ashtray at him. According to Tim Maudlin, the book has considerable merit. (The other book that Maudlin reviews looks good, too.)
Karin is reading and getting a kick out of the first “Bridgerton” book, which is not my cup of trash, though I can respect it. I certainly do admire the titles in that series. “The Duke and I.” “The Viscount Who Loved Me.” “An Offer from a Gentleman.” Etc., etc.