Literate Scientist

This is my second Rosen’s book and I started reading on 1st of September, 2008, a year after I read “Life Itself”. Essays were written after the latter book and were intended to clarify it. Therefore if you are about to start reading Rosen’s works it is probably better to read essays first. I’m almost halfway through it and particularly like the discussion about mimesis, its roots and history. This is highly recommended book to read and if you were trained in chemistry, physics and computer science like myself you would find revelations on every page and would never look at modern science with the same eyes again.

Essays on Life Itself

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is encyclopedic work I bought a few months ago in a local book shop and just started reading. Highly recommended for education and another view on human history.

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The second encyclopedic book seems was written before the previous one but looks like the logical sequel to it. I start reading it as soon as I finish “Ideas”.

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I’ve never read anything about religion since earlier school probably 25 years ago and my education was almost materialist-marxist-leninist. However I recently became interested in various religions mostly because of the diverse workplace and my ongoing philosophical education. I stumbled upon this book in a local shop, bought and started reading while commuting to work. Halfway through I became interested in evolutionary theory and learnt about meme. Because of so many references to Dennett’s earlier book I put it aside after I finished the first two parts and I think I come back to the last third one called “Religion Today” after I finish “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” book.

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I’m the father of two and very interested in understanding what kind of parenting my children need. What amount of pressure do they need? What is the difference between the Soviet-type school I attended in 1977 - 1987 and the modern school? This is why I bought this book in a local bookshop a few months ago, started reading this month and already halfway through. Very interesting read. Even applicable to work as well. More pressure - less creativity. I really liked debunking the myth of multitasking.

Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

After reading The Hundred-Year Lie I proceeded to a more balanced book:

Is it Safe to Eat?: Enjoy Eating and Minimize Food Risks

The author advocates risk vs. benefit approach throughout the book and now I started to apply the definition of risk as “hazard * exposure” to other areas as well. Explanation about how and why GM food was developed as well as the story of BSE (mad cow disease) was very interesting because I knew very little about them. I studied chemistry in university and liked that the author included organic formulae to illustrate important chemicals and their mechanisms, for example, estrogen disrupters.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I was always interested in the history of Nazi Germany and I bought this book almost 8 years ago. This was one of my first history books written in English. However, only this month I began reading it when commuting to work in the morning. In two weeks I already finished more than 200 pages and I would say this is very interesting read about mass and party politics in general. Some people say in their reviews that this book has too may adjectives because it was written in 50s-60s just after the war but I would say that adjectives make this book a non-stop reading experience.

Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

Being born and lived in Russia during Communist era I inherited the sense of heroic achievements of the Soviet Army during the battle for Berlin. One of my co-workers recommended me this book and I read it last summer. It really shows the other side of the this battle like disorganization and chaos on the Soviet front and horrors committed by them on German civilians. Since then I buy and read revisionist history books to see different or not officially approved views on the same historical and political events.

The Fall of Berlin 1945

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is the very important book that warns about synergy between different chemicals that enter our bodies. It also shows the failure of reductionism in pharmacology and mainstream medicine and the danger of the so called synthetic paradigm. The book depicts various food and drug related fallacies. Highly recommended for reading and not to be paranoid but at least to be informed. At the time of this writing I’ve have finished 183 pages out of 257 pages of the main text. This is my lunch time reading these days :-)

The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

When mapping one science domain to another and borrowing terminology even metaphorically one rule to follow is to provide justification. This is very important otherwise people will laugh once they recognize that terminology was just thrown without any explanation or connection. For me this book was very important reading because I also mapped some computer science and engineering technology terminology to the domain of project management. However I provided some sort of justification to my relief.

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

Just finished reading it. In summary: Everything is Nothing as their complexity measure is the same. Interesting short and small book to read if you have never heard of computationalism, many world interpretation of quantum mechanics, anthropic principle, self sampling assumption and quantum immortality. Discusses everything briefly and provides bibliography. However I think I should have read David Deutsch’s “The Fabric of Reality” book first which I bought recently and put on my reading list. The number of new concepts introduced was too overwhelming so I consider to read “Theory of Nothing” second time after finishing some other related books. 

Theory of Nothing

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -