Literate Scientist

While reading evolution books ranging from popular like Darwin’s Dangerous Idea to specialized like Evolution: The First Four Billion Years and Encyclopedia of Evolution I felt the need to read Darwin’s biography. My first encounter with Darwin was even before a primary school when I was looking at illustrations to his voyages in a library. Later, during my school years in Soviet Union, I saw a movie about him. I vividly remember a Wilberforce and FitzRoy scene. So you might imaging that I was very keen to read 680 page book (not counting notes and bibliography). Unfortunately I found it a bit boring and written in a difficult language compared to other biographies I read in English. May be the language was chosen deliberately to emulate Victorian epoch?

Almost in the middle of reading this book I stumbled across another book: The Darwin Conspiracy: Origins of a Scientific Crime and reading the latter (it’s like a thriller and you can download the free PDF from www.darwin-conspiracy.co.uk) gave me an impulse to continue reading Darwin’s biography with a critical eye. Looking at the same facts your can always interpret them differently and the conspiracy book reminded me to read behind the lines more carefully and remember about politics in science and class issues in society. I’m very interested in memetic engineering Darwin used to delicately arrange and propagate his ideas. The biography mentions Wallace in passing a few times but there is no discussion about the priority and the crucial Linnean Society meeting is not in the focus and doesn’t grab any attention.

One fact I didn’t know before reading this biography is that Darwin was always sick. Now “tormented evolutionist” phrase acquires the new meaning to me. I also got the feeling that Darwin’s hesitation to publish his ideas (if he had any to publish) was caused by sickness as well. Actually the sickness was the main focus of the book. However I really wonder how could such a sick man (as described) could write that huge amount of correspondence, do research and write many books.

One quote I found at the end of the book says that Darwin would not approve anti-religious stance of Dawkins and Co.: 

“Moreover though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.”

http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-12757

The quote got my attention probably because I recently read another book: The Selfish Genius.

Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is an encyclopedic work I bought in a local book shop and finally finished reading today. It took me a year to read from cover to cover and pages were falling out of the glue but I continued to read. Highly recommended for education and another view on human history. The review of Freud was enlightening to me because I didn’t know about the recent scholarship criticizing his work. In fact, I so liked this book that just bought it again in a hardcover version from Folio Society and start rereading it again soon.

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’m starting reading it next week.

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

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I read this book from cover to cover while flying on a plane from Dublin to St. Petersburg and back. That was so wonderful reading experience - I couldn’t put the book down during those flights. I recall that I visited the Department of Mathematics a few times when I studied Chemistry in Moscow State University although at that time I knew next to nothing about Russian mathematicians. The book touched me so deeply that I bought the main work of Florensky: The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, the history of Russian philosophy and several books explaining Orthodox Church. This is the best mathematics history book I have ever read, my feelings perhaps comparable to those that I experienced when I finished reading Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline but that was more than 20 years ago.

Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

After I finished A Brief History of Theology I wanted to read more about Religion in general, not from an evolutionary point of view like in Breaking the Spell but more from the cultural perspective. So I bought this book in a local bookshop and read from cover to cover. I like the book, in fact some ideas I encountered there are similar to my own philosophy of Memoidealism and Memorianity (Memory religion) and now I understand better even my own private religion. Recommended for scientists with reductionist background or having narrow views about religion like I had before reading this book.

Religion: The Basics

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I bought this book in Eason book shop in Dublin city center a month ago when I had a large break while waiting for my ticket number in the Visa office. I finished Homework for Grown-ups in that queue and needed to buy something to read next. Now I finished this book and I can say that I like all chapters, especially about politics, ethics, mind and art because these areas of philosophy were missing in my education. Today I was again in Eason book shop in Dublin city center when I had a large break while waiting for my ticket number in the Visa office. And guess what? I bought Religion: The Basics book…

Philosophy: The Basics

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

It is interesting to compare core school subjects in 70-80s USSR with those in UK and Ireland. I certainly missed any religious education and many art-isms. Physical education (games) was also different except football and climbing a rope. So I bought this book in a local bookshop a few months ago to align my basic school education and finished reading yesterday while waiting in a queue in Irish visa office near Dublin O’Connell Bridge:

Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learnt at School…and Promptly Forgot

It was also useful for me to learn some English words from basic biology, classics and geography.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I bought this book in a local bookshop yesterday and just started reading it, considering it as a structured idea-centered overview compliment to a history-centered idea development book I’m finishing soon: Ideas and Modern Mind (Modern Mind is still on my reading list):

Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

When stumbled upon this book on Amazon earlier this month when I was looking at the list of recently published science books I recalled how creationists and proponents of intelligent design are instantly dismissed in many science books that never discuss them in any details. In the description this book promised to review various approaches and even to suggest the testable model. The latter intrigued me and without fear of being accused as a non-scientist I bought it. Just started reading and if I find any flaw I would revise this post accordingly. So far it provides description, motivation and origin of many creationist / IDM versions. Should be read even if you are a confirmed scientist.

More Than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation

I’m a founder of Memory Religion so I have nothing to loose after reading this book. 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I encounter plenty of references to theology and its terminology in many books. My atheistic school education in communist Russia resulted in the lack of any knowledge of religion that I noted already in the review of Breaking the Spell book. A few months ago I saw this book in a local bookshop and immediately bought it to widen my views on religious and theological matters. I’ve read it and it explained lots of terminology very clearly. Highly recommended. One cautious note though: it only surveys key ideas and theologians from Western theology. For Orthodox worldview you need to look elsewhere.

A Brief History of Theology: From the New Testament to Feminist Theology

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

OpenTask plans to publish the extended and edited version of this blog as a book:

Literate Scientists and Their Books: An Independent Guide to Understanding Reality (ISBN: 978-1906717520)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -