Bad Pharma, Very Important book

Dr Ben Oldacre is a young Brit doctor that is incensed by the state of the medical industry, particularly the big Pharma. He shows how they hide clinical trials that do not come out the way they want, and distort the results they do let get published. They pay medical journals to publish their papers, and support monetarily professional societies to favor them. Doctors are paid to give talks favoring drugs manufactured by the company, without admitting the connection. The detailers lie to doctors about the efficacy and side effects of drugs they are marketing. Drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as on research. Much of what they call marketing, in my opinion, could be called bribery.

Regulators cravenly ignore the problems, and hide data that should be public.

Read some of the reviews and comments from the link below, then read the book if you have the stomach for it.

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-How-Medicine-Broken-ebook/dp/B008RLTUUA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388447537&sr=1-1&keywords=bad+pharma

Dr Oldacre makes many good suggestions to help fix these problems.

Also see his blog for an update on happenings since the publication of his book.
http://www.badscience.net/2013/12/free-here-is-the-new-what-happened-next-update-chapter-from-bad-pharma-2013/#more-3056

Fiction book list

Here are some of the fun fiction books I have read lately.  

The latest in the C J Box series. All are good reads.
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Point-13-Joe-Pickett-ebook/dp/B008U45T7C/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301157&sr=1-4&keywords=cj+box+novels

Minette Walters writes good intricate mysteries
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Feather-Minette-Walters-ebook/dp/B000JMKNRY/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301302&sr=1-10&keywords=minette+walters+books

I like the Scandinavian authors. Nesbo is a good one. Here is one of a series with the detective Harry Hole. You may want to read an earlier one, but this is where I started.
http://www.amazon.com/Snowman-Harry-Hole-thriller-Sequence-ebook/dp/B004G5ZY7E/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301455&sr=1-8&keywords=jo+nesbo+harry+hole+in+order

Neal Stephenson is an acquired taste, but I love reading his novels. Here is a recent that might be a good starting point, but all are excellent reads. I agree with the review in this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Reamde-Neal-Stephenson-ebook/dp/B004XVN0WW/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301823&sr=1-2&keywords=neal+stephenson+books

Richard North Patterson writes well-constructed thrillers. This is an early one, but he has written several good ones since.
http://www.amazon.com/Balance-Power-Kilcannon-Richard-Patterson-ebook/dp/B000FBJCOE/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1387302040&sr=8-15&keywords=richard+patterson+north

Of course, there are also good reading finds in the Edgar awards winners lists.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_12?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=edgar+awards&sprefix=edgar+awards%2Caps%2C147&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aedgar+awards

Touching a Nerve, by Patricia Churchland

Churchland has illuminated the boundary between brain science and philosophy. This is a marvelous book. Makes an important, complex subject easy to read.  Evolution, epigenetics and culture make us what we are, the mind is what the brain does, we are what our neurons do.
Will infuriate many, made me chortle.
Read the amazon description.
http://www.amazon.com/Touching-Nerve-Self-as-Brain-ebook/dp/B00AV7JV8E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384474979&sr=1-1&keywords=churchland+touching+a+nerve
Would love to discuss this one with you.

Bad Science

Just finished a book called “Bad Science; quacks, hacks, and big pharma flacks”, by Ben Goldacre M.D. I have always enjoyed the Brit way of expressing disdain. Here is an educated Brit in high dudgeon. He is justified in his rage. He is very good at explaining the tricks used to rip off the public by nutritionists, homeopaths, and other “alternative medicine” treatments. He also blasts the journalists who distort study results by seeking a grabber headline. They also fail to look at the basis for the studies involved to assess whether the methods involved make sense. Big pharma is slightly cleverer in how they use statistics to fool docs and rip off patients. Goldacre points out some of the lies of omission told by Big P. and how they cherry pick results. He makes several sane suggestions about how to prevent some of the worst practices, and how the individual can develop a nonsense detector. Bad Science is easy to read, and available in our public library. I recommend it.

The Disappearing Spoon

Kean's earlier book was also a fun read. The periodic table as an entry point to delightful, interesting anecdotes about scientists. Glad I got around to it.

Music lovers books....

Over the past couple of decades I have found a few novels about musicians that I have particularly enjoyed. The original music novel for me was Thomas Mann’s “Dr Faustus”, which I read in college.. Described some of  Arnold Schoenberg’s musical methods, and the drive of composing.

My increasing interest in great music lead me to seek out fine novels about musicians and music making.

One from 1993 was “Body and Soul” by Frank Conroy. Good story, included a virtuoso pianist’s inner thoughts about performing and the music itself. Very enjoyable for me, a non musician that loves classical music.

Another from 2001, Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto” was a lovely, strange and absorbing tale of an opera singer in a hostage situation. Full of effects of music on individuals involved.

The most recent, from 2012, was “Two Part Inventions”, by Lynn Schwartz. Interesting story of a marriage between a virtuoso pianist and her manager husband. Describes 2 lives in music, with a twist. Based on a real incident. Short novel, I thought it was a good read for music lovers.

All the above are still in print, and Amazon provides reviews and samples.

The Epigenetics Revolution and The Astonishing Hypothesis; The Scientific Search for the Soul

The Epigenetics Revolution:
How Modern Biology is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease, and Inheritance -by Nessa Carey
 Accurate title. Pushing hard on my comprehension of molecular biology and genetics, but I think I'm getting the essence of what she is saying. Genes that express proteins are just the beginning of understanding what happens to our bodies in development and later life. Explosion of data and knowledge in this area. The complexity of the processes described in detail here make it hard to believe that anyone ever grows up without major defects. Nature has evolved some really clever ways to balance conflicting biochemical requirements and repair damage that occurs.Lots of jargon, but worth effort to grasp the ideas.

Also taking a top level look at the great Francis Crick's last book;
The Astonishing Hypothesis; The Scientific Search for the Soul.
 The hypothesis is that "You" ... are in fact no more than  the behavior of of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Published in 1994, much progress in consciousness analysis, cognitive psychology and the brain sciences has been made since then , but his level headed, low hype approach to what was known at the time is the mark of a great scientist. Enjoying his clear writing and approach to interpreting research results. Also still a good primer about the brain and neurons. He does NOT make the claim that he has proved the hypothesis.
 "The Mind is What the Brain Does" ???

AMAZON links to reviews and samples;

http://www.amazon.com/Epigenetics-Revolution-Rewriting-Understanding-Inheritance/dp/0231161166/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364224839&sr=1-1&keywords=nessa+carey+-+the+epigenetics+revolution

http://www.amazon.com/Astonishing-Hypothesis-Scientific-Search-Soul/dp/0684801582/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364224897&sr=1-3&keywords=Crick+francis

"The Stuff of Thought".

Have finished "The Stuff of Thought" by Pinker. First half was very detailed linguistics, and not for everyone, including me. However, I am glad I pushed through it, because it made the arguments and conclusions of the last half understandable and believable.

The last chapter is a wonderful summary of his understanding of  "The Stuff of Thought" , that is hard to resist. Hope that it can be read as an excerpt on AMAZON website.
Some excerpts;

Language offers the clearest window on how we can transcend our cognitive and emotional limitations.

The first way out is conceptual metaphor. Humans take their concepts of space, time, causality and substance, etch away the leaden physical contents they were designed for. and apply the residual framework to airier subject matter.
...
The second way out is the combinatorial power of language....(which)allows us to entertain an explosion of ideas even though we are equipped with with a finite inventory of concepts and relations.

He goes on to say bad ideas also come from this process but we also have methods to winnow them out.

His suggestion for the goal of education struck me as illuminating;

The goal of education (in a scientifically literate democracy) is to make up for the shortcomings in our instinctive ways of thinking about the physical and social world. And education is likely to succeed not by trying to implant abstract statements in empty minds, but by taking the mental models that are our standard equipment, applying them to new subjects in selective analogies, and assembling them into new and more sophisticated combinations. 


Pinker's  "How the Mind Works" and "The Blank Slate" were also very thought provoking.

I would love to attend a series of discussions/seminars on Pinker's books. I may start a book club.

The Violinist's Thumb - Good anecdotes in evolution science history

The Violinist's Thumb" by Sam Kean. 

Full of interesting stories about the Darwinian revolution. Interesting description of the struggle between the Mendelians and the Darwinists.
Fun with fruit flies!
Delightful read, he writes breezily and clearly. Many interesting characters described.

Kean has another well reviewed book about the periodic table! I plan to get around to that one later.

Thinking Fast and Slow

Just finished "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. He won a Nobel prize in economics, but is a research psychologist. His contribution was in showing that some of the assumptions about the ECONs who populate economic theories are incorrect. They do not behave like human beings do. Lots of interesting details about research into how we really make decisions. Anyone could benefit from reading this one.

List of some favorite fiction

I read fiction as well as science and philosophy. Here are some favorite authors and works

Patrick O'Brien - The Aubrey-Maturin series - all-time favorite historical fiction, very well written, wonderful characters, closely adheres to the Napoleonic wars engagements and the tenor of the times.

C.S. Forrestor - all the Horatio Hornblower novels, and several of his other books, from my teen years.

Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, reaMdE, The baroque cycle.  Excellent writer of cyberpunk novels, with historical twists. Hard to describe, but very entertaining.

David Weber's military science fiction

Mysteries by Minette Walters, CJ Box, Louise Penney, Lee Child and several others