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

Stuff of Thought and Why People Believe Weird Things

Currently reading another Pinker, "The Stuff of Thought". In the 4th chapter, very language oriented now but expect to head toward cognitive neuroscience later. Also reading "Why People Believe Weird Things" by skeptic Shermer. Well done, good illustrations, not at all overbearing. Have Wilson's "The Social Conquest of Earth" on my Kindle to read next.

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

On recent cruise to the Baltic, found Brian Greene's latest

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

in the ship's library. Good read, didn't quite finish, will get from our local library. One chapter was titled "Is This Science". String theory sounds fascinating but no test has been devised yet.

Am rereading "Consilience" again. Still very enlightening, pertinent, nearly 15 years after publication. Many of Wilson's conjectures about the direction of research and what would be found are on the mark. Wonderful prose, clear writing, a delight for those of us encumbered with a scientific education.

Just started "The Stuff of Thought" by S. Pinker as my next educating  read. Looks like another eye opener like his "How the Mind Works", and 'The Blank Slate"

D.S. Wilson, Jared Diamond, and Freakonomics

After reading Evolution for Everyone, I took D S Wilson's rec to read "Guns, Germs and Steel", by Diamond, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Wish I had been taught history like that. Ran into Freakonomics in our public library, and quickly read it, and the follow on, Super Freakonomics. All of this fitting together, and then on to DS Wilson's The Neighborhood Project. Now I want to take the EOS courses myself, and hope my grandchildren will go to an EOS school like Binghamton U.

Reading list number 1

Reading list I made up for a friend

Philosophy of Science 

Consilience                         The Idea that all knowledge is one thread

Conjectures and Refutations   Popper - centrality of falsifiability to science

Evolution for Everyone            D.S. Wilson -  Lots of fun, blue collar science

Biology 

Why Evolution is True            J Coyne  - better than Dawkins

The Selfish Gene                   Dawkins - start of my interest in genetics

The Blind Watchmaker           Dawkins - needed to understand appearance of design arguments

The Ancestor's Tale                Dawkins - encyclopedic view of the tree of life, long, with fascinating details

Endless Forms Most Beautiful S. Collins - new science of evo devo must read to understand gene expression

Birth of the Mind                     G.Marcus - how tiny # genes creates the complexity of human thought

Psychology and Brain Science

How the Mind Works               S. Pinker - research psychologist who writes very clearly and entertainingly

The Blank Slate                      S Pinker - excellent exposition of nature vs nurture

Modern Cosmology

A Universe from Nothing           Krauss - wow! spontaneous generation of multiple universes, led to by data

Knocking on HeavensDoor        Randall - Why we built the Large Hadron Collider, and the technology involved

The Grand Design                    Hawking - Brilliant. Thought I understood it while reading it. Not so sure now.

For Children and Young Adults

The Magic of Reality                 Dawkins - delightful thought experiments for young adults

I will comment on some of them individually eventually. What do you think?

Opening statement

I hope this will be a place for some of my friends who are curious about a variety of things, such as the nature of reality, evolutionary biology, cosmology, etc. will interact. I plan to add book recommendations and observations irregularly, and hope that you feel free to comment.