Monthly Archives: July 2014

Grayling on Ehrenreich

Yet another review of a review. There has been discussion on various sites in recent weeks, including Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, of a recent book by staunch unbeliever Barbara Ehrenreich, Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the … Continue reading

Posted in Book Notes, Religion, Thinking | Comments Off on Grayling on Ehrenreich

Prothero on The Unpersuadables

Another review of a review: Donald Prothero (a geology professor at Occidental College in LA, and a lecturer at Caltech), has a review of a new book by Will Storr, The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, that develops … Continue reading

Posted in Book Notes, Lunacy, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Prothero on The Unpersuadables

Rereading Gene Wolfe’s “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”

Gene Wolfe is one of the most intelligent, albeit ambiguous in effect, writers in science fiction (and fantasy). He was an industrial engineer, famously for having partly invented the machine that made Pringle potato chips, before he began writing in … Continue reading

Posted in science fiction | Comments Off on Rereading Gene Wolfe’s “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”

Two Books to Look Forward to

From reviews a couple days ago in Publishers Weekly. Coming in October: E.O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence. Wilson, Harvard biologist, is one of the most intelligent people on the planet, author of On Human Nature, Consilience and many, … Continue reading

Posted in Book Notes, Thinking | Comments Off on Two Books to Look Forward to

Nature’s God

Book review sections, especially the weekly ones in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, are useful for reading glosses on books of interest that I know I’ll never find the time to read in their entirely. Nonfiction books, … Continue reading

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Humanism, Religion | Comments Off on Nature’s God

Lies and False Witness

There’s a theme here, in three posts from last week. Salon: Rise of a right-wing quack: Faux-historian David Barton’s shocking new influence This is the quality of constitutional scholarship that pervades the conservative movement these days: simple, outright lies that … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Lies and False Witness