SCF Recommended Book List

[TheVat]

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-revi ... come-home/

Looks at how digital media affect our reading capacity, our ability to apply critical analytical thinking to what we read, and other psychological aspects of reading off a screen.

[BadgerJelly]

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/maryanne-wolf/reader-come-home/

Looks at how digital media affect our reading capacity, our ability to apply critical analytical thinking to what we read, and other psychological aspects of reading off a screen.

Seems like a very specific subject matter. What points stood out for you? This is something I am very interested in as you probably know.

[TheVat]

https://www.apnews.com/3e6938bcc26c47ca99cbc054f4177c47

"Seeds of Science: Why We Got it So Wrong on GMOs" by Mark Lynas. Part humorous confessional (the author used to vandalize experimental fields of GMO grains), part history (the history of Monsanto is fascinating), and an educational look at a 180 turnaround on an environmentalist's view of GMOs. One of the most striking figures gleaned from the book was that use of GMO crops has decreased fossil fuel use (mainly through no-till cropping, which idles a lot of tractors) in crop agriculture 37%. Lynas has really looked at the issues from both sides, and he does a good job of presenting them both.

[Forest_Dump]

There is a couple of books I would like to recommend.

Michael J. Benton (2015) "When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time." Thames &Hudson.

This is a well illustrated and scholarly account of the history of research into the Permian mass extinctio and I found it both informative and very readable.

Tim Flannery (2001) "The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples."

Not as well illustrated but a good account of North America since the end of the Cretaceous and the extinction of the dinosaurs so it includes one ofthe most thorough and readable accounts of post dinosaur palaeontology for North America that I have run across. Lots of great stuff on the evolution of many things from trees and nuts to mammals, snakes and others.

[PaulN]

Probably full of vacuous truisms! JK

I will look for Flannery's book.

[Reg_Prescott]

Probably full of vacuous truisms! JK

Are you talking to ME!!??

[Reg_Prescott]

There is a couple of books I would like to recommend.

Michael J. Benton (2015) "When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time." Thames &Hudson.

Whoops, I thought you said Michael Denton.

Anyway, try his "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis"

And his recent sequel "Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis"

I wonder what the trequel will be called.


Edit P.S.

Oh FFS, Wiki describes him as "a proponent of Intelligent Design".

This always happens.

Pretty sure he's an agnostic who doesn't give a flying lemur about God (same as me).

But hey, these naysayers have to be discredited somehow, eh.

See also David Berlinski, and just about anyone else who tries to say bad things about a pet theory.

[PaulN]

Probably full of vacuous truisms! JK

Are you talking to ME!!??

No, Travis Bickle, but I thought you might appreciate the joke.

[Forest_Dump]

Above I mentoned a good book by Michael Benton and would now recommend another:

Michael J. Benton (2019) "Dinosaurs Rediscovered:The Scientific Revolution in Paleontology." Thames & Hudson.

Another good read, well illustrated and very up-to-date by an authority.

[Forest_Dump]

David Reich 2018 "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past".

Many may think I can be pretty hard to please when it comes to science books particularly when it comes to topics that appear to be kind of distant from my kinds of field work and interpreting empirical data. So while I have liked reading some stuff from people like Dawkins, Pinker, etc, I often find their stuff to be too far removed from the field and not of much use to someone like me who spends a lot of time squinting at soil particles or measuring little flakes of broken rock (chert, Flint or rhyolite) with calipers trying to find some great mystery from the past. Well finally some lab geek has written a book that will have me going back to relook at all those old texts and papers with illustrations of stratigraphy and artifacts and rethink the evolutionary processes behind them. This one is about some of the results from genome analysis of humans today and from the prehistoric past. As we should know, human fossils have become the most heavily sampled line of evolution known and since the recovery of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA (and even older stuff since) we (or at least I) have been waiting for some kind of Synthesis of this plus more recent stuff materials covering the past few tens of thousands of years. This book is it and I can't recommend it highly enough. If you have any interest in human (or other) evolution, genetics, evolutionary theory, or even mundane archaeology, you are going to want to read this one a few times. I can barely get through a paragraph without having to put the book down and think of check materials from my library. Definitely anyone who has taken or taught a course on World Prehistory, etc, will be frantically rechecking maps, artifacts illustrations,etc, to pull it all together, critically review, etc.