Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Carnivore Minds by G A Bradshaw ****

For years, no… centuries, scientists were cautioned not to anthropomorphize animals. All animal emotions or personalities were assumed to be projections by the observer. In Carnivore Minds by G A Bradshaw, the author presents both neuroscience research and field observations to overturn this assumption. The result is compelling and eye-opening.
“The main purpose of this book has been to close the chapter on speculation about whether or not animals can feel, think, and suffer, and to move our own species into action—to compel scientists and non-scientists alike to openly accept that we are kin with the finned, feathered, furred, and scaled.”
In addition to discussions of vertebrate neuroanatomy, psychology, and sociology, the book includes many interesting facts.
“[Chilean sea bass do] not require hemoglobin, because southern polar waters are highly oxygenated: [they] absorb oxygen directly through their skin”
In avian respiration, the air flow through their “lungs” is one directional (similar to gills) which is more efficient than mammalian lungs.

Sharks experience tonic immobility (are temporarily paralyzed) when turned upside down. Orcas take advantage of this when they hunt great white sharks.

This book has chapters on white sharks, grizzly bears, orcas, crocodiles, rattlesnakes, pumas, and coyotes. All with anecdotes of very human maternal and communal behavior. After hundreds of pages of anthropomorphizing, the following is not surprising: 
“The carnivore myth is growing thin, and the public shows a weariness for killing. Hunting has lost its appeal.”
The author not only opposes hunting but also zoos, circuses, animal testing, development, raising animals for any reason, animal control, …

Since this was published by a university press, I feel free to ask, what does “no more than at least" mean?

A word of warning: once the floodgates of anthropomorphizing are opened, the result is profoundly disturbing. If animals love their families and have a social structure with morals and cultures, the implications can be deeply upsetting.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Monday, January 22, 2018

Quakery by Lydia Kang *****

Do you need a bathroom reader? Quackery, A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang, MD is perfect. With hundreds of short articles on medical follies, it is ideal for episodic reading. It has the additional benefit to arm you with stories to encourage modesty and caution on the part of your doctor.

A bit of history. For over 2,000 years medicine was based on the theory of the four humors (black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm). Much of the misguided treatments were based on this theory, including bleeding, cupping, purges, cleanses, enemas, emetics, and fasting. Unfortunately, some of these treatments survive today.

In addition to these active treatments, history has also bequeathed us a collection of passive treatments. These include homeopathic remedies, drinking water, touching, diet, rest, and exercise. These non-medical treatments most likely gained popularity because active medical treatments (examples above) tended to kill the patient and many conditions improved untreated. Also, can you say placebo?

Aside from a diversion, this book shows how today’s non-medical treatments trace back to rational decisions by non-medical citizen-scientists and have their roots in empirical data. People who shun medical care have been correct throughout history, so we should not be so surprised by their behavior, even if we believe that medical science has finally got it right.

This book is an excellent reminder that the medical profession is a work in progress and subject to fads and fashions just like other human endeavors, as well as a well-written and humorous read.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus ***

WARNING: Tragic story with scenes of graphic violence and rape.

The premise of One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus is that President Grant created a secret Brides for Indians (BFI) program to deliver “Noble American Women” as brides for the “savages” in an effort to civilize and assimilate them. This engaging fantasy mixes the mythology of wise, noble primitives with the brutal history and its horrific result.

The story is told through May Dobb’s journals. She volunteered for the BFI program as a preferable alternative to her incarceration in an asylum. Her family has committed her because she had two children out of wedlock with a socially-inferior man. This introduction includes the first predictable dramatization of unfortunate conditions in the 19th century. Treatment in the asylum included isolation, brutality, and rape.

One theme is the inhumanity of the 19th century. Beyond asylums, other barbarity includes frontier whorehouses, broken treaties, forced starvation, abduction of children, and genocide. The behavior of the white settlers is balanced by examples of rape, mutilation, and masochism by the natives.

For example, as the brides are en route to their native husbands, they are alternately castigated as whores and offered the alternative of working in “respectable” whorehouses instead marrying the Indians.
“Frankly, from the way I have been treated by the so-called ‘civilized’ people in my life, I rather look forward to residency among the savages. I should hope that at the least they might appreciate us.”
The second (predictable? clichéd?) theme is the nobility of the natives. This includes living in balance with nature, communal support for all members of the tribe, sharing of chores, including child raising, and acute ecological awareness.
“Since [arsenic’s] use has become more widespread among the Indians, all have noticed across the prairie the carcasses of not only wolves, but also coyotes, eagles, hawks, ravens, raccoons, skunks, and even bears, for the poison kills everything that partakes of the arsenic-laced meat or that feeds off the carcasses of its victims.
“…The People have always lived with the wolves.
“…The wolf is not out enemy. The white man is our enemy.”
Eventually, the women become pregnant and bond with their new husbands. In their attachment (Stockholm Syndrome?) they focus on the good and ignore both individual faults (laziness, violence, stupidity) and tribal faults such as warmongering and generally poor treatment of women. The white women include several strong individuals who win many small victories (one woman becomes a warrior, several women become rich, women speak at the council meetings and build their own sweat lodge), but in the end, none of this matters.

So many strong white women provide an (unintended?) echo of 19th-century attitudes in the 21st century. White women have awareness and agency, while the native women have only passive acceptance (a subtle racist bias?).

The birth of a white child to one of the Indian wives provides a stark comparison between cold white men and warm Indians. The Indian husband accepts the child, while the white father refuses it.

I can not recommend this book because of the amount of terror, mayhem, and sadism. I am not sure there is another way to tell this story, but regardless it is not my cup of tea. I found it to be a source of nightmares and depression, but perhaps that is the author’s point.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim ****

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim: Four British women share the cost of San Salvatore, a medieval castle in Italy, for a holiday getaway in the decade following World War I. All are unhappy and searching for peace and solitude. Even though the castle has accommodations for eight and they are only four, right from the beginning they are thrown together, and subsequent visitors make isolation impossible. The result is a delightful story of manners, serendipity, and a little feminism.

The organizer is the ever-optimistic Mrs. Lotty Wilkins. Even though her marriage has turned cold, she still has a positive view of the future for herself and everyone else. She is an example of the idea that two people in love, can separate in anger, and regardless of the time apart, are always just a small step from complete reconciliation.

The second lady is Mrs. Rose Arbuthnot, an acquaintance of Mrs. Wilkins, and an active church goer who is dedicated to serving the poor. Because of her solemn piety, she is estranged from her husband who writes romance novels, which a not fit to be read by God.

Lotty convinces her to join this vacation venture. The other two women are located through an advertisement in the Times. This ad might have been on the front page, as prior to 30th July 1966 Times front pages were compiled of classifieds and announcements.

Lady Caroline Dester is young, beautiful, and very attractive. She is going away to avoid her many admirers and suitors.

Mrs. Fisher is the only older woman and she is also seeking solitude and quiet. She represents an earlier, more formal society. She is resentful and judgmental of all the younger women.

Mrs. Wilkins summarizes the melancholy within her and Rose’s marriages.
“We’ve been too god—much too good, and that’s why we feel as though we’re doing wrong. We’re brow-beaten—we’re not any longer real human beings. Real human beings aren’t ever as good as we’ve been.”
In the beginning all the women are catty and competitive. They vie for the best rooms and places to sit in the gardens. They judge each other’s manners and dress. As time passes, everyone changes. Lotty is the personification of the idea that one person’s positive attitude can change everyone for the better.

If you enjoy a story of nice things happening to nice people, I highly recommend this pleasant story of love and flowers in the Italian springtime.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Almost Human by Lee Berger *****

Lee Berger is a paleoanthropologist; he studies humanoid fossils and has made two extraordinary discoveries: Australopithecus sebida from two million years ago, and Homo naledi from a half million years ago. This memoir tells his story from raising pigs in Georgia in the 1970s to uncovering human ancestors in South Africa in the 21st century.

With recent discoveries, scientists have uncovered over a dozen distinct species after human evolution split off from chimpanzees and gorillas. These species share some attributes of modern humans, but not all.
"Experts looking as such a fossil, even today, consider three basic questions: How big was its brain? Did it stand upright? Are its teeth humanlike?"
Many other questions might also be relevant, including hand structure, artifacts, and culture, but hands, artifacts, and culture rarely survive time periods measured in millions of years. The basic questions are a compromise between the essence of humanity and the available data.

Recent explorations have raised many questions with the discovery of extensive skeletal remains from the distant past. That is much of the story of this book.

The secondary story from these discoveries chronicles the impact of technology on research. In the past such research belonged to gentlemen educated at Oxford and Cambridge and sponsored by the British Museum and the National Geographic Society. This was a closed club and discoveries often were withheld for over a decade.

Lee Berger introduced  many innovations. He reported fieldwork daily on social media. He published fossils to be reproduced by 3-D printers. He opened research to dozens of scientists and students. He demonstrated how research could be open and efficient. As with other scientific revolutions, this created tension and conflict.

The third layer of this memoir is the joy and ethos of science. This book shows the tedious dedication of scientists, and their eagerness to separate truth from assumption.  The careful analysis, consideration of all possibilities, and skepticism of easy answers is well demonstrated, such as when the team considers whether they have discovered a tomb or a natural collection of remains. This thread alone makes this a great book for anyone considering a career in science.

Two anecdotes bear repeating.

The first of these important discoveries was found by the author's nine-year-old son.
"Now, we were walking up to a place where a nine-year-old had found a hominin fossil in under a minute and a half. How hard could it be? The mood was boyant.
...
Our party scattered, turning over every loose rock, clambering down into the pit, intensely searching the area. Yet we found nothing definitive."
The second discover was retrieved by a team of six women. They were the best ones with the skills, conditioning, and body size to navigate the tight access to the cave.
...my assistant, Wilma Lawrence...sounded unnerved.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice a bit tense.
"Why, what's the problem? I queried, wondering what had got her upset.
"I have a bunch of messages from women giving me their body dimensions!"
A tiny, but telling, detail of this saga of science in the 21st century...the species names for these discoveries are not Latin. Sediba means "natural spring" or "well" in the Sotho language. Naledi means "star" in the Sotho-Tswana languages.

Almost Human by Lee Berger delivers the thrill of paleoanthropological  fieldwork, the ethos of science, and the conflicts of academic research. Anyone interested in scientists or evolution will enjoy this book.

Book recommendations: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley *****


Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was first published in the same decade as Pride and Prejudice, even though Jane Austen was 22 years older. Both women forged the way for later female writers. The first edition of Frankenstein was published anonymously. Shelley wrote the story as part of a party game and praised her male competitors’ entries as “far more acceptable to the public than anything I can ever hope to produce.” Whatever else came from this game, Frankenstein is certainly to most popular.

Shelley wrote the first draft at the age of 18. The book demonstrates how she was well-traveled and well-read. Frankenstein writes to his sister, “I shall kill no albatross, therefore do not be alarmed for my safety,” alluding to Coolidge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner publish in 1797.” Coolidge was a family friend.

The central science of her story is electricity, a recent scientific breakthrough.
“[Frankenstein] constructed a small electrical machine, and exhibited a few experiments; he made also a kite, with a wire and string, which drew down that fluid from the clouds” (Reminiscent of Ben Franklin myths.)
Frankenstein describes himself in a way that might be autobiographical of Shelley.
“My occupations at this age were principally mathematics, and most of the branches of study appertaining to that science. I was busily employed learning languages; Latin was already familiar to me, and I began some of the easiest Greek authors without the help of a lexicon. I also perfectly understood English and German. This is a list of my accomplishments at the age of seventeen. “
The plot predicts William Edward Parry’s failed expedition to the North Pole ten years later in 1827.

The enduring popularity of the story, including a dozen film adaptations, might be due to sensitive characterization of the monster created by Frankenstein. The monster is presented as a sympathetic being who is driven to murderous revenge. The monster is more developed and complex than Frankenstein who is mostly motivated by arrogance, revulsion and fear.

If you have received this story second- or third-hand and do not feel empathy for the monster or disdain for the irresponsible Frankenstein, perhaps this is a good time to read this short novel.

Book recommendations: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075