Books of interest

Here. An intriguing look at what today’s science-minded public reads: 1 QUIET by Susan Cain. Crown. Introverts — one-third of the population — are undervalued in American society. (1) (Could be the introverts don’t get out enough.) 8 THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY by Denise Kiernan. Simon & Schuster. Thousands of women took well-paying jobs in Oak Ridge, Tenn., during World War II, not knowing that the government project where they worked was enriching uranium for the first atomic bomb. (7) This is interesting, but sounds like it is really history, not science. Indeed, it is interesting how much of the list is really about history or struggling with mental issues, and such. Not a criticism, just an observation. This Read More ›

Richard Dawkins’ autobiography has been reviewed in the London Spectator: http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9025021/an-appetite-for-wonder-by-richard-dawkins-review/. The reviewer’s verdict? “He relies just as much on a leap of faith as those religious believers he so keenly affects to despise. His theory also cannot explain how those selfish genes eventually came to evolve the one species on earth which is marked out by a unique capacity for self-obsessed egotism.”