Books from the young and old

Additions to the 2020 Book List.

No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference (2019) by Greta Thunberg

This is barely a book; it is a short collection of Thunberg’s various speeches. They are all very similar and at times have whole sections repeated nearly verbatim. But that is to be expected when you are trying to give the same message to different audiences. But they are worth reading to get a sense of the desperation and urgency of the climate crisis; something which is not conveyed by most politicians.

I have a huge amount of respect for Greta Thunberg and I think it is terrible the way she has been treated and attacked by various people. She actually has the courage and conviction to stand up for her beliefs. This is in stark contrast to most politicians who are careful not to say anything too controversial with the public that will lose them support. And in contrast with many businessmen whose only interest seems to be how the economy is doing in the present. We need people like Thunberg who are not only focussed on the present but considering how our actions here today will affect the future. And, for those that would dismiss her just because she is a child, she is merely repeating what climate scientists are saying and have been saying for a while now. If we would listen to the scientists in the first place, we wouldn’t need a child to come and tell us what needs to be done.

Having finished this book just recently, I couldn’t help but comparing the way two different crises are being covered. Thunberg says how strange it was first learning about climate change because “if it was really happening we wouldn’t be talking about anything else. As soon as you turn on the TV everything would be about that. Headlines, radio, newspapers, you would never read or hear about anything else.” That’s how the corona virus is being covered! It’s strange that this one virus is getting all this attention while climate change is hardly covered in comparison. Is it just the speed? Frankly the media needs to drastically step up how it covers climate change if we are going to make the required progress.

Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide (2019) by Richard Dawkins

Outgrowing God is divided into two sections, the first of which directly addresses religion and The Bible. It’s the same arguments that always come up but in a simplified form. Although I knew most of what was discussed, there were a few interesting surprises, particularly the section on the non-canonical gospels and the stories they told about Jesus’ (alleged) early life.

The second section of the book is devoted to evolution and how it removes the need for a god in explaining the apparent design and diversity of life. From time to time, I found some new and interesting information but I felt the section was let down by being oversimplified and labouring each point to death.

Aside from one book (which has been sitting on my shelf for the past two or three years), I have read every single one of Dawkins’ books. This is not one of my favourites. Nearly everything has been covered before, and much better, in his previous books. The two sections also feel quite disjointed and could’ve been better integrated. While I really enjoyed the pacing and crescendo of the final chapter, the book as a whole felt lacking. That said, I am not the target audience and perhaps those that are less familiar with the topics will benefit from it more.

2020 Book List

This is the fourth year I’m doing this (2019, 2018, 2017) and I’m hoping to read two books per month. It’s a challenge but certainly not impossible; I just need to make the time and do it. I think making these lists has already helped me keep reading.

10/03/2020 Added No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference and Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide.

29/05/2020 Added The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper and Black Angel.

4/07/2020 Added The Unexpected Truth about Animals and Areopagitica.

15/08/2020 Added Ecotopia and The Hippopotamus.

38/12/2020 Added Darwin’s Ghosts, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde And Other Stories and Furries Among Us 2.

Permanent Record (2019) by Edward Snowden

This was a Christmas gift and something I’d been eager to read. Edward Snowden was the one who leaked the existence of PRISM and that the democratic societies in the world were willing to trample on the rights of their citizens just as much as the dictatorships and autocracies they ostensibly opposed. Since then we’ve heard time and time again how both nation states and large corporations have disregarded the rights and interests of people for their own benefit.

The book itself is fascinating, both as an autobiography of one of the heroes of our generation and also to get a glimpse into the secretive world of government espionage. It’s interesting to see how Snowden grew up and what events influenced him. I do wonder how much of it really transpired that way and how much has changed in the process of looking back with new insights. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. It’s entertaining, informative, inspiring and worth reading for everyone.

Ultimately, saying that you don’t care abut privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you don’t like to read. Or that you don’t care about freedom of religion because you don’t believe in God. Or that you don’t care about the freedom to peaceably assemble because you’re a lazy, antisocial agoraphobe. Just because this or that freedom might not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbour—or to the crowds of principled dissident I was following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain just a fraction of the freedoms that my country was busily dismantling.

Books about fantasy and reality

Two new books, one dealing with fantasy and the other with reality, added to my 2019 Book List.

Black Leopard Red Wolf (2019) by Marlon James

I originally heard of Black Leopard Red Wolf from a list of books to read in 2019. It sounded pretty cool; a fantasy story with an African setting, magic, shape-shifting and all that good stuff. It delivered in some respects but not in others and there were many odd things about it. It’s the first book in a trilogy but I am still conflicted over whether I will read the later books or not.

The best part of the book is that it’s familiar enough as a fantasy to easily get into it but different enough that it’s always interesting. It draws a lot from various African mythologies and I recognise some of the influences but not others. There are neither elves nor dwarfs but weird creatures that I haven’t seen before; like the impundulu, an anthropomorphic, lightning-shooting, vampiric bird, and omoluzu, strange creatures which attack from the ceilings of buildings.

The most negative part of the book is the way that it is written. I assume it’s a stylistic choice but it’s not one that really works for me. There is little explanation of unfamiliar terms and coarse vulgarity, often for little reason. Beyond that, the grammar is broken in many instances and, more often than not, detracts from, rather than adds to, the narrative. While I can think of many reasons why one would write in such a way, few of them seem to apply here and it takes a lot of getting used to.

The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Started An Atheist Revolution (2019) by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris & Christopher Hitchens

Although published now in 2019, with a foreword by Stephan Fry and short introductory pieces by the remaining Horsemen, this is merely a transcript of the the only conversation that all four of these minds shared, which took place in 2007. There isn’t much more to it than that.

It is not as deep as any of their books but will at least serve as a reminder of the whole atheism debate and the questions it raised after the events of 11 September 2001 tragically reminded the world that religion could, and still continues, to inspire people to kill for their beliefs. In the conversation, The Horsemen cover questions such as how the universe was created, is there any value to faith, why is evidence important and are some religions simply worse than others.

Other than a reminder, there is little new to be gained here. However, I think it is a great addition to anyone’s library for its historical value. As Penn Jillette’s quote on the back of the book says, “This conversation is as good a place as any to mark the start of the Atheist revolution.” That said, I would recommend watching and listening to the conversation rather than reading it.

2019 Book List

A new year means a new set of books. As in 2017 and 2018, I am recording the books that I read; partly for my own record and partly that it might help someone else find a book that sounds interesting.

24/03/2019 Added Black Leopard Red Wolf and The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Started An Atheist Revolution.

06/05/2019 Added In A Dog’s World and The Time He Desires.

27/05/2019 Added And Yet… and The Communist Manifesto.

27/09/2019 Added Dissident Signals and A Plea For The Animals

28/12/2019 Added On Anarchism and Anarchism: A Beginner’s Guide

21 Lessons For The 21^st Century (2018) by Yuval Noah Harari

I got this one for Christmas. It’s a collection of essays, written by an Israeli historian, covering various topics, including truth, religion, terrorism, equality, war and education. Nearly all of the essays are interesting and raise many questions worth pondering. It’s a lot shorter on answers than questions but it certainly stimulates the mind.

One of the major topics that bothers him is what will happen when big data/AI and biotech combine. He sees the merger of the fields as likely creating an inequality that can’t easily be overcome. He fears that the wealth concentrated in the hands of a few will allow them to modify their biology to be superior while AI and robots will mean that workers are unnecessary making the masses functionally and politically irrelevant. Aside from that there are many other great essays on important topics, such as how the current rise of nationalism is fundamentally incapable of tackling issues like climate change which affect many and require a widespread, co-ordinated response.

Quicklinks: Animals and religion

You might recall that, last year, I spoke about some free on-line educational tools I was dabbling with. I now want to recommend that anyone who has some sort of contact with animals, whether through work, having a pet or just eating meat, take the Animal Behaviour and Welfare course offered by The University of Edinburgh. I found it to be very engaging and an excellent introduction into a subject which affects most of us. It’s a welfare approach so sometimes it has its flaws, seeking to maximise welfare when one might rather stop the practice altogether, but it is science-based and doesn’t push a specific view. For example, they mention that cats kept indoors will be safer and have medical care but have welfare concerns about boredom and lack of choice. Stray animals benefit from free choices but have welfare challenges like being attacked by humans. In addition, there is a lot of extra information available. I didn’t have the time to go through it all but aside from the standard lectures there are extra recorded interviews and Google Hangouts as well as links to books and scientific articles which could be of interest.

At the end of last year, I stopped following Pharyngula, which had been one of my original inspirations for blogging, because I no longer considered PZ Myers to be a good model for rational thought. I felt kinda satisfied to now read that Atheist Ireland has (more symbolically than anything else) publicly dissociated from him. Their complaint is largely based on his “hurtful and dehumanising, hateful and violent, unjust and defamatory rhetoric.” It’s hard to fault them there. He always was less polite than many other writers but there are times when that can be justified and other times when it’s extraneous. His usage was mostly belonged to the latter category.

Lastly, a member of Mensa South Africa posted a link to this infographic on the group’s Facebook feed. It lists 439 topics where Bible verses contradict one another. In places it will no doubt be argued that it’s just semantics and interpretation but others are clear-cut contradictions. For example, regarding the death of Judas, Matthew 27:5 says:

So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

While Acts 1:18 says:

With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out.

Pew Forum quiz on religious knowledge

A recent post on Pharyngula points to a religious knowledge quiz from the Pew Forum. It contains 15 questions from a more extensive survey that was conducted on a representative sample of US adults. It’s an old quiz but it’s still interesting and allows people a chance to see how good their religious knowledge is.

Two years, still going strong

Today marks the second birthday of my blog. You can read about the first birthday celebrations here. Hopefully the quality of posts has improved since last year, although I know that the overall number has decreased from 100 to 68. There have been some special moments this year which I didn’t include in my top 10 posts are worth noting. Early in the year saw the first guest post (I had a second one planned but that seems to have fallen away) and, a few weeks ago, the publication of my first scientific paper.

A candle in the dark

There’s an amusing post on Pharyngula where PZ Myers recounts his encounter with Thor. It seemed very familiar but it’s certainly worth sharing because it makes a very good point, which I’ll get to in a minute. It also seems to reference Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark which I haven’t read but I would like to at some point. Here’s the section from the Thor story that is important.