Book Reviews


I’ve decided to undertake some book reviews. My plan is evaluate the argumentation in the books. This means that I’ll largely be just taking their factual claims as a given (regardless of who ridiculous they are), to see if the conclusion of the book follows from the chapters that came before.

In other words, I’ll be testing the books for logical validity. I have a couple of books in mind to start with (see below).

I’ll be starting with Darwin’s Doubt, by Stephen C. Meyer. Meyer is, according to the cover, going to use the apparent inability of Evolutionary Biology to explain the Cambrian Explosion to make a case for Creationism Intelligent Design.

After that, I’ll be reading When God Talks Back, by T. M. Luhrmann.

While the first two books are religious in nature, I don’t plan to stick to religious books (nor to books that, let’s face it, I’m set against from the outset). If anyone out there would like to suggest a book for which this kind of review could be interesting, please suggest it, and I’ll see what I can do about getting a copy.

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4 responses to “Book Reviews”

  1. Hi Brilyn – i’d love to see a review of the book ‘Smart Solutions to Climate Change’ by Bjorn Lomberg. Its a compilation and prioritized ranking of solutions to climate change proposed by economists… it was a confusing read to a non-economist (me) because i came away wondering how the top propsed solutions which seemed to be predicated by a funding solution similar to the one propsed in the least acceptable solutions could be valid as top solutions since there wouldn’t be funding options for them. Also, the potential risks of some of the top solutions (i.e. climate engineering) didn’t seem to be incorporated into the cost/benefit analysis proposals… basically I’m all for smart low cost, low risk solutions and am uncertain if my concerns about the logic of the arguements are valid or if I just got lost in the weeds while trying to follow them. Thanks ๐Ÿ™‚

  2. Hi ๐Ÿ™‚ Yep, that’s the one! You’re welcome – looking forward to your thoughts on it! Thanks!

  3. Hi Ingrid,

    I’ve started reading it and there’s a number of red flags cropping up almost immediately. A quick wikipedia search shows the following:

    On 6 January 2003 the DCSD reached a decision on the complaints. The ruling sent a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest,

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjorn_Lomborg#Accusations_of_scientific_dishonesty

    It’s a pretty short read, so I’ll probably get through it this week (or so), but it’s really not off to a good start.

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