Let’s start with two Native American related titles:

The Sea-Ringed World: sacred stories of the Americas by María García Esperón, Amanda Mijangos, David Bowles.

Fifteen thousand years before Europeans stepped foot in the Americas, people had already spread from tip to tip and coast to coast. Like all humans, these Native Americans sought to understand their place in the universe, the nature of their relationship with the divine, and the origin of the world into which their ancestors had emerged.

The answers lay in their sacred stories.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, and Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults.

Every single person seems to be reading this book right now. Are you? No? Well, that is easily fixed: Lessons in Chemistry b Bonnie Garmus.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Speaking of novels, and this is especially for all you Minnesotans since it is set in the famous town of Lillydale (doesn’t really exist): Bloodline by Jess Lourey.

In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting.

Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid. He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.

Best science fiction of the year (except it was published a few years ago), from an author who mostly does not write science fiction: Saturn Run by John Sandford.

For fans of THE MARTIAN, an extraordinary new thriller of the future from #1 New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Sandford and internationally known photo-artist and science fiction aficionado Ctein.

The race is on, and an remarkable adventure begins—an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond. What happens is nothing like you expect—and everything you could want from one of the world’s greatest masters of suspense.

The Bitter End: the 2020 presidential campaign and the challenge to American Democracy is the best analsyis of the American Electorate, using amazing techniques and an unbelievable sample size:

John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck demonstrate that Trump’s presidency intensified the partisan politics of the previous decades and the identity politics of the 2016 election. Presidential elections have become calcified, with less chance of big swings in either party’s favor. Republicans remained loyal to Trump and kept the election close, despite Trump’s many scandals, a recession, and the pandemic. But in a narrowly divided electorate even small changes can have big consequences. The pandemic was a case in point: when Trump pushed to reopen the country even as infections mounted, support for Biden increased. The authors explain that, paradoxically, even as Biden’s win came at a time of heightened party loyalty, there remained room for shifts that shaped the election’s outcome. Ultimately, the events of 2020 showed that instead of the country coming together to face national challenges?the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, and the Capitol riot?these challenges only reinforced divisions.
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

The Unpersuadables : Adventures ith the enemies of Science by Will Stoor:

Why, that is, did the obviously intelligent man beside him sincerely believe in Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and a six-thousand-year-old Earth, in spite of the evidence against them? It was the start of a journey that would lead Storr all over the world—from Texas to Warsaw to the Outer Hebrides—meeting an extraordinary cast of modern heretics whom he tries his best to understand. Storr tours Holocaust sites with famed denier David Irving and a band of neo-Nazis, experiences his own murder during “past life regression” hypnosis, discusses the looming One World Government with an iconic climate skeptic, and investigates the tragic life and death of a woman who believed her parents were high priests in a baby-eating cult.

Using a unique mix of highly personal memoir, investigative journalism, and the latest research from neuroscience and experimental psychology, Storr reveals how the stories we tell ourselves about the world invisibly shape our beliefs, and how the neurological “hero maker” inside us all can so easily lead to self-deception, toxic partisanship and science denial.

Tangerine by Edward Bloor is often assigned to middle school kids. If you have a kid heading for middle school, get them to read this NOW so they can enjoy it, you read it so you can talk to them about it. Many messages, some subtle, very important commentary on modern American culture.

Three titles on evolution all three of which you should read. The history of life on earth is wonderfully summarized by my old buddy Henry Gee’s A very short history of life on earth. Best book of its kind ever, no kidding. Then, read my old buddy Don Prothero’s Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters (2nd edition). Then, a new title from a new author, my frien Steven Therough’s A most improbable story. So you get the whole history of life, then a more narrowed down view that focuses more on verts, then the human story. A great sequence. I have designs to get one or more author on our podcast, Ikonokast. I’ll let you know if that happens!

Also check out Reality Check: How science deniers threaten our future, by Don Prothero.

The Royal Astronomical Society has implemented a policy that papers published in its journals that make reference to the telescope formerly known as James Web use only the acronym JWST to signify this particular machine. This is because James Webb, who died in 1992, has a history.

James E. Webb was not a scientist. He was a government administrator with a law degree, some military experience, and a BA in Education. In 1961, JFK put him in charge of NASA where he worked until 1968.

Prior to any of this, there occurred what is known as the “Lavender Scare,” a nationwide panic that Teh Gay was poised to take over key positions in the American societal landscape. Gays and Commies were conflated, and suspected socialists or communists and gay people were hunted down and persecuted, and if working for the government, fired.

In March 2021, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Sarah Tuttle, Lucianne Walkowicz, and Brian Nord, all scientists in the astronomy field, wrote a piece for Scientific American, in which certain aspects of Webb’s history were pointed out.

When Webb joined the recently created NASA, it was government policy to purge LGBT individuals from the federal workforce. That was happening earlier as well, and in those earlier times, Webb was with the US Department of State. The authors point to a book, The Lavender Scare*, by Javid Johnson, which includes evidence that Webb (and others) were involved in the deployment of these anti LGBT policies. Webb, apparently, remained silent as the LBTG purge happened at the Department of State, and actively participated in it at NASA.

To some extent, this is a case of someone “going along” with the culture of his time. For example, in 1950, a senior Stater Department administrator sent Webb a set of memoranda including a roadmap for this purge, and Webb passed the memos on to those he was overseeing. So, he didn’t start it, but also, he didn’t stop it, and who knows what he was thinking at the time.

Astronomers and others in cognate fields have defended Webb, in some cases by pointing out that some of the evidence against him was false or misattributed, or by pointing out that he did, after all, oversee the greatest successes ever during the period of the greatest expansion of space science ever.

The authors of the Scientific American piece make an important point, that I agree with. Had this been an historical wrong, a wrong yes but an old wrong, a part of a period in history where the wrong was normal (and this is clearly true in this case) but not part of the present, than we might view this differently. We don’t forgive Founders who enslaved Africans and African descendants in our early nation, but we also don’t see those wrongs as pertaining directly to current events in their historical form, because there is no widespread enslavement of African Americans by plantation owners today. But anti-LGBT sentiment and action in the living scientific community is not erased by recent wokeness. Indeed, the whole idea that gayness is a security risk was until very recently part of national self-policing in both the US and the UK. Still might be, for all I know. So, we don’t worry about the energy unit “Newtons” even though Newton certainly had some ideas we would not accept today (beyond his really poor grasp of elemental chemistry) but we do regard certain older or recently deceased old timey scientists as having been legit jerks in on way or another, having to do with LGBT rights, sexism, or racism. Don’t make me start a list here, not time or space.

So, in Great Britain, no more James Webb. We will see how this plays out in the US. See Society bans James Webb Name in the current Science.

Any questions?

But you knew that.

What you may not have been thinking when you woke up this morning, and you are forgiven since there are some other important things going on in this world, is that this is the approximate tenth anniversary of the end of Watt’s credibility, which also coincides with the end of Roger Pielke Sr’s credibility, and a few other related casualties of ill intentioned fake science.

I’m reminded of this fact by my friend Victor Venema, who woke up this morning with a blog post: The 10th anniversary of the still unpublished Watts et al. (2012) manuscript .

The object lesson from this anniversary: Science marches on while pesudoscience withers and dies.

Also, for the super geeky, you will want to know about this forthcoming book by my friend Kevin Trenberth, The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System.

I’ve seen some of the information and graphics going into this book. Let me tell you: If you are an erg, Kevin knows where you are, where you came from, and where you are going. Indispensable for those interested in climate systems. This is an academic book, so get serious with it.

Everything here is a book, because books are what gets us through a pandemic. Except this: Pandemic, the Board Game

New and Amazing Science Books

Drunk Flies and Stoned Dolphins: A Trip Through the World of Animal Intoxication by One Pagan.

From parrots to primates, consuming medicinal chemicals is an instinctive behavior that helps countless organisms fight infection and treat disease. But the similarities don’t end there: Like us, many creatures also consume substances that have no apparent benefit . . . except for inducing intoxication. In fact, animals have been using drugs for recreational purposes since prehistoric times. We may even have animals to thank for the idea—legend says that coffee was discovered by observing the behavior of goats that had eaten it.

Combining fascinating science with humor and enthusiasm, Pagán’s latest is full of the kind of unforgettable stories and odd facts that you’ll find yourself repeating to everyone you meet. From fruit fly happy hour to the evolutionary reasons behind nature’s drugs, Drunk Flies and Stoned Dolphins takes you on a trip through the colorful world of animal intoxication—and along the way, explores what this science reveals about the surprising connections between all the world’s creatures.

Pump: A Natural History of the Heart by Bill Schutt.

In this lively, unexpected look at the hearts of animals—from fish to bats to humans—American Museum of Natural History zoologist Bill Schutt tells an incredible story of evolution and scientific progress.

Written with verve and authority, weaving evolutionary perspectives with cultural history, Pump shows us this mysterious organ in a completely new light.

I’ve gotten great value out of these next two books. I used Inkscape and Gimp for years before sitting down to learn how to actually get the most out of them. Then, I read and used these books and everything is different! (In a good way). Admittedly, these and many of the items listed here are probably more for you than anyone you know, but feel free to stuff your own stockings, as it were.

–The Book of Inkscape, 2nd Edition: The Definitive Guide to the Graphics Editor

–The Book of GIMP: A Complete Guide to Nearly Everything

Scenic Science of the National Parks: An Explorer’s Guide to Wildlife, Geology, and Botany by Emily Hoff and Maygen Keller

The national parks are some of the most beloved, visited, and biodiverse places on Earth. They’re also scientific playgrounds where you can learn about plants, animals, and our planet’s coolest geological features firsthand. Scenic Science of the National Parks curates and breaks down the compelling and offbeat natural science highlights of each park, from volcanic activity, glaciers, and coral reefs to ancient redwood groves, herds of bison, giant bats, and beyond. Featuring full-color illustrations, information on the history and notable features of each park, and insider tips on how to get the most out of your visit, this delightful book is the perfect addition to any park lover’s collection.

Why Trust Science? by Naomi Oreskes.

Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don’t? Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength?and the greatest reason we can trust it. Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late nineteenth century to today, this timely and provocative book features a new preface by Oreskes and critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo.

Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky

A charmingly illustrated and educational book, New York Times best seller Women in Science highlights the contributions of fifty notable women to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from the ancient to the modern world. Full of striking, singular art, this fascinating collection also contains infographics about relevant topics such as lab equipment, rates of women currently working in STEM fields, and an illustrated scientific glossary. The trailblazing women profiled include well-known figures like primatologist Jane Goodall, as well as lesser-known pioneers such as Katherine Johnson, the African-American physicist and mathematician who calculated the trajectory of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

Women in Science celebrates the achievements of the intrepid women who have paved the way for the next generation of female engineers, biologists, mathematicians, doctors, astronauts, physicists, and more!

Data your thing? New edition:

Practical SQL, 2nd Edition: A Beginner’s Guide to Storytelling with Data

You’ll learn how to:
• Create databases and related tables using your own data

This updated second edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect the latest in SQL features, including additional advanced query techniques for wrangling data. This edition also has two new chapters: an expanded set of instructions on for setting up your system plus a chapter on using PostgreSQL with the popular JSON data interchange format.

For the adult interested in programming: Learning Python, These books:

Preorder Object-Oriented Python: Master OOP by Building Games and GUIs by Irv Kalb.
Object-Oriented Python is an intuitive and thorough guide to mastering object-oriented programming from the ground up. You’ll cover the basics of building classes and creating objects, and put theory into practice using the pygame package with clear examples that help visualize the object-oriented style. You’ll explore the key concepts of object-oriented programming — encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance — and learn not just how to code with objects, but the absolute best practices for doing so. Finally, you’ll bring it all together by building a complex video game, complete with full animations and sounds. The book covers two fully functional Python code packages that will speed up development of graphical user interface (GUI) programs in Python

And these:

–Learning Python, 5th Edition

–Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming

–Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners

For kids, Scratch programming

Scratch 3 Programming Playground: Learn to Program by Making Cool Games by Al Sweigart.

Scratch, the colorful drag-and-drop programming language, is used by millions of first-time learners worldwide. Scratch 3 features an updated interface, new programming blocks, and the ability to run on tablets and smartphones, so you can learn how to code on the go.

Learning how to program shouldn’t be dry and dreary. With Scratch 3 Programming Playground, you’ll make a game of it!

And also, Super Scratch Programming Adventure! (Scratch 3)

And by that I don’t mean “get nature” but rather, “get Nature, the magazine.” I do get Nature, which is very expensive, so maybe you don’t have to. A recent newsletter from the Mother Mag includes a list of great new science books, and I was pretty impressed with the books, so I’m giving you the list*. Take the money you saved on not subscribing to Nature and get one!

Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato.

Capitalism is in crisis. The rich have gotten richer—the 1 percent, those with more than $1 million, own 44 percent of the world’s wealth—while climate change is transforming—and in some cases wiping out—life on the planet. We are plagued by crises threatening our lives, and this situation is unsustainable. But how do we fix these problems decades in the making?

Mission Economy looks at the grand challenges facing us in a radically new way. Global warming, pollution, dementia, obesity, gun violence, mobility—these environmental, health, and social dilemmas are huge, complex, and have no simple solutions. Mariana Mazzucato argues we need to think bigger and mobilize our resources in a way that is as bold as inspirational as the moon landing—this time to the most ‘wicked’ social problems of our time.. We can only begin to find answers if we fundamentally restructure capitalism to make it inclusive, sustainable, and driven by innovation that tackles concrete problems from the digital divide, to health pandemics, to our polluted cities. That means changing government tools and culture, creating new markers of corporate governance, and ensuring that corporations, society, and the government coalesce to share a common goal.

We did it to go to the moon. We can do it again to fix our problems and improve the lives of every one of us. We simply can no longer afford not to.

Naomi Oreskes’ Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean.

What difference does it make who pays for science?

Some might say none. If scientists seek to discover fundamental truths about the world, and they do so in an objective manner using well-established methods, then how could it matter who’s footing the bill? History, however, suggests otherwise. In science, as elsewhere, money is power. Tracing the recent history of oceanography, Naomi Oreskes discloses dramatic changes in American ocean science since the Cold War, uncovering how and why it changed. Much of it has to do with who pays.

After World War II, the US military turned to a new, uncharted theater of warfare: the deep sea. The earth sciences—particularly physical oceanography and marine geophysics—became essential to the US Navy, who poured unprecedented money and logistical support into their study. Science on a Mission brings to light how this influx of military funding was both enabling and constricting: it resulted in the creation of important domains of knowledge but also significant, lasting, and consequential domains of ignorance.

As Oreskes delves into the role of patronage in the history of science, what emerges is a vivid portrait of how naval oversight transformed what we know about the sea. It is a detailed, sweeping history that illuminates the ways funding shapes the subject, scope, and tenor of scientific work, and it raises profound questions about the purpose and character of American science. What difference does it make who pays? The short answer is: a lot.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard.

Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she’s been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls of James Cameron’s Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.

Now, in her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths–that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.

Simard writes–in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies–and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.

Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them—embarking on a journey of discovery, and struggle. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey–of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world, and, in writing of her own life, we come to see the true connectedness of the Mother Tree that nurtures the forest in the profound ways that families and human societies do, and how these inseparable bonds enable all our survival.

My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir by Katherine Johnson.

In 2015, at the age of 97, Katherine Johnson became a global celebrity. President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—for her pioneering work as a mathematician on NASA’s first flights into space. Her contributions to America’s space program were celebrated in a blockbuster and Academy-award nominated movie.

In this memoir, Katherine shares her personal journey from child prodigy in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to NASA human computer. In her life after retirement, she served as a beacon of light for her family and community alike. Her story is centered around the basic tenets of her life—no one is better than you, education is paramount, and asking questions can break barriers. The memoir captures the many facets of this unique woman: the curious “daddy’s girl,” pioneering professional, and sage elder.

This multidimensional portrait is also the record of a century of racial history that reveals the influential role educators at segregated schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities played in nurturing the dreams of trailblazers like Katherine. The author pays homage to her mentor—the African American professor who inspired her to become a research mathematician despite having his own dream crushed by racism.

Infused with the uplifting wisdom of a woman who handled great fame with genuine humility and great tragedy with enduring hope, My Remarkable Journey ultimately brings into focus a determined woman who navigated tough racial terrain with soft-spoken grace—and the unrelenting grit required to make history and inspire future generations.

If two continents run into each other, you get mountains. If a big bank provides the financing and a corporation has the will, you get a sky scraper. If a department of transportation gets the funding, and there is a river, there will be a bridge somewhere. These short term effects upon the earth create the bumps and high spots. Temporarily.

So yes, a bridge or a building falls down because of gravity, and now you are annoyed at me because I just spent 389 words stating the obvious. But wait, there’s more.

I state the obvious here not because you need to be reminded of this great truth (though we can all use that reminder now and then), but because the reality of gravity generates a bureaucratic situation that is the more proximal reason for the collapse of a condo.

Everything is broken. Some things are only barely broken, possibly invisibly broken, so maybe not technically broken by some mundane human standard, but at the molecular level, there is an atom here or there out of place (a flaw) or a vulnerability that is more of a broken design element than an actual break. Things like buildings and bridges, and a wide range of important machines, are regularly inspected to find these broken elements, in order that failure does not happen unexpectedly. But since everything is broke at some level, the bridge or building or machine is not discarded or rebuilt every time a problem is found. Rather, there is a threshold of how many breaks, or how bad the breaks are, beyond which we try to not let the brokenness pass.

But the ideal threshold is not known, merely estimated. And, there is a more conservative and a less conservative approach. Then there are errors and flaws in the system of looking for and keeping tracks of the breaks. There are corporate, institutional, and political pressures to not acknowledge that there is a problem. Sometimes that gets to the point of an enigmatic fedora wearing dog having a cup of coffee in a flaming restaurant.

And then the condo collapses, or the bridge falls down, and there is a … well, reassessment.

It happens in stages. First you build all the bridges such as the numerous bridges built across rivers and streams as part of the US Federal Interstate projects of the 1950s. Inspections happen, but the threshold is not sufficiently conservative, or the methods of inspection are not as good as they could be, or maybe there are pressures to ignore the data or move the threshold. Then the Schoharie Bridge collapses. From Wikipedia:

The Schoharie Creek Bridge was a New York State Thruway bridge over the Schoharie Creek near Fort Hunter and the Mohawk River in New York State. On April 5, 1987 it collapsed due to bridge scour at the foundations after a record rainfall. The collapse killed ten people. The replacement bridge was completed and fully open to traffic on May 21, 1988. The failure of the Schoharie Creek Bridge motivated improvement in bridge design and inspection procedures within New York and beyond.

That entry is a little misleading, suggesting that an unusual flood did something unusual to the bridge. Yes, it was a record flood, but records for that stream post date the building of a major reservoir upstream. The previous record was only from 1955, and most years the highest floods were nearly this high. In other words, no one was that surprised about the water level coming off the dam of the big reservoir, and no one was surprised about the big rainfall that happened downstream from the dam and upstream from the bridge. It was the fact that they happened over the same few days that rose the level to a record high, but not an outlandish record high. The bridge was built broken, in the sense that it was vulnerable to scouring. Today, interstate bridges are built with better foundations so this happens less, and they are inspected more.

But here’s the thing: As noted, this led to better design and inspection. But it also led to a lot of bridges being repaired all of the sudden.

I have not found a study that links major news-worthy failure to policy changes. But I can tell you that in the decade after 1987, there was a huge push to rebuild and update bridges to the degree that for a few years, I made a living on it, since most bridges in New York and New England pass by historic homes, old mills, or threaten Native American sites, as a function of how rivers, streams, roads, paths, hydrology, and settlement patterns work. I’m pretty sure similar things happened after the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis a few years ago. And now, condos.

I think it works like this. At any moment in time there are identified problems with all the buildings or bridges of a certain class. By class I mean “Condos on barrier islands in Florida” or “Interstate bridges” and so on. The number of problems increases over time, but of course, many of those problems are dealt with as they are found, or at least, eventually. But the number of outstanding problems tends to increase because absent outside forces, the institutional, economic, and political forces that tend to lead to problems not being addressed tend to work a little at a time to enhance complacency, and sometimes, just plain corruption or stupidity.

While this is happening the public perception is essentially null. It isn’t on anyone’s radar screen. Even if you know about this or that problem, regular members of the public are not tuned in to a steadily ageing infrastructure that is associated with a steadily growing set of problems. Expensive problems. Annoying and time consuming problems. Problems that are easy to ignore, and really, not even know about to begin with. So, we are dogs with fedoras sipping coffee in a burning building. Everything is fine.

But then the condo collapses, or the bridge falls into the ravine. The public is astounded, shocked, made fearful, angry, and demands action, but generally, remains focused on that one event, that one structure, that one failure. Then, that is over and everyone forgets, and never really knew that there were a dozen condos or bridges at that level of broken, but only one failed because failures tend to come one at a time. The public is also mostly unaware (though certainly not everyone) of a response by the powers that be, the inspecting agencies and so on, that involves the sudden increase in inspection rate, the betterment of standards, and ultimately the application of jackhammers and pouring of concrete and leveling of footings and so on. The number of inspection issues suddenly drops to an acceptable level (but they are of course still there, again, unperceived by the public) and start to build again.

The improvements in engineering, materials, and inspection procedures hopefully lasts longer than public concern. The industry behind the infrastructure improves. But the social and political infrastructure seems to not improve much, or does so only temporarily. I put this pattern in a chart:

This is how a bridge or a condo falls down.

I am a little disappointed with Ari Melber, though his transgression is forgivable since he is a law expert and not a UFO expert. He makes the same mistake as NdGT when he distills the range of possible explanations for UFOs to three possibilities, apparently presented as exhaustive: 1) they are natural phenomena (but not natural Aliens); 2) they are associated with secret non-Alien technology of some kind; and 3) Aliens.

Obviously there is another explanation that is not quite “natural phenomenon” because that usually means swamp gasses or lights formed by some geological process: they are an artifact of the mode of observation. A smudge on the windshield or lens, as it were, but presumably a somewhat enigmatic or at lest inobvious smudge.

(I’m leaving aside the explanation that they are a hoax perpetuated by a number of loosely connected Navy pilots, on the assumption that the recent Government Report would have ruled that out.)

Many of these things — some of the most important recent examples of these things — are seen with some sort of seeing technology, and the light energy that this technology collects is then processed by some more technology. I can not offer a detailed idea of how these technologies would produce a smudge on the lens of some sort, and this is not the appropriate time to do so. But I am suggesting that the technology produces an artifact that we mistake for a UFO. I would guess that the Government Report, which I admittedly have not read, has not addressed this issue, or some reporter or another would have mentioned it by now. Assuming they read the Government Report.

Here is what I would do. I’d catalog the optical or energy grabbing equipment (the “eyes,” which may be as simple as the window of a jet or the lens of a sighting device) of military vehicles (mainly jets?) into meaningful categories, and I’d catalog the processing machines (the technology that makes the HUDs of the aircraft work etc) into meaningful categories, and see if there is a subset of these devices, by specific technology, manufacturer, or whatever, that is producing the UFO signals, as opposed to others that do not.

That won’t provide an answer to what these UFOs are, but it would generate thought that might lead to this. I said this was a hypothesis, and I do not use that term lightly. My null hypothesis is that the observations are distributed randomly among the various visualization technologies used by all aircraft. If that is falsified because a biased subset of the technology produces UFOs, then the next step of research is warranted.

And this might interest Neil deGrasse Tyson, since his own early PhD (and other) research, which looked at solar flares and magnetics, required a deep and detailed understanding of machines that see things, other than the human eye. This should be something he would find interesting.

Unless, of course, he has made some deal with the Aliens to through us all off the scent…

The Ari Melber piece is here:

I have four items here that are deep, and intellectually engaging. A scholarly look at literature by one of the great living American authors, two addressing the history of science in Victorian England by two of the leading experts, and an engaging deep dive into the way the human brain comes to grip with mathematics and numbers in general.

13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley consists of 279 pages with narrow margins and small type providing 13 different views of novels as a phenomenon. This is the best modern dissection of the art I’ve seen. These rich and engaging pages are then followed by almost the same exact number of pages of commentary and (to a lesser extent) synopsis of 100 novels. If you ever want a list of the great novels over time, from which to chose new material to read, this list is excellent, but be warned: It is a fairly uniform sampling, and you know what that means.

An essential guide for writers and readers alike, here is Smiley’s great celebration of the novel. As she embarks on an exhilarating tour through one hundred titles—from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Zadie Smith and Alice Munro—she explores the power of the form, looking at its history and variety, its cultural impact, and just how it works its magic. She invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft, and offering priceless advice to aspiring authors. Every page infects us anew with the passion for reading that is the governing spirit of this gift to book lovers everywhere.

If you don’t know Jane Smiley as an author (and academic) you should. One of my favorite novels of all time is by her: JANE SMILEY: MOO* (That is the Amazon link, but it is been around a long time, so look for a used copy. This version on Amazon is just under one thousand dollars. Must be some kind of mistake!)

A Brain for Numbers: The Biology of the Number Instinct (The MIT Press) by Andreas Nieder* “Nieder explores how the workings of the brain give rise to numerical competence, tracing flair for numbers to dedicated “number neurons” in the brain. Drawing on a range of methods including brain imaging techniques, behavioral experiments, and twin studies, he outlines a new, integrated understanding of the talent for numbers. Along the way, he compares the numerical capabilities of humans and animals, and discusses the benefits animals reap from such a capability. He shows how the neurobiological roots of the brain’s nonverbal quantification capacity are the evolutionary foundation of more elaborate numerical skills. He discusses how number signs and symbols are represented in the brain; calculation capability and the “neuromythology” of mathematical genius; the “start-up tools” for counting and developmental of dyscalculia (a number disorder analogous to the reading disorder dyslexia); and how the brain processes the abstract concept of zero.”

This blog,for a while, was called “The X Blog” in celebration of “The X Club,” which was a thing of the Darwin-Huxley ilk. Turns out there is a book about The X Club, and this is it: The X Club: Power and Authority in Victorian Science by Ruth Barton. Those of you who know this blog, and my Facebook community, well know Ruth’s husband. Anyway, do not google “The X Club” in mixed company, but do read the book.

“In 1864, amid headline-grabbing heresy trials, members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science were asked to sign a declaration affirming that science and scripture were in agreement. Many criticized the new test of orthodoxy; nine decided that collaborative action was required. The X Club tells their story.*

?For twenty years, the X Club was the most powerful network in Victorian science—the men succeeded each other in the presidency of the Royal Society for a dozen years. Barton’s group biography traces the roots of their success and the lasting effects of their championing of science against those who attempted to limit or control it, along the way shedding light on the social organization of science, the interactions of science and the state, and the places of science and scientific men in elite culture in the Victorian era.”

And, in the spirit of inquiry, consider The Spirit of Inquiry: How one extraordinary society shaped modern science by Susannah Gibson*. “Cambridge is now world-famous as a centre of science, but it wasn’t always so. Before the nineteenth century, the sciences were of little importance in the University of Cambridge. But that began to change in 1819 when two young Cambridge fellows took a geological fieldtrip to the Isle of Wight. Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow spent their days there exploring, unearthing dazzling fossils, dreaming up elaborate theories about the formation of the earth, and bemoaning the lack of serious science in their ancient university. As they threw themselves into the exciting new science of geology – conjuring millions of years of history from the evidence they found in the island’s rocks – they also began to dream of a new scientific society for Cambridge. This society would bring together like-minded young men who wished to learn of the latest science from overseas, and would encourage original research in Cambridge. It would be, they wrote, a society “to keep alive the spirit of inquiry”.

Their vision was realised when they founded the Cambridge Philosophical Society later that same year. Its founders could not have imagined the impact the Cambridge Philosophical Society would have: it was responsible for the first publication of Charles Darwin’s scientific writings, and hosted some of the most heated debates about evolutionary theory in the nineteenth century; it saw the first announcement of x-ray diffraction by a young Lawrence Bragg – a technique that would revolutionise the physical, chemical and life sciences; it published the first paper by C.T.R. Wilson on his cloud chamber – a device that opened up a previously-unimaginable world of sub-atomic particles. 200 years on from the Society’s foundation, this book reflects on the achievements of Sedgwick, Henslow, their peers, and their successors. Susannah Gibson explains how Cambridge moved from what Sedgwick saw as a “death-like stagnation” (really little more than a provincial training school for Church of England clergy) to being a world-leader in the sciences. And she shows how science, once a peripheral activity undertaken for interest by a small number of wealthy gentlemen, has transformed into an enormously well-funded activity that can affect every aspect of our lives.”

That should cover you for the rest of the month.

Example page:

These are three reasonably good biographies (and a fourth, of Louis Leakey, linked to all three life stories), presented in an entertaining (and graphic, as in drawing) fashion. Adults will enjoy it, suitable for children.

**I struggled with what to call it. It is “graphic novel” format but it is not a novel, It is non fiction. So, is it “graphic non fiction”? The material from the publisher calls it “nonfiction graphic novel” which is clearly not a phrase I want to use unironically. Suggestions welcome.