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Looking for God
BOOKS & ARTS Information, ho!
Looking for God
JERRY GAY/RISER/GETTY
Both atheists and believers search for meaning in this philosophical novel with soul
36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Goldstein, Pantheon, $27.95 Reviewed by Amanda Gefter
ANYONE who has read Rebecca Goldstein’s novels knows her remarkable knack for combining abstract philosophical ideas with the all-too-concrete dramas of everyday life. In 36 Arguments she has done it again. The story begins with Cass Seltzer, a psychologist of religion, being thrust into the spotlight after the publication of his book The Varieties of Religious Illusion. Considered an antidote to the Dawkins’s of the world, Cass is the “atheist with a soul”. His understanding of religious experience is a nuanced one, honed from years of living as an exiled Hasidic Jew and from studies under a religious philosopher. 44 | NewScientist | 30 January 2010
At first Cass is an annoyingly hapless character, until we realise that his haplessness is that of humanity in the face of the “tremendousness of our improbable existence”. For while Goldstein’s recipe at times seems two parts philosophy and only one part storytelling, the novel is ultimately one about what Cass’s mentor calls psychopoiesis, or “soul-making”. From Cass’s girlfriend, Lucinda, who has to choose between her own career and living in Cass’s shadow, to Azarya, the mathematical prodigy who has to choose between life as a Hasidic leader and the pursuit of genius, Goldstein’s characters struggle to define themselves and carve out meaning in a seemingly meaningless universe. Goldstein is, as always, a lovely and thoughtful writer. Her respect and understanding for her characters might well earn her the epithet “philosophical novelist with a soul”.
Piracy: The intellectual property wars from Gutenberg to Gates by Adrian Johns, University of Chicago Press, $35 Reviewed by Tom Simonite
YOU might think that prior to the 20th century, “piracy” only referred to nautical shenanigans. But English stationers in the 17th century labelled colleagues who printed unauthorised versions of other people’s work “land-pirats”. Adrian Johns’s weighty history fills the years since with quotable anecdotes and lively portraits of wily information thieves who copied everything from telephone network codes to an entire electronics company. Along the way he assembles a good body of evidence to support the idea that the urge to “borrow” information is a core part of human nature, even if the means of doing so have changed over the years. Now, Johns sees Google’s move to digitise the world’s books and the growing open access movement in science publishing as hints that we are on the brink of an intellectual-property revolution. Plus ça change.
Don’t buy the hype You Are Not a Gadget: A manifesto by Jaron Lanier, Knopf, $24.95 Reviewed by Paul Marks
JARON LANIER, an octopus-loving Silicon Valley software engineer who pioneered virtual reality technology, has a few bones to pick. The technology industry, he says, treats people like machines to be processed for profit. In this sparky, thought-provoking rant on How Things Should Be, Lanier complains that, too often,
compelling technologies emerge only for us to discover that their poor, early-stage design has some unattractive side effects. For example, technologies like Google’s search-term-sensitive Adwords system treats people as little more than a distributed array of dumb revenue-generating machines, matching people to ads in the same soulless way that Midi music software only picks out stark notes, with no harmonic nuance. This is good knockabout stuff, and Lanier clearly enjoys rethinking received tech wisdom: his book is a refreshing change from Silicon Valley’s usual hype.
Unifying biology Here be Dragons: How the study of animal and plant distributions revolutionised our view of life on Earth by Dennis McCarthy, Oxford University Press, $29.95/£16.99 Reviewed by Adrian Barnett
THIS book’s aim is to put biogeography – the study of the distribution of biodiversity over time – centre stage as a unifying principle of modern biology, establishing it as both a key discipline that led to modern evolutionary theory and as an elucidator of evolution’s processes. It succeeds nobly. Along the way, Dennis McCarthy reveals fascinating facts, including the location of the ancient map that says “Here be Dragons”. There are a few historical wobbles, but the science is firm and buttressed with a pleasant combination of painstaking detail and infectious enthusiasm. Even McCarthy’s lack of references and his slightly strident anti-creationist tone cannot detract from the fresh approach he brings to an aspect of evolutionary theory that has long been neglected.
Looking for God
JERRY GAY/RISER/GETTY
Both atheists and believers search for meaning in this philosophical novel with soul
36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Goldstein, Pantheon, $27.95 Reviewed by Amanda Gefter
ANYONE who has read Rebecca Goldstein’s novels knows her remarkable knack for combining abstract philosophical ideas with the all-too-concrete dramas of everyday life. In 36 Arguments she has done it again. The story begins with Cass Seltzer, a psychologist of religion, being thrust into the spotlight after the publication of his book The Varieties of Religious Illusion. Considered an antidote to the Dawkins’s of the world, Cass is the “atheist with a soul”. His understanding of religious experience is a nuanced one, honed from years of living as an exiled Hasidic Jew and from studies under a religious philosopher. 44 | NewScientist | 30 January 2010
At first Cass is an annoyingly hapless character, until we realise that his haplessness is that of humanity in the face of the “tremendousness of our improbable existence”. For while Goldstein’s recipe at times seems two parts philosophy and only one part storytelling, the novel is ultimately one about what Cass’s mentor calls psychopoiesis, or “soul-making”. From Cass’s girlfriend, Lucinda, who has to choose between her own career and living in Cass’s shadow, to Azarya, the mathematical prodigy who has to choose between life as a Hasidic leader and the pursuit of genius, Goldstein’s characters struggle to define themselves and carve out meaning in a seemingly meaningless universe. Goldstein is, as always, a lovely and thoughtful writer. Her respect and understanding for her characters might well earn her the epithet “philosophical novelist with a soul”.
Piracy: The intellectual property wars from Gutenberg to Gates by Adrian Johns, University of Chicago Press, $35 Reviewed by Tom Simonite
YOU might think that prior to the 20th century, “piracy” only referred to nautical shenanigans. But English stationers in the 17th century labelled colleagues who printed unauthorised versions of other people’s work “land-pirats”. Adrian Johns’s weighty history fills the years since with quotable anecdotes and lively portraits of wily information thieves who copied everything from telephone network codes to an entire electronics company. Along the way he assembles a good body of evidence to support the idea that the urge to “borrow” information is a core part of human nature, even if the means of doing so have changed over the years. Now, Johns sees Google’s move to digitise the world’s books and the growing open access movement in science publishing as hints that we are on the brink of an intellectual-property revolution. Plus ça change.
Don’t buy the hype You Are Not a Gadget: A manifesto by Jaron Lanier, Knopf, $24.95 Reviewed by Paul Marks
JARON LANIER, an octopus-loving Silicon Valley software engineer who pioneered virtual reality technology, has a few bones to pick. The technology industry, he says, treats people like machines to be processed for profit. In this sparky, thought-provoking rant on How Things Should Be, Lanier complains that, too often,
compelling technologies emerge only for us to discover that their poor, early-stage design has some unattractive side effects. For example, technologies like Google’s search-term-sensitive Adwords system treats people as little more than a distributed array of dumb revenue-generating machines, matching people to ads in the same soulless way that Midi music software only picks out stark notes, with no harmonic nuance. This is good knockabout stuff, and Lanier clearly enjoys rethinking received tech wisdom: his book is a refreshing change from Silicon Valley’s usual hype.
Unifying biology Here be Dragons: How the study of animal and plant distributions revolutionised our view of life on Earth by Dennis McCarthy, Oxford University Press, $29.95/£16.99 Reviewed by Adrian Barnett
THIS book’s aim is to put biogeography – the study of the distribution of biodiversity over time – centre stage as a unifying principle of modern biology, establishing it as both a key discipline that led to modern evolutionary theory and as an elucidator of evolution’s processes. It succeeds nobly. Along the way, Dennis McCarthy reveals fascinating facts, including the location of the ancient map that says “Here be Dragons”. There are a few historical wobbles, but the science is firm and buttressed with a pleasant combination of painstaking detail and infectious enthusiasm. Even McCarthy’s lack of references and his slightly strident anti-creationist tone cannot detract from the fresh approach he brings to an aspect of evolutionary theory that has long been neglected.