What I've been Reading, September 2017

Links

These links appear in the order I read them, rather than any more refined sort of organization. You may find some of the best ones are near the bottom—it varies from month to month.

• What is the Scientific Consensus on GMOs?, by John Paul, Ada's Technical Books and Cafe
• Why Oil Prices Can’t Bounce Very High; Expect Deflation Instead, by Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World
  Gail gives a good explanation of what's going on with commodity prices—why they're going down and why they are unlikely to make a sustained recovery.
• Middle Aged Men Need More Friends, by Tom Ashbrook,On Point, NPR
  Men and friendship. By middle age, many have too little of it. And it’s a threat to men’s health.
• What's the harm? Skeptics and scholars respond, by Sagredo, Science and Skepticism
• The healing power of nature, by Rebecca Lawton, Aeon
  "The idea that immersing yourself in forests and nature has a healing effect is far more than just folk wisdom"
  This idea is pretty appealing to me and is supported by my own experience. On the other hand, the article has all the marks of junk science. Another case of having to wait until the latest research gets incorporated in the scientific consensus (or not, as the case may be). In the meantime, a nice walk in the bush would probably be beneficial.
• Stop pretending you really know what AI is and read this instead, by John Pavlus, Quartz
• Aramco CEO sees oil supply shortage as investments, discoveries drop, by Karolin Schaps, David Dolan, Reuters
• There's No App For That, by Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
  
• Exposing the great 'poverty reduction' lie, by Jason Hickel, Aljazeera
  
• How global warming likely made Harvey much worse, explained by a climatologist, by German Lopez, Vox
• As Irma closes in, Republican mayor of Miami blasts Trump for ignoring climate change, by Kiley Kroh, Think Progress
  "This is the time to talk about climate change."
• Greening the Apocalypse, Epistemological Uncertainty with KMO, radio interview from Australia.
• Lessons on how to confront fascists, by Michael Coren, The Toronto Star
  Referring to the British Union of Fascists nthe 1930s:
  "The response from moderate conservatives, many liberals, the political establishment, and even the Jewish leadership was to try to ignore these zealots, and to not oppose them on the streets. The militant opposition to the blackshirts, people were told, was heavily Communist, intent on violence and in some ways as bad as the Nazi right. It’s eerie how similar these words are to the arguments of so many columnists and politicians today. They were wrong then, they’re wrong now.
  In 1936 an organization of radical and poor Jewish men and women from London’s east-end, dockworkers, the local Irish community, various labour unions and, yes, the Communist Party physically prevented a mass march by the fascists in something now known as the Battle of Cable Street. It broke the crooked spine of local fascism and obliged the government to take further action against the BUF.
  Reluctant as I am to make any comparisons with Hitler — seldom a good idea — there is no doubt that the complacency of the vast pre-war German centre was a major cause of the rise of National Socialism. 'Communists and Nazis are both extreme and as bad as each other' was their argument. “Let them fight it out but don’t take sides.” With hindsight it’s tragic and nauseating."
• The green energy cornucopia is 100 percent wishful thinking, by Stan Cox, Climate and Capitalism
  
• The Success Bloggers Are Selling You Bullshit., by Jon Westenberg, Medium
• The One Food Label I Avoid, by Nicole Rodriguez, Enjoy Food. Enjoy Life

Books

Fiction

• Hild: A Novel, by Nichola Griffith
• Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1), by Nathan Lowell
• To Fire Called (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 2), by Nathan Lowell
• The Western Star, by Craig Johnson
  The latest Walt Longmire mystery.
• Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories, by Craig Johnson,
  A collection of Walt Longmire "Christmas" short stories.
• Outies, by Jennifer Pournelle
  Reviewers on Amazon were rather critical of this book, but I enjoyed it. A third book in the "Motie" series by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, it lacks the politically preachy tone found in much of what Jerry wrote.

Non-Fiction

• From Bacteria to Bach and Back, The Evolution of Minds, by Daniel Dennett

There are a couple of other books by Daniel Dennett on my shelf:

• Consciousness Explained, by Daniel Dennett
• Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett

And here are a few more of my old favourites, a trio of excellent "woo fighting" books:

• Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine , by R. Barker Bausell
  "Hailed in the New York Times as "entertaining and immensely educational," Snake Oil Science is not only a brilliant critique of alternative medicine, but also a first-rate introduction to interpreting scientific research of any sort."
• PaleoFantasy, by Marlene Zuk
  What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet And How We Live
  "Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them―are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence... Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized, meaning that we are not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors."
• The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth, by John Kricher