301–310 of 341 posts
"Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. There is some hacking, and a strange battle against people wanting to believe their own truth (does that ring a bell?). Extremely contemporaneous, alas...
“But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiosity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city.”
“To understand all is to forgive all.”
“... To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.”
“Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.”
And finally: "beware charm!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But please continue by reading more rigorous work on evolution, or you run the risk of being badly misinformed. I suggest, at a minimum, a decent textbook. Here I'd recommend Douglas Futuyma's Evolution . Follow this up with some key works in the field, such as Gould's early critique of naive adaptationism, The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme . Also consi…
What is misinformative in the selfish gene?
The Spandrels paper I referenced above explains in detail, and is a good starting point:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/205/1161/581
Here's a more modern critique, which I posted here a few weeks ago:
http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I adore this book. It also took me 6 months to read. I think about it often while wandering around the city, imagining the areas before and after Moses' steel-and-concrete hand, imagining the old neighborhoods, trying to envision what could be next, what could have been, what could be. Lately I've been reading Foucault and I find that many pieces of The Power Broker are incredible examples of Foucault's post-modern/p…
Where would you suggest someone begin with Foucault?
'The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements' by Eric Hoffer. It helps you understand all mass movements from Trump-ism to Social Justice.
"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. It describes biology from the perspective of the gene as the unit of natural selection, rather than the organism or the species, and demonstrates the power of that perspective to explain much about the natural world. But then, the author generalizes the concept of a gene to that of the replicator , which is any kind of pattern that influences its environment to produce copies of…
But please continue by reading more rigorous work on evolution, or you run the risk of being badly misinformed. I suggest, at a minimum, a decent textbook. Here I'd recommend Douglas Futuyma's Evolution . Follow this up with some key works in the field, such as Gould's early critique of naive adaptationism, The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme . Also consi…
The Inner Game of Tennis. My tennis coach gave me his copy, from the mid 80s, which was tattered and had clearly been read many, many times. It taught me so much about life, and how to be successful. My tennis coach was also my life coach when I reflect back on those days. He grew up in south central LA, rode his bike to the closest tennis courts and sometimes as far as Beverly Hills. He'd wait outside the courts unt…
Atlas Shrugged A book I revisit every few years. It's taught me to be honest with myself even if the social norms aren't in alignment with I'm doing. It's also gave me a deeper understanding of my fellow man and why some are fine with handouts from others. It's also where I learned the $ symbol is made from the U and S from United States.
John Rogers