New Books in Science

By: New Books Network
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with Scientists about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
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Natural History
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Episodes
  • Other Minds with Peter Godfrey-Smith (EF, JP)

    Other Minds with Peter Godfrey-Smith (EF, JP)
    Dec 19 2024
    Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
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    50 mins
  • Donald R. Prothero, "The Story of Earth's Climate in 25 Discoveries: How Scientists Found the Connections Between Climate and Life" (Columbia UP, 2024)

    Donald R. Prothero, "The Story of Earth's Climate in 25 Discoveries: How Scientists Found the Connections Between Climate and Life" (Columbia UP, 2024)
    Dec 14 2024
    Over 4.5 billion years, Earth's climate has transformed tremendously. Before our more temperate recent past, the planet swung from one extreme to another--from a greenhouse world of sweltering temperatures and high sea levels to a "snowball earth" in which glaciers reached the equator. During this history, we now know, living things and the climate have always influenced and even shaped each other. But the climate has never changed as rapidly or as drastically as it has since the Industrial Revolution. In The Story of Earth's Climate in 25 Discoveries: How Scientists Found the Connections Between Climate and Life (Columbia University Press, 2024), Donald R. Prothero explores the astonishing connections between climate and life through the ages, telling the remarkable stories of the scientists who made crucial discoveries. Journeying through the intertwined evolution of climate and life, he tackles questions such as: Why do we have phytoplankton to thank for the air we breathe? What kind of climate was necessary for the rise of the dinosaurs--or the mammals, their successors? When and how have climatic changes caused mass extinctions? Prothero concludes with the Ice Ages and the Holocene, the role of climate in human history, and the perils of anthropogenic climate change. Understanding why the climate has changed in the past, this timely book shows, is essential to grasping the gravity of how radically human activity is altering the climate today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
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    41 mins
  • Kostas Kampourakis, "Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling the Myth of Genetic Ethnicities" (Oxford UP, 2023)

    Kostas Kampourakis, "Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling the Myth of Genetic Ethnicities" (Oxford UP, 2023)
    Oct 27 2024
    Recent social and political psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar. In the worst-case scenarios, however, this phenomenon can contribute to deeper social woes like misinformation, anti-science agendas, and even social hatred among those who believe in racial superiority. Using research from both the social sciences and the genetics literature as support, Ancestry Reimagined: Dismantling the Myth of Genetic Ethnicities (Oxford University Press, 2023) establishes realistic expectations about what we can learn from our DNA as a foundation for examining the psychological impact of ancestry testing, including the differences between how this information is perceived versus its reality. With this book, Dr. Kampourakis flexes his muscles as an esteemed interdisciplinary science educator and author to challenge these traditional social constructs, using the current genetic testing science as a myth busting tool. Kampourakis argues that DNA ancestry testing cannot reveal a person's true ethnic identity because ethnic groups are socially and culturally constructed. In 10 accessible chapters, he explains the assumptions underlying the scientific study of ancestry, and the resulting paradoxes that are often overlooked. What the study of human DNA mostly shows is that human DNA variation is continuous, and it is not possible to clearly delimit ethnic groups based on DNA data. As a result, we all are members of a huge, extended family, and not of genetically distinct ethnic groups. What ancestry tests can provide are probabilistic estimations of similarities between the test-takers and particular reference populations. This does not devalue the results of these tests, however, because they can indeed provide some valuable information to people who may not know much about their ancestors. In fact, what the tests are very good at doing is finding close relatives, and this is perhaps why the whole enterprise should be rebranded as family, not ancestry, testing. Ultimately, this book reveals that genetic essentialism, biological ethnic identities, racial superiority, and similar social constructs are scientifically unsupported Kostas Kampourakis is the author and editor of several books about evolution, genetics, philosophy and history of science, as well as the editor of the Cambridge University Press book series Understanding Life. He teaches biology and science education courses at the University of Geneva Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
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    42 mins

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