“Book reviews applications of genetic research in the fields of ... - News-Medical.Net” plus 3 more |
- Book reviews applications of genetic research in the fields of ... - News-Medical.Net
- A Trio of Responses to Jerry Coyne’s Attack on Unscientific America - DISCOVER
- Book Reviews - Daily News
- A new-media read on books at Huffington Post - Los Angeles Times
| Book reviews applications of genetic research in the fields of ... - News-Medical.Net Posted: 21 Oct 2009 01:25 AM PDT This publication reviews past, current and future applications of genetic research in the fields of exercise science and sports medicine. It highlights ethical concerns, potential clinical applications and exploitation of genetic information. The authors, an interdisciplinary group of experts comprising clinicians, exercise scientists, human geneticists and other biological scientists, present an integrated and holistic understanding of the field to the reader. Several chapters of the book address the issue of nature and nurture in determining athletic ability and etiology of sports injuries. Other chapters are dealing with genetics and performance research during premolecular and molecular biology eras, gene-lifestyle interactions and their consequences on health, as well as genetic risk factors in musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries. Finally, the possible application of gene therapy in athletes, gene doping and genetic testing of athletes are discussed. The book is highly recommended to exercise scientists, sports clinicians, human geneticists, athletes, coaches and to all those interested in the relatively new area of genetic research within the fields of exercise science and sports medicine. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| A Trio of Responses to Jerry Coyne’s Attack on Unscientific America - DISCOVER Posted: 21 Oct 2009 07:44 AM PDT Two months have passed since the prominent journal Science published a highly misleading review of our book, Unscientific America, by Jerry Coyne. From the very first sentence, Coyne misrepresented the text, charging that according to Unscientific America, the problem of American scientific illiteracy "derives from two failings of scientists themselves: their vociferous atheism and their ham-handed and ineffectual efforts to communicate the importance of science to the public." This is not what we argue, nor what we think, nor a position we could possibly defend. When the review first came out in August, we were surprised to see it, as Coyne had already attacked our book online, and we had felt compelled to blog a response that corrected several of his errors and misrepresentations. However, we did not immediately respond to Coyne's Science review, both because we didn't want to blog our response to something published in a journal and also because we were very busy. Chris got married. Sheril completed a manuscript. But we were not the only ones surprised by what Coyne had written; Joshua Rosenau, who had read our book and reviewed it, felt compelled to rebut Coyne's Science review at length, observing the following: A review in the top scientific journal is a fairly rarified entity, one with various rules and expectations. Not least among those expectations is that the reviewer will give an honest account of the book as written, and will take issue with the authors' actual claims, not with imagined enemies. I took classes with Coyne as an undergraduate at Chicago; I know him to be an honest and honorable man, a scrupulous researcher, and dedicated to thoughtful and open discourse. Thus, my expectations for his review were rather high. I hoped he would rise out of the muck which has surrounded the book online, and give a fair look at it, however assuredly critical it might be. Instead, I cannot characterize his review as anything but bullshit [note: Rosenau is using the word "bullshit" in the sense made famous by Harry Frankfurt, e.g., not lying, but simply not caring about the truth or accuracy]…. Rosenau detailed the many ways in which Coyne misrepresented our book on fundamental matters–e.g., what is the problem it identifies, what are the causes of that problem, and so on. We encourage readers to go through Rosenau's entire post, which contains numerous rebuttals, followed by more accurate descriptions of what Unscientific America argues. And that's just the beginning. On Friday, Science published two eLetters in response to Coyne's review, one by a doctor and professor who has read our book and a second by us. Let us quote from the former first, for it parallels Rosenau's reaction. The letter is from Donald Marcus, who is at Baylor College of Medicine and who opens with the following: J. Coyne's Book Review of Unscientific America by C. Mooney and S. Kirshenbaum ("Selling science," 7 August 2009, p. 678) doesn't serve the basic function of describing the scope and contents of a book. His review is a dismissive rant that misrepresents the text. Marcus then substantiates his assertions; please read his own words. (Indeed, anyone wishing to really follow this matter should ideally read not only our book, but all of the links in this post.) Marcus concludes as follows: The book [Unscientific America] is clear and lively, and it includes 66 pages of notes containing references and citations. In addition to providing little information about the book, the review is an example of an intemperate style that is an obstacle to civil discourse. It is unworthy of Science. Finally, there is our own reaction. You can read it at the same link. It starts like this: The late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts." A similar rule applies to book reviews: Every reviewer is entitled to dislike a particular book, but not to misrepresent its arguments and contents. Unfortunately, J. Coyne has taken the latter course with our book Unscientific America ("Selling science," Book Reviews, 7 August 2009, p. 678). He calls our work "shallow and unreflective," but virtually every time he tries to describe it he makes an error–either attributing to us views and positions we do not hold, or claiming the book lacks content that it actually does contain. We then proceed to correct Coyne on many points, but here is a typical example: Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Coyne's review is his use of our own arguments to attack the positions he incorrectly attributes to us. For instance, take Coyne's observation that "The public's reluctance to accept scientific facts may reflect not just a lack of exposure but a willful evasion of facts due to conflicting economic agendas (e.g., the case of global warming) personal agendas (vaccines), or religious agendas." Yes, but how is this a strike against our book? We deal with such factors from the outset; Coyne even quotes our observation that "college-educated Democrats are now more than twice as likely as college-educated Republicans to believe that global warming is real and is caused by human activities." Coyne writes that "the problem of an 'unscientific America' may be far more complex than the authors let on," but in truth, we describe the problem with far more complexity than Coyne lets on. You can read our full letter here. We regret having to respond at such length, but we felt that the need to set the record straight was that compelling. Indeed, we are not the only authors who have felt compelled to respond in this manner to one of Coyne's book reviews. As Robert Wright has put it: Here is a partial list of false or misleading things Jerry Coyne says about my book The Evolution of God in his review of it in The New Republic. I want to emphasize that I think these are innocent mistakes…If Coyne wants to write a devastating review of my book—and there can be little doubt that he wants to—he's going to have to start over. Like Wright, we do not know why Coyne misrepresented our book so badly. But again: we had already corrected several Coyne's misrepresentations online before his Science review appeared. Secondly, Coyne has been in a very heated debate with us (and was before the Science review came out); and has called our work "shallow, unreflective, and not worth buying or reading," among other denunciations contained in the Science review and elsewhere. In a forthcoming post, we plan to say more about the broader context in which Coyne's attack on Unscientific America needs to be understood. For now, let us close by saying that we're saddened at the need for these responses, but we're also fortunate that others have come to our defense, unasked, and have been willing to further set the record straight. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2009 04:21 PM PDT
October 21, 2009
Katherine Hall Page, creator of the Faith Fairchild series, has another delicious mystery with a poignant Christmas theme in her latest work, "The Body in the Sleigh" (William Morrow, 256 pages). Caterer Faith Fairchild has had a difficult autumn. Her husband, Tom, suffered an acute attack of pancreatitis triggered by gallstones. After his release from the hospital, the couple decide to spend Christmas recuperating and, hopefully, relaxing at their cottage on Sanpere Island in Maine. But their dreams of a Merry Christmas are quickly dashed when Faith discovers the body of a young girl in an old sleigh that is part of the holiday decorations in front of the island's Historical Society. The girl appears to have overdosed on heroin, but the staged scene suggests foul play. The mystery is a nice twist on the Nativity Story, complete with a child found in a manger on Christmas Eve. In the Biblical story, the lowly shepherds are the first to adore the Christ Child. » Full StoryThis content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| A new-media read on books at Huffington Post - Los Angeles Times Posted: 21 Oct 2009 09:17 AM PDT Amy Hertz, also editor-at-large at Dutton Books, envisions a site that goes far beyond traditional reviews.The great thing about the wide-open space of the Web is that it's accepted practice -- encouraged really -- for anyone to walk in many worlds and take on many guises. Rock stars can blog about politics. Politicians can thrill us with lists of their favorite rock songs. And the Huffington Post can create a new book section that both doubts and embraces the value of book reviews. In recent days, founder Arianna Huffington trumpeted a partnership with the New York Review of Books, that redoubt of serious criticism, just about the time the website's new book editor seemed to disdain reviews, which she said "tend to be conversation enders." Amy Hertz's cheeky dismissal of criticism was only one of the unusual aspects of her ascension as editor of HuffPost's 2-week-old Books. The other anomaly was her veritable dual citizenship: She assumes her new media role at the same time she remains editor-at-large for Dutton Books, a division of the Penguin Group, one of the largest trade-book publishers in the world. This sort of two-timing (and the potential for conflicts of interest) might have been big news once in the media world. But the shock waves wrought by technological change now wash over us so quickly and continuously, we scarcely stop to note them. So the arrival of HuffPost Books has some in the journalism world chilled at the prospect of less rigorous thinking about books even as many others are thrilled that the queen of bloggers and new media will devote a portion of her website to books. The site debuts after several years of declining coverage by newspapers, many of which have closed separate book sections. When I talked to Hertz on Tuesday, she sounded slightly remorseful about the posting last week in which she suggested that reviews could be deadly. "Was it delivered in a cheeky way, meant to have some fun? Absolutely," Hertz said. "If I had known the cheekiness would upset some people, would I have cut it back? Absolutely." But the editor, 46, said that the vast majority of the reaction has been positive, both to the new site and her admonitions about how to promote books in the Internet Age. "There is a very hungry audience out there for many kinds of books and there are too few venues for their voices to be heard," Hertz said. "More than anything, we would love to have a broader range of books being sold and making money. How great would that be for the authors and for inspiring ideas?" In her inaugural HuffPost editor's essay earlier this month, she gave an impassioned argument for the future of publishing, which included a detailed description of how she loves to settle in with a book for "a long, deep conversation of minds: the one that takes place between yours and the author's." Hertz concluded, "while the Internet won't kill books, boredom, earnestness and despair just might." It was in a subsequent essay to "my dear colleagues in publishing" that she irked some in her industry for the glib way in which she seemed to swear off book reviews and focus on other alternatives for engaging readers. Hertz argued that authors, their editors and publicists should all be pushing their books on blogs, engaging their readers in direct conversations and opening their publicity campaigns months earlier than they have in the past. A couple of book critics I talked to -- who said they didn't want to be quoted by name lest they harm their relationships with Huffington -- said they feel that coverage of books already stands in danger of getting less pithy, too lite. They see a surge in publisher-friendly formats, such as author profiles and Q&As. "That's all about selling," one said. "But we need more about books than just that. Reviews carry a risk with them, but that's as it should be." In fact, Hertz has instituted a weekly roundup of briefs that summarize reviews written by other news outlets. Through its partnership with New York Review of Books, the site also features long think pieces and reviews that reach from books to public policy and culture. It's not reviews, Hertz told me, that she disdains. She merely wants to slay the arcane and ponderous essay in favor of pieces that "spark some real conversations." The editor -- who has been in the book business since college and helped bring to print the Dalai Lama's "Art of Happiness," in addition to other bestsellers -- seemed surprised to even be asked if there could be a conflict between her duties as book editor and Web editor. "Am I going to be spending all of my time on Penguin Books? The answer is no," she said. Hertz told me she has had so many submissions -- "an embarrassment of riches"-- in the opening days of HuffPost Books that she can't find room for them all on the site, which does not pay for the pieces. I've always marveled at the way Huffington has been able to make like Tom Sawyer -- so happily painting in her blog that she's got people lining up to help her for free. I wondered if it was hard to ask writers, some of them struggling, to give their work away, even with the prospect that they might sell more books in the long run. "I'm not going to answer that question one way or another," Hertz said. "I just don't think it's a useful question to ask at this point. It's a new world." This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
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