Adam Bly

Science Is Culture is the first culmination of the on-line magazine Seed's project to bring together scientists and non-scientists to talk about the cultural interface of science and the humanities. In this collection 22 scientist and 22 non-scientist from diverse backgrounds sit down to talk about what they have in common and how what they do effects the larger culture. Most of the participates have previously worked together on projects or have crossed paths before. So most of the conversations come off as quite amiable and carefree, but there is never really any tension and nothing new about the science, culture divide comes about. These are conversations among friends, who already agree about much of what they discuss and are reluctant to push the sticker points that come up from time to time. The format of the conversation is free form with the participates driving the conversation which was both good and bad. Some conversations led to interesting points and new insights, while others drifted off topic and became something of a political rant or grip for their cause. Which is too bad because the conversations that devolved quickly where on some the most controversial and interesting topics like self-deceit and the climate politics. Only a couple of the conversations stand out as being substantive, but not earth shattering. And only one were post-modernism thinking reared its head and then quickly back itself into a corner, but the post-modern poet did come up with a way to better involve children and non-scientist in the act of science like thinking. In the end I would sum up this book as the start of a good idea, but needs more bite to really do something of interest.… (meer)

Almost a year ago now, I was returning homeward from vacation by plane. On the last leg of my journey, two gentlemen were seated in the row behind me, strangers to each other, although they worked in similar industries. Throughout the flight, they talked about, inter alia, the challenges inherent in engineering pumps for certain applications, a biography of Nikola Tesla that one of them had read, where each expected that business and technology would take him next, ideas they were kicking around that they had so far failed to reduce to practice. I was rapt. I sip my coffee more slowly when a conversation like this springs up at a table behind me; I want to see where it will go. There is something about a conversation between two intelligent, curious, accomplished, and confident interlocutors that brings out the optimist in me—even when I can trace only the barest outline of what’s being said—because it seems to me that these conversations, and the people engaged in them, are, in some way that I’ve yet to completely think out, bridges to the future.

If you’re able to relate to that, and don’t suspect that I’m completely off my rocker, let me recommend to you Science is Culture: Conversations at the New Intersection of Science & Society, a collection of twenty-two one-on-one conversations between intellectual luminaries from an assortment of fields—including science, mathematics, social science, philosophy, music, dance, architecture, and filmmaking—mostly about human nature and the future prospects of humanity. I’ll list some of the participants, just to give you a taste: biologist E.O. Wilson, philosopher Daniel Dennett, novelist Rebecca Goldstein, cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, theoretical linguist Noam Chomsky, musician David Byrne, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, documentarian Errol Morris, journalist Tom Wolfe, and video game developer Will Wright. Those are just the people whose work I had heard of before diving in. Many of the other participants are every bit as interesting as these, and often more so. There are multiple fields of human endeavor and intellectual achievement that I hadn’t heard of until reading this book.

As you can probably guess, some of these arranged conversations go better than others do. Occasionally, you may detect a note of antagonism, when, say, one of the participants, unfamiliar with the other’s work, makes an unwarranted assumption about it, and the other seems to get miffed. Sometimes one participant gets long-winded, and the other gets relatively short shrift. Most annoyingly for me, when, say, an artist talks to a physicist about how the “theory of relativity” informs all of his work, I got the distinct impression (perhaps totally unfair, I admit) that this guy didn’t have the first clue about relativity, that it involves the speed of light, and frames of reference, and straight paths through curved spacetime, or respect it as a technical term with a distinct meaning in the discourse of physics.

These awkward episodes are actually mercifully uncommon, and so the content of each conversation typically remains solitary in the foreground. Regarding the content, sometimes, as in the Goldstein-Pinker conversation (about consciousness), I found myself thinking, again and again, “Yes! That’s IT!” Other times, more frustratingly, as in the Tom Wolfe-Michael Gazzaniga conversation (about free will), I thought, “No, no, no! You’re so close, you’re orbiting it, but you’re not there! That’s NOT IT!” And other times, as in the conversation about (I think?) internet archaeology, between Michael Shanks and Lynn Hershman Leeson, all I could think was, “What in the world are you two talking about?”

This isn’t a book that sets it all out in great detail, and from which you walk away feeling that you’ve learned something true and indisputable. We have plenty of those books. This is a book that, twenty pages at a time, provokes your curiosity by pointing out and elaborating upon the challenges and dichotomies that are rapidly coming to define intellectual life in the twenty-first century. It is not a great book, and it is almost certainly not destined to become a classic. But as an attempt to communicate the excitement inherent in intellectual engagement, and to articulate the promise and peril of emerging trends in art, design, technology, and science, it is thoroughly successful. This is the kind of book that germinates in the fertile soil of the mind, and matures to bear unanticipated fruits.… (meer)

This is my first review of an issue of Seed magazine so lets start with a 1-time overview. I review anything that is "book like" in the sense of a commitment of time and complexity to complete, and Seed certainly qualifies. To read cover to cover took about 4 hours. It has 35 articles by 35 authors. It's sort of like The Best American Science and Nature Writing in magazine form, indeed many Best American selections are taken from Seed.

My favorite articles include "The Urban Paradox" (p.27) and the accompanying graphic "The Anatomy of Growth" (p.26). This really opened my eyes to the idea that more people = more ideas = we are all better off. In fact, the more people there are, the more difficult the problems become, so it's sort of like a tread-mill, the faster you go, the faster you have to go to keep up. Obviously, this is not sustainable, or at least becomes increasingly more dangerous.

"The Right Reactor" (p.44) is a nice overview of new nuclear reactor technologies and their benefits and risks. "On My Mind" (p.51) shows it is possible to predict where and when ethnic conflict will arrise using census data to look at geographical arrangements. The more segregated two ethnic groups are, the more likely there will be violence. It makes me wonder about Iraq since it has been self-segregating itself over the past 5 years.

The full-page graphic on pg. 56 shows the interconnections of global issues. Any one connection is obvious, but when put together as a whole it shows how everything is interconnected with population growth as the central engine. "Thinking Meta" (p.58) is a neat article about how we think, and the best thinkers are those who think about how one thinks. "Beyond a Theory of Everything" (p.101) is a good essay on what's really important in science as a whole, suggesting that finding a Grand Unified Theory of Everything - while important - would have little meaning or impact on 99% of scientists.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd… (meer)