Jazzy D's Soul Notes

Tim Spector "Food For Life:Your Guide to the New Science of Eating Well" (Vintage)




Something of a let down overall. Whilst Tim Spector and the various experts and contributors at his company, ZOE, have made a profound impact on many people, me included, this book does not quite provide the anticipated scientific background. As you may know, scientific background is my meat and veg when it comes down to the real shebang.

There is a plenty of information, but the conversational style feels more like the text of a podcast and contains some horribly unscientific generalisations. Feels like "I've started so I'll finish" structure. For me it could have been more information dense and concise. Useful Appendices though.

Mark Lynas "Six degrees: our future on a hotter planet" (Fourth Estate)




The IPCC says that in the 21st century global warming could bring temperatures anywhere from 1 to 6 degrees hotter. Lynas uses peer-reviewed scientific literature to show what these temperature rises could mean. In 6 chapters he outlines 6 degrees, 1 degree for each chapter. Fundamentally, once temps get past 2 or 3 degrees, like a wild fire burning out of control, the planet will continue to heat up no matter we do because nature starts releasing massive stores of CO2 from burning forests, melting tundra, warming oceans etc.. once it reaches 6 degrees it could wipe out most life on the planet.

This is the first comprehensive attempt I have seen to outline what exactly a warmer world will be like, based on the most recent peer reviewed scientific literature. It is one part of the learning curve about global warming but an important part. It should be read in conjunction with other books, such as Monbiot's "Heat" which offers solutions to keep temps below 2 or 3 degrees.

This is scary stuff and we don't have much time, 8 or 10 years, to make drastic changes. Once things reach a certain temperature its out of our control and the higher temps become just a matter of time. There is a fire smouldering in the kitchen and we need to get off the couch and turn off the TV and do something about it before it burns down the house.

Recommended reading.

Stephen J. Blundell "Superconductivity: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford Univ. Press)




Having read other short introductions, this was surprisingly good. I understand superconductivity well now, and the book leaves no nagging questions about its central themes, unlike 'Magnetism: A Very Short Introduction'. However, some tangential details like why gases cool when expanded (when basic thermodynamics would lead you to guess the opposite was true) could have been explained better for the non-scientific person. It was a good intro, nonetheless.

David Norman "Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford Univ. Press)




Not a bad book, but a completely misleading title. It is not so much about what we know about dinosaurs, but about how we know what we know about dinosaurs. So if you are interested in paleontology, the history of out ideas about dinosaurs and the modern methods of studying them, this is the book for you. If you just want to know about dinosaurs, you should get something else.

Carlo Rovelli "Helgoland" (Penguin)



The first two parts of this book provide an account of the origins of quantum theory and canvas a number of interpretations of how best to make sense of the curious world that appears to arise in light of this theory. These are challenging sections to read, even though the real math is shunted off to endnotes. Fortunately Rovelli is never less than exceptionally clear and even though the math is certainly beyond me, the argument was comprehensible and persuasive. Ultimately Rovelli defends a relational account of quantum mechanics that sensibly avoids the kinds of hostages to metaphysical fortune that burden the other major competing accounts.

The third part of the book then moves away from the difficult but well-trodden ground (at least for Rovelli) of quantum theory into areas less certain and less satisfactory. I appreciate that Rovelli is remarkably well-read but I worry that outside the confines of physics he does not bring an equal scrutiny to bear on statements that might superficially appear to lend tangential support to his relational account. That is unfortunate because it suggests that he doesn’t think these disciplines can sustain equal critical weight. Or is he simply having too much fun in these regions outside his safe (but mathematically rigorous) realm? In any case, I fear it leads to a much weaker book than might otherwise have been the case.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to recommend this book on the strength of those first two parts and shall continue to look forward to Rovelli’s further explications of physics.

Lewis Dartnell "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History" (Vintage)






Starting with the hypothesis that humans developed the way we did in East Africa due to the climate created by the Great Rift Valley - a drying out of the land leading to the forest being replaced by savanna, amongst other factors - through the forces that raised mountains from which flowed rivers, depositing mineral rich alluvial soils in Mesopotamia and the Indus and Nile valleys, enabling the development of agriculture - extending this to show how voting patterns in US elections closely match the areas where African slaves were brought to farm cotton, and still have large black populations; how these geological forces allowed civilisation to flourish on the North and East coasts of the Mediterranean rather than the South; how the patterns of wind and ocean currents enabled European expansion and colonisation; how geological processes have given us the materials to build structures, make our technology and power our civilisations.

His arguments are well made and convincing, although sometimes written a little simplistically - an indication of this is that the footnotes sprinkled throughout the text are of the ‘fascinating aside’ variety, but I found most to be those I’d consider common knowledge. Perhaps that’s simply as I’m someone who reads quite a lot of this type of thing, of course, and a reader newer to the subject may get more out of these.

Overall, a great overview of how the unimaginably long and powerful processes of geology shape not only our world, but us as a species.

Ben Goldacre "Bad Science" (Fourth Estate)





A light-hearted lay approach to deconstructing what awful messes journalists and 'humanities graduates' can make of basic statistics and scientific press releases - and actual science papers on the rare occasions that they look at them. The focus is mainly on medicine and health - partly because Dr. Goldacre is himself a medical doctor but also because that is where the media seem to find so many stories on the assumption that people like them.

Other key chapters focus on Homeopaths, Nutritionists, and in a rare break from health - children's education. The overall message is quite straightforward. Science isn't difficult, even if the details can be - you test your idea fairly and then faithfully report the outcomes, but exaggeration doesn't help, even if it means the story sounds better. And arranging a non-fair test is just stupid, it's as difficult and expensive to do as a fair test, but doesn't tell you anything and may even mean that you end up believing in something that is wrong.

Ben carefully and patiently takes you through the various ways in which the human brain is capable of fooling itself: much like optical illusions, humans are good at spotting patterns even when they aren't there; and how nature contrives to aid this process via the placebo effect and 'regression to the mean'. He then moves on to looking at what is a 'fair' test through the means of various counterexamples so readily provided by Complementary Alternative Medicine practitioners. It's not that they are lying or deliberate fraudsters - although this may be true too - it's that in the examples he chose it is clear that for whatever claim is made, no evidence exists to substantiate it. It is possible, in contravention of all currently known theory, that some of these practices and products may work - but until you test it with controls against the placebo effect, insufficient numbers of patients and duration, with 'blinded' and properly randomized procedures, to avoid regression to the mean and bias, you can't know if it is working. It's not the product per se that Ben has a problem with, it's the methods used to claim it works.
Conventional medicine isn't of course immune from this either, and Ben spends a while discussing how they can be even more creative in presenting artificially good news. But just because a pharmaceutical company has presented misleading data doesn't mean therefore that the CAM product is better or vice versa.

Occasionally he gets bogged down in details, and sometimes he skips a few steps that perhaps would be clearer if they were fully explained - a tricky line to draw. I'm not sure how much basic understanding is required to read this - some definitely, especially familiarity with logical arguments. So it isn't suitable for just anybody. There are numerous references at the back to the various papers and studies he’s quoting. But because he wants this read easily they are not numbered in the text – which makes them hard to check. 'Humanities graduates' get a few ad hominem attacks levelled against them. I don't know if a newspaper editor is more or less likely to be a humanities graduate, but the practice of assigning high-profile science stories to a general reporter rather than a specialist science correspondent does seem to bring out the worst in reporting standards.

What to do about it - this is perhaps the weakest point in Ben's book. Other than calling for a national trials database he makes a few suggestions. You should read the method and results in sections for the published paper that underlies any story - if you can't find a published paper then the story is probably rubbish to start with. But who has time to read and check such things? Ask searching questions. Or else treat almost everything you come across with a great deal of skepticism.

The light-hearted tone prevails though. Although many people are silly, truth and wisdom will out, especially if you read this worthwhile book and think about what underlies some of the assertions the media and CAM are trying to tell you. Besides in many places, it's also quite funny.

David Deutsch "The Fabric Of Reality" (Penguin)




David Deutsch's Fabric of Reality is woven from what he refers to as "four strands": the multiverse interpretation of quantum physics (credited to Hugh Everett), evolutionary biology grounded in genetic selection (Richard Dawkins), the postulate of a universal computer (Alan Turing), and scientific epistemology composed of problems and explanations (Karl Popper). Near the end of the book, physicist Deutsch admits that when first observing similarities and connections among these four, he had taken the latter three to be emergent from, if not reducible to, quantum physics. Ultimately, though, he presents them as equally fundamental and mutually illuminating. According to Deutsch, all four of these theories have arrived at the practical domination of their respective fields, vanquishing competing theories, but all four have failed to be integrated into a wider worldview. It's his contention that they need each other to fill the explanatory gaps that make them each seem "' naive,' 'narrow,' 'cold,' and so on" (346).

The book is divided into fourteen chapters, each of which ends with a glossary, a thumbnail summary of the chapter's argument, and a tease for the following chapter. This signposting structure would make it easy to cherry-pick chapters of interest to a particular reader. On the other hand, the thesis of the whole book relies on the interdependence of the concepts treated in different chapters. So--other than the philosophy of mathematics in Chapter 10, which the author himself says can be merely skimmed by those without the strong prior orientation to that field - it's probably worth reading from cover to cover for full appreciation. I enjoyed doing so, at any rate. Although the concepts may sometimes be on the forbidding side, the prose is lucid. I especially liked the philosophical dialogue in Chapter 7.

This text is now twenty years old, and most of its component ideas were at least that old when it was written. Deutsch insists that his thesis is a "conservative" approach to elaborating the worldview that is a consequence of "taking seriously" the four theoretical perspectives of the book. Considering that, by his lights, the explanations that they afford are the best for their respective fields of inquiry, he says that the worldview that he has assembled from them is the one that needs to be challenged by new ideas in the future. Despite all of the advances in communications technology in the 21st century, though, this contemporary philosophical worldview has yet to be accessed even by many readers who will find it interesting and perhaps compelling.

Yes, today is Pi DAY!

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th around the world. Pi (Greek letter “ π ”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi Day is an annual opportunity for math enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about math, and eat pie.

So for lunch, I had a tasty steak pie with mashed potatoes, peas, carrots and thick onion gravy.

Also, it is Albert Einstein's birthday and if he was still alive I am certain he would celebrate it as well.

New Scientist "Nothing" (Profile Books)




A very nice collection of longer articles from New Scientist on the theme of Nothing in various forms. I particularly like the cosmology (of course), and all their pieces are interesting in informative, although I have issues with the several that centre on the placebo (and nocebo) effects. These do highlight what can sometimes be a weakness of this type of article, that while explaining an apparent phenomenon it is presented in far too uncritical a fashion, which can lead the less informed reader to place too great a weight on the effect., a particular problem when it is picked up by the general media and further amplified or warped.