Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. How
Speaker 1: are you doing today, Robert, on this fine summer morning. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great because we're we're about to jump into
Speaker 1: our our annual summer reading episode. Every year, I feel
Speaker 1: like we end up doing these two late in the
Speaker 1: summer and everybody's already gone to the beach, so their
Speaker 1: beach reading time is gone, and they ended up just
Speaker 1: reading whatever was in the beach house they went to
Speaker 1: or something. I bet you've had that experience before. I've
Speaker 1: never been forced to read the books in the beach house,
Speaker 1: but I always check them out. It's always it's always,
Speaker 1: I always approached when I find the stash of books. Uh.
Speaker 1: It always built up a sense of excitement because you
Speaker 1: pretty much know what to expect. It's gonna be your
Speaker 1: Tom Clancy books, right, It's gonna be or what you're
Speaker 1: Daniel Steel. Why is it that everybody who owns beach
Speaker 1: front property is into Tom Clancy. I don't know. There's
Speaker 1: a strange confluence of characteristics of a person. It does
Speaker 1: seem like the the the type of person who owns
Speaker 1: a beach house seems to have Tom Clancy books or
Speaker 1: is it the other way around? People who go to
Speaker 1: beach houses tend to bring tom Clancy books with them
Speaker 1: and then leave them. Like if you're into kind of
Speaker 1: like like cold war military technology and uh, nuclear submarines
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, you just end up with a
Speaker 1: lot of extra money and real estate and investments. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But again you can say, well, yes, Tom
Speaker 1: Clancy books were highly popular, But why do I see
Speaker 1: more Tom Clancy books seemingly without actually doing like a
Speaker 1: scientific study of this, Why does it seem like they
Speaker 1: are more Tom Clancy books than say, Stephen King books
Speaker 1: or Michael Crichton books. Though I have to say that
Speaker 1: occasionally I get lucky and find some some cool gym
Speaker 1: like some seventies horror or that the last time I
Speaker 1: went to a beach house, uh, there there happened to
Speaker 1: be some some German books, like German language books. I
Speaker 1: can't remember what they were off hand, but it was
Speaker 1: exciting to find something new. I'm just remembering. I think
Speaker 1: one time you told me about going to a beach
Speaker 1: house in the summer and finding a werewolf spy book. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: to cover Werewolf. That was one I think I had
Speaker 1: to take a picture of. I I cannot remember the
Speaker 1: the author um or the title, but it was I
Speaker 1: think it was a seventies or the eighties publication. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: there's still time in the summer, still time to read
Speaker 1: summer reading books. So we're here with our picks for
Speaker 1: the summer of But before we get into that, I
Speaker 1: think we need to remind you real quick that we're
Speaker 1: about to go on tour. That's right, we have a
Speaker 1: we have a mini tour coming up, and this is
Speaker 1: gonna be in September, specifically September. We're going to be
Speaker 1: in Boston at the Armory September six. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: in New York City at the Cutting Room. September seven,
Speaker 1: We're going to be in Philly at at Underground Arts,
Speaker 1: and then then on then on the ninth, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be in Washington, d C. At Union Stage. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever wanted to experience stuff to blow your mind live,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out like you nique stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind experience, uh, this is the opportunity
Speaker 1: to do it. This is gonna be a special episode.
Speaker 1: We're really excited about what we're putting together. Yes, So
Speaker 1: if you are interested in coming out to see us,
Speaker 1: you can click on the tour tab on our website
Speaker 1: that stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and you
Speaker 1: can go ahead and get your tickets today. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got to stuff to blow your Mind dot com Live
Speaker 1: shows Tabor right at the top. Click on it and
Speaker 1: buy your ticket. Get ready to go. But now back
Speaker 1: to Summer Reading, which which really this whole episode is
Speaker 1: always like the final minutes of an episode of Reading Rainbow.
Speaker 1: Do you remember watching Reading Rainbow as a child, Well,
Speaker 1: of course I remember it. About what happened in the
Speaker 1: final minutes. You would have just a few different children
Speaker 1: would present a book that they had read and loved,
Speaker 1: and essentially it was like a mini book report. Over
Speaker 1: the years, it's we've had different host arrangements. Sometimes we've
Speaker 1: had guests, either guests from other How Stuff Works podcasts
Speaker 1: or guests from outside the organization. Uh. This this year
Speaker 1: is just just Joe and UH and me. But still
Speaker 1: we have some some really exciting books to discuss here. Uh,
Speaker 1: some books that so many of you out there have
Speaker 1: already read uh others, others of you are going to
Speaker 1: be introduced to some new reads for the first time,
Speaker 1: all minor Tom Clancy books. One quick caveat this is
Speaker 1: gonna be a two parter. Uh so this is gonna
Speaker 1: we started talking about books and then we went for
Speaker 1: two hours. So uh sorry or or I guess not
Speaker 1: sorry about that. Everybody loves talking about books and cool concepts.
Speaker 1: So yeah, be prepared. This one is going to be
Speaker 1: split into you know, I don't know about you, Joe,
Speaker 1: but personally, the nonfiction part of summer reading is always
Speaker 1: a challenge for me because I find that almost all
Speaker 1: of my nonfiction reading is usually podcast research, and if
Speaker 1: I stumble across a new fiction nonfiction book that I'm
Speaker 1: interested in, then I'll probably shoot to cover it on
Speaker 1: an episode exactly. So um So this year I made
Speaker 1: sure that I picked out something that I've been meaning
Speaker 1: to read for a long time and something that felt timely.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, especially given some of our recent episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what you mean that choosing which ones to
Speaker 1: talk about it can be difficult because, for example, uh,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books I read this year, I
Speaker 1: know was was Carl Zimmer's Awesome book She Has Her
Speaker 1: Mother's Laugh, which we interviewed Carl about on the podcast
Speaker 1: in June. And so you're thinking about that, and I say, well,
Speaker 1: that's that is definitely one of my favorite books I
Speaker 1: read this year, But we already did an episode about it,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't make sense to like really recommend that again.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I I tried in this episode to pick
Speaker 1: books that I hadn't talked about or hadn't talked about
Speaker 1: much on the podcast already. Yeah, likewise, I had I
Speaker 1: had a similar problem with with fiction choices because when
Speaker 1: it comes to literature, I'm kind of I guess I'm
Speaker 1: kind of a selfish lover. I will if I really
Speaker 1: dig a work of fiction, I'm probably going to talk
Speaker 1: about it on the show. So both of my fiction
Speaker 1: choices this year, my main choices that I made, I
Speaker 1: have discussed at least in passing a few past episodes,
Speaker 1: but I haven't really I think, you know, chewed them
Speaker 1: up properly on the show. Um. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: one of my absolute favorite books from the last year
Speaker 1: was our Scott Baker's The Unholy Consult, And we actually
Speaker 1: had Scott on the show to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that book. So I'm not going to talk about
Speaker 1: it anymore. Here is that the one A bunch of
Speaker 1: people were mad about, Well, I don't know a bunch
Speaker 1: of people were mad about. There was some division among
Speaker 1: the fans about like what the ending meant. You know,
Speaker 1: it's stuck, It's stuck with you. And I felt like
Speaker 1: it was very much in keeping with the trajectory of
Speaker 1: all the previous books. Well, let's get right into our
Speaker 1: book selections. All right, Robert, I think you are starting
Speaker 1: with a classic, aren't you. Yeah, a classic that I
Speaker 1: had I had never read. Uh, so this was the
Speaker 1: first time for me, but I was well from familiar
Speaker 1: with it. By reputation, The Demon Haunted World Science as
Speaker 1: a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan from So
Speaker 1: the author here, of course has Carl Sagan, noted astrophysicist, author,
Speaker 1: cosmos television host and one of the most important and
Speaker 1: enduring science communicators of the twentieth century. And now that
Speaker 1: this is one of those big this is like one
Speaker 1: of the great science communication tomes. Yes, yeah, And and
Speaker 1: this was also the next to last book written in
Speaker 1: Sagan's lifetime, as he died of pneumonia after a battle
Speaker 1: with cancer. So, yeah, I picked it up recently following
Speaker 1: our most recent episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 1: on science communication and the dangers, particularly of the illusory
Speaker 1: truth effect. Oh yes, So we had a two parter
Speaker 1: on that recently, and that's the concept that's now been
Speaker 1: shown in multiple studies replicated over and over that simply
Speaker 1: exposing somebody to a claim and then repeating that claim
Speaker 1: over and over actually does provably make people believe the
Speaker 1: claim more. Yeah, and it really made us think about
Speaker 1: about the show, about some of the things we talk about.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we talk about erroneous theories or um, let's say,
Speaker 1: radical hypotheses, and and you know, to what extent, uh,
Speaker 1: should we do that too? You know what what is
Speaker 1: what is our respond instability? What as a as science communicators?
Speaker 1: I think I have come away thinking I thought about
Speaker 1: this a lot since the episode. I think I've come
Speaker 1: away thinking, as I originally did, that it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to say we can never discuss bad ideas on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I mean, that's that's a lot of what
Speaker 1: we do. And yeah, yeah, that's it's an extremely important
Speaker 1: thing to do. It's not like once an idea looks
Speaker 1: unlikely or has been disproven, you should never speak of it.
Speaker 1: But I think that the point is that whenever you
Speaker 1: speak of those things, you should make clear that simply
Speaker 1: repeating the thing and then saying it's not true isn't
Speaker 1: the whole story that you give the alternative account that
Speaker 1: you get, that you analyze, you explain, you give people
Speaker 1: context that's memorable so they can understand what the truth is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know, and I've been thinking about this
Speaker 1: as well, and I realized this would be a perfect
Speaker 1: book to to seek out again because, you know, given
Speaker 1: Sagan's expertise in science communication and his willingness to engage
Speaker 1: in ah the sort of open minded yet optical thinking
Speaker 1: that we really try and pull off on the show.
Speaker 1: So I picked it up and inject it out. So
Speaker 1: in this book, Sagan set out to explain just what
Speaker 1: science offers us as a culture, how pseudoscience and magical
Speaker 1: thinking work against it, and indeed why many of us
Speaker 1: are sucked into these ideas when science can both better
Speaker 1: amaze us, I mean, and improve our our lives and
Speaker 1: our understanding of the world. That that is one of
Speaker 1: the key tragedies that the science communicator has to observe
Speaker 1: over and over again. Is that like, say, you see
Speaker 1: somebody gets sucked in by ancient aliens literature and they
Speaker 1: you know, they they say, you can't explain the pyramids
Speaker 1: unless aliens came in and did it. One of the
Speaker 1: worst things about that is it's not just wrong, but
Speaker 1: it cuts you off from understanding the fascinating reality of
Speaker 1: how ancient people with very limited technology accomplished this amazing
Speaker 1: feed of engineering and construction. The truth is actually more interesting,
Speaker 1: but it's it's sometimes harder to communicate how interest thing
Speaker 1: it is. Pseudo scientific ideas are often more interesting in
Speaker 1: a shallower way that they've got something that can grab
Speaker 1: you in one sentence, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Sacand makes this point as well, But it is
Speaker 1: this uh, you know, authentic shortcut to awe when the
Speaker 1: real story can provide all. It's just it's just more
Speaker 1: difficult to show how it provides all. Yeah. In the
Speaker 1: early stages of the book, he talks about writing in
Speaker 1: a taxi cab with his character that he he nicknames Buckley. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Buckley is very interested in the world. Buckley's asking say,
Speaker 1: like he recognizes sagan Um eventually and civilizes He's the
Speaker 1: TV science guy. So he starts asking him all these
Speaker 1: questions about ancient aliens and the Lost City of Atlantis
Speaker 1: and all these questions, and Sagan is just kind of
Speaker 1: having to break his heart over and over again, saying, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence for that. The evidence is super shaky
Speaker 1: and that and and he you know, he points out
Speaker 1: that that Buckley here is not you know, he's not
Speaker 1: a dumb dumb He's he's a he has this q
Speaker 1: reosity about the world. He wants to be odd. He
Speaker 1: wants science. But for various reasons that that that Sagan
Speaker 1: gets to it gets into in the book Um, the
Speaker 1: media and and science communicators even have not reached him,
Speaker 1: have not provided in the meal that he he that
Speaker 1: he really wants and he and that he needs UM. Instead,
Speaker 1: he's left with the junk food of pseudoscience, and that's
Speaker 1: all he has to feast on. Yeah, and it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: that that's the dynamic, But you can see why it
Speaker 1: is because giving good explanations based on facts and real
Speaker 1: evidence and rigorous analysis, that that is all constrained. You know,
Speaker 1: it's constrained by all these limits imposed by reality. There
Speaker 1: are only so many things you can say that are
Speaker 1: actually logically correct and follow from your premises. There are
Speaker 1: only so many things that you can actually prove with
Speaker 1: real hard evidence. You can use your imagination to make
Speaker 1: up all kinds of alternative, crazy things to say that
Speaker 1: can be interesting, and you're not constrained by those problem blums. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, back back to the idea of like
Speaker 1: how do you communicate science, then how do you discuss
Speaker 1: crazy ideas and balance them? Um? You do see a
Speaker 1: lot of this done very well in uh Sagan's book here,
Speaker 1: for instance, he talks about UFOs a bit because it
Speaker 1: was then, as it is now, still a topic of
Speaker 1: of of of great interest. You know people here about UFOs.
Speaker 1: If you're like like me, you grew up watching unsolved
Speaker 1: mysteries and you're just bombarded with these ideas. So I
Speaker 1: feel like UFOs are less discussed now than they used
Speaker 1: to be. I feel like that was a much bigger
Speaker 1: domain of pseudoscience in decades past. Yes, but we saw
Speaker 1: these stories of UFOs um that we're that we draw
Speaker 1: on right. And one thing that that Sagan does really well,
Speaker 1: and this is that he talks about say that the
Speaker 1: Cold War sightings of UFOs and to what extent the
Speaker 1: government was looking into these, and he goes into say,
Speaker 1: weather balloons, observation balloon to high altitude balloon technology, and
Speaker 1: we've all heard that brought up as a as as
Speaker 1: an explanation for unidentified flying objects before, but taking as
Speaker 1: a great job in this of really breaking down like
Speaker 1: what sort of technology balloon based technology was being used
Speaker 1: at the time, not only for observational purposes, but also
Speaker 1: for intelligence purposes uh by the United States against the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, and how this would have played into possible
Speaker 1: reports of unidentified flying objects. And this is a case where, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've all heard the essentially the boring story at this
Speaker 1: point of somebody seeing something unexplainable in the sky and
Speaker 1: thinking it's aliens and having to embellishment or turn to
Speaker 1: embellishment to to make sense of it. But these real
Speaker 1: stories of of of of weather balloon technology and what
Speaker 1: we were doing with them at the time is is
Speaker 1: even more fascinating, just because I feel like fewer people
Speaker 1: have heard the story, and indeed it's the story I
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind returning to in a future episode. Well, another
Speaker 1: thing I would say, though, is that virtue of being
Speaker 1: true that story also connects with an ecosystem of other
Speaker 1: true ideas, whereas pseudo scientific beliefs don't lead you anywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't lead you anywhere fruitful, like a
Speaker 1: true belief leads you to other true discoveries and a
Speaker 1: mistaken or false or embellished belief does not. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: because it seems like you're If you're suddenly interested in
Speaker 1: hollow Earth ideas, then you're at best you're gonna wind
Speaker 1: up reading about more ridiculous myths about like Nazi super
Speaker 1: science or something, and how Hitler's on the moon now
Speaker 1: or something to that effect. I guess with with it's
Speaker 1: gonna vary depending on what your pseudoscience is, I guess
Speaker 1: there are examples where, Yeah, if you're interested enough in
Speaker 1: ancient aliens, you might find yourself learning more about say
Speaker 1: Mayan or as tech civilization than you would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: But it's going to be a painted understanding of it, right, Well,
Speaker 1: you can only really get there by abandoning or ignoring
Speaker 1: your initial premise. What I'm saying is like pseudo scientific
Speaker 1: beliefs and stuff don't become useful premises in future arguments
Speaker 1: or discovery. You can't really build a house on that foundation. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is a this is a book that of
Speaker 1: course is as relevant now as it as it ever was,
Speaker 1: especially with talk of post truth, alternative facts, uh, and
Speaker 1: just stay disgustingly anti science trend and American politics of late.
Speaker 1: So that's why there's a book I startling or strongly
Speaker 1: recommend to everybody. It's available in all reading and listening
Speaker 1: formats right now. Um. He Sagan spends a lot of
Speaker 1: time in this discussing the allure of pseudo science, but
Speaker 1: also how it gains power, and he points, uh, he
Speaker 1: points the to the role of of our relinquishing of
Speaker 1: civil controls and scientific education and how this allows for
Speaker 1: the infection of pseudoscience and pseudo scientific belief to spread.
Speaker 1: Points two examples in in pre war Germany also a
Speaker 1: post communist Russia, a situation whereas the as sort of
Speaker 1: the the controls are are relaxed, there is less science,
Speaker 1: less scientific understanding in the in the among everyday common people.
Speaker 1: Not talking about the the scientific establishment of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: which of course uh was significantly advanced, but the the
Speaker 1: average person, when the controls are loosened, what do they
Speaker 1: have to turn to? They end up turning to some
Speaker 1: of these science pseudo scientific ideas. Sagan argues, so it's
Speaker 1: a good cautionary tale for for for today, for any age. Really,
Speaker 1: I just want to read a couple of quick quotes
Speaker 1: from the book itself, just to give you some Sagan's words.
Speaker 1: Um for a short one he points he makes this point.
Speaker 1: He says, pseudoscience is embraced. It might be argued in
Speaker 1: exact proportion as real science is misunderstood, which I think
Speaker 1: is is an interesting way of looking at a very
Speaker 1: very apt way of looking at it. Kind of zero
Speaker 1: sum competition between them. It's not like you can both
Speaker 1: build up your scientific understanding and your embrace of pseudoscience
Speaker 1: at the same time. They sort of they exist in
Speaker 1: necessary competition with one another, and one undermines the other.
Speaker 1: So if you hold one, it's undercutting your stock of
Speaker 1: the other. Right, you know, one of the most important
Speaker 1: things in this area, which I've been thinking about a
Speaker 1: lot lately, is the danger of when you're talking about
Speaker 1: embrace of scientific thinking, critical thinking, skepticism, rationality, all these
Speaker 1: subjects that are very useful and very important, that you
Speaker 1: want to be careful not to let it turn into
Speaker 1: a kind of back padding exercise, where like, you know,
Speaker 1: we do such a such a good job of being
Speaker 1: rational and being skeptical, and there are all these other
Speaker 1: people out here who have all these mistaken beliefs and
Speaker 1: and and letting it um. I don't know. I feel
Speaker 1: like I see this occasionally and say the skeptic community
Speaker 1: is a kind of um over reliance on self congratulation
Speaker 1: for being skeptical, Whereas really the greatest job we have
Speaker 1: to do in this is being critical of ourselves. I
Speaker 1: know it It's easier to say that than it is
Speaker 1: to actually do it. I mean, I know I'm very
Speaker 1: often not sufficiently critical of myself. But but that's what
Speaker 1: we should really be focusing on, like remembering like this
Speaker 1: isn't something other people do, this is something I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I agree, and I I say that I have
Speaker 1: to say that I I have to watch myself as well,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And I have to ask myself, well,
Speaker 1: this particular hypothesis, Yeah, am I Why am I attracted
Speaker 1: to it? Like it is? It is it's speaking truth
Speaker 1: to reality? Or is it speaking to some other need
Speaker 1: inside me? You know, some religious need perhaps that is
Speaker 1: not being fulfilled by something else in uh in culture, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to be. One of the
Speaker 1: ways in which I have to be very careful here
Speaker 1: is like I feel that I am irrationally attracted to
Speaker 1: overly interesting or cool ideas. I've brought this up a
Speaker 1: lot when we talk about the bicameral mind idea. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, as I've said before on the show you Know,
Speaker 1: we did an episode about this last year. It's come
Speaker 1: up a good bit since then. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting hypotheses I've ever come across. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: it's just like you know, it's just flagrant pseudoscience. Like
Speaker 1: Janes was a psychologist, he brings a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: and interesting argument, But then again, it's a radical hypothesis.
Speaker 1: He asks you for, you know, to go along with
Speaker 1: a very radical path with him, and so I don't
Speaker 1: ultimately accept his hypothesis. I think he was probably wrong,
Speaker 1: But I wonder if I give it even more credence
Speaker 1: than it deserves, just because of how thought provoking and
Speaker 1: cool it feels in my mind to contemplate well by
Speaker 1: cameral mind hypothesis. One way I have of looking at
Speaker 1: it is that I asked myself, is it a better
Speaker 1: hypothesis for for the human experience than other uh theories
Speaker 1: of consciousness. And I have to say largely no, I
Speaker 1: think we have some better working theories of what's going on,
Speaker 1: such as say, attention schema theory. You know, just what
Speaker 1: ways of thinking about how are limited cognitive ability is
Speaker 1: are focused on particular tasks. On the other hand, if
Speaker 1: you say, is it a better hypothesis than say, established religion,
Speaker 1: then I would say yes. And that's I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that that I'm drawn to It
Speaker 1: is the part of me that wants to make sense
Speaker 1: of tales in which men speak to God's or or
Speaker 1: God speak to men, the part of me that wants
Speaker 1: that magic to be real. Um, then in those cases,
Speaker 1: the bi cameral mind is a far better explanation than
Speaker 1: God's are real, or that magical beings and spirits and
Speaker 1: elves are an actual reality. You know, you can almost
Speaker 1: like use it as a personally satisfying mythology, even if
Speaker 1: you don't think it's necessarily a successful scientific theory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's I feel like it's a weird duck for
Speaker 1: me and that I can't think of another hypothesis that
Speaker 1: kind of uh, you know, it occupies that middle ground.
Speaker 1: But we'll get back to to the bi cameral mind
Speaker 1: and a little bit. Actually, I'm gonna close out the
Speaker 1: section on on Sagan though by reading one more quote
Speaker 1: um from a candle in the dark. Science is more
Speaker 1: than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking.
Speaker 1: I have a foreboding of an America in my children
Speaker 1: or grandchildren's time, when the United States is a service
Speaker 1: and information economy, when nearly all the key manufacturing industries
Speaker 1: have slipped away to other countries, when awesome technological powers
Speaker 1: are in the hands of a very few and no
Speaker 1: one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues,
Speaker 1: when the people have lost the ability to set their
Speaker 1: own agendas or knowledgeably questioned those in authority, When clutching
Speaker 1: our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes are critical faculties
Speaker 1: and decline. Unable to distinguish between what feels good and
Speaker 1: what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition
Speaker 1: and darkness. Now what what year was? This? This was?
Speaker 1: This is? But I don't want to I know that
Speaker 1: sounds grim, but but ultimately this book is making the
Speaker 1: argument and Sagan is making the argument. I think there's
Speaker 1: an argument that holds true is that we don't don't
Speaker 1: have to slip into darkness. We have to value science,
Speaker 1: we have to value scientific thinking, scientific education, and we
Speaker 1: have to to think skeptically about the world around us.
Speaker 1: Um but there, but but as long as we don't
Speaker 1: abandon these pillars that have that are that are holding
Speaker 1: up civilization, um there is hope. It makes you realize
Speaker 1: how important, how functionally practically important inspiring all in the
Speaker 1: natural world really is. Because if you inspire people to
Speaker 1: feel a sense of all with real science and real
Speaker 1: discoveries and critical thinking about the natural world and all
Speaker 1: of its phenomena, then that is a motivation to make
Speaker 1: people want to know more about what's true about the
Speaker 1: natural world, which is a motivation for them to be scientific,
Speaker 1: to be skeptic, goal to be critical thinkers, and so so,
Speaker 1: inspiring us to have a sense of awe about what's
Speaker 1: true and what's real literally creates a better society, right,
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I would urge everyone out there, if
Speaker 1: you value these uh these ideas, then uh then celebrate them,
Speaker 1: share them with others, and certainly vote with them as well.
Speaker 1: Wherever you happen to be. If you have the power
Speaker 1: to vote where you live. Think about this when you
Speaker 1: consider the people, uh and the organizations that you throw
Speaker 1: your support behind. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're gonna jump in with
Speaker 1: one of Joe's recommendations for this year's summer reading. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Alright, we're back. Al Right. So, as I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, I wanted to talk about a book that
Speaker 1: hadn't really come up on the podcast before, and that book,
Speaker 1: the first one I've picked for this episode is a
Speaker 1: book called Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer
Speaker 1: Space by Janel Levin. This was first published in and
Speaker 1: Janel Levin is an astrophysicist and an author. She's a
Speaker 1: professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College, which is
Speaker 1: part of Columbia University, and she's written several popular science books,
Speaker 1: including a novel about Kurt Girdle and Alan turing Um.
Speaker 1: But in this book, Black Hole Blues, it's an account,
Speaker 1: almost what I would call a non fiction novel, about
Speaker 1: the search for gravitational waves and the quest to build
Speaker 1: the Ligo Facility or the laser interferometer Gravitational Wave Wave Observatory.
Speaker 1: We discussed this a little bit on our in our
Speaker 1: black Hole episodes we did earlier this year. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: and so this this book is focused specifically on gravitational waves.
Speaker 1: And I call it almost a novel because for a
Speaker 1: science book, this one spends a lot of time, a
Speaker 1: lot of well invested time, I would say, richly portraying
Speaker 1: its characters, so much so that kind of like when
Speaker 1: Lovin quotes them from interviews, I felt like I could
Speaker 1: see them and hear their voices and imagine them speaking.
Speaker 1: But of course, these characters aren't just characters. They are
Speaker 1: real scientists, and the work that they're doing is leading
Speaker 1: up to one of the biggest scientific discoveries of our lifetime. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: do you remember when the gravitational waves observation was announced
Speaker 1: in I think it was announced in twenty sixteen, but
Speaker 1: the observation happened in September. You remember what you thought then?
Speaker 1: I remember when. Yeah, I remember when I first heard
Speaker 1: about it. I have to admit that I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a big deal, but I don't really I
Speaker 1: would not be able to explain to you why it's
Speaker 1: a big deal yes, same here. I had to go
Speaker 1: looking stuff up, and so I was reading a lot
Speaker 1: about at the time, trying to understand what was important
Speaker 1: about it um And so a lot of people I
Speaker 1: think had that experience. They understood that it was a
Speaker 1: big deal, but they didn't know exactly why it was
Speaker 1: a big deal. In fact, I remember when the announcement
Speaker 1: came out, I was here in the office and I
Speaker 1: was talking to one of our colleagues here, and you
Speaker 1: can imagine our colleagues here in the office, smart people
Speaker 1: interested in science. But he was saying to me, basically,
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, the scientists are saying this is
Speaker 1: I porton, but I can't figure out why it's so
Speaker 1: interesting or important like it, I think to a lot
Speaker 1: of people that had the texture of a kind of
Speaker 1: dry observations. So it's like, okay, so we saw some waves,
Speaker 1: what what does that mean? Like, there was nothing very
Speaker 1: There are no strong image people could latch onto about it.
Speaker 1: There was nothing that had all that much of a
Speaker 1: personality about it. Right. It's it's in that that astro
Speaker 1: physics black hole territory we've discussed before, where it's it's
Speaker 1: really hard to have much in the way of personal
Speaker 1: engagement with the topic. But if you if you get
Speaker 1: into the subject, you realize this is one of the
Speaker 1: most profound and awe inspiring things we have ever discovered
Speaker 1: as human beings. I remember people saying that similar things,
Speaker 1: like in when physicists announced that experiments of the large
Speaker 1: hat around collider had found a particle they believed was
Speaker 1: the Higgs boson, And I remember and then a lot
Speaker 1: of people were like, well, I get that the physicists
Speaker 1: are excited about this, but I don't really understand what
Speaker 1: it means or why it's important. So if if you
Speaker 1: felt that way about gravitation sational waves at the time,
Speaker 1: this is a great book to read. It explains the
Speaker 1: significance of the discovery, it puts it in context, it
Speaker 1: gives you all that awe. But it also mainly focuses
Speaker 1: on telling a story about the project to detect gravitational waves,
Speaker 1: how it eventually succeeded despite all these many obstacles. And
Speaker 1: I want to discuss that aspect of an a minute,
Speaker 1: but first I just want to give you a taste.
Speaker 1: So I want to read a passage from Levin's opening
Speaker 1: chapter of her book, And the opening chapter has been published,
Speaker 1: I think in a couple of places online, So you
Speaker 1: can go read that yourself if you want to check
Speaker 1: that out before you decide whether or not you want
Speaker 1: to get the rest of the book, but just to
Speaker 1: read from her her very opening quote. Somewhere in the universe,
Speaker 1: two black holes collide, as heavy as stars, as small
Speaker 1: as cities, literally black, the complete absence of light. Holes,
Speaker 1: empty hollows tethered by gravity. In their final seconds together,
Speaker 1: the black holes course through thousands of revolutions about their
Speaker 1: eventual point of contact, churning up space and time, until
Speaker 1: they crash and merge into one bigger black hole, an
Speaker 1: event more powerful than any sense the origin of the universe,
Speaker 1: outputting more than a trillion times the power of a
Speaker 1: billion sons. The black holes collide in complete darkness. None
Speaker 1: of the energy exploding from the collision comes out as light.
Speaker 1: No telescope will ever see the event. That profusion of
Speaker 1: energy emanates from the coalescing holes in a purely gravitational form,
Speaker 1: as waves in the shape of space time as gravitational waves.
Speaker 1: An astronaut floating nearby would see nothing, but the space
Speaker 1: she occupied would ring, deforming her, squeezing than stretching. If
Speaker 1: close enough, her auditory mechanism could vibrate in response, she
Speaker 1: would hear the wave. In empty darkness, she could hear
Speaker 1: space time ring. Barring death by black hole. Gravitational waves
Speaker 1: are like sounds without a material medium. When black hole collide,
Speaker 1: they make a sound that's wonderful. I feel like that's
Speaker 1: good writing. Yeah, yeah, I mean, especially again when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with something that can be so difficult to grasp. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she she manages to to to bring it to beautiful
Speaker 1: life there. But another thing that I think is fantastic
Speaker 1: about this book is about the way she tells the
Speaker 1: story of the Ligo project and the discovery and all
Speaker 1: the characters involved. She really explores the role of personality
Speaker 1: and politics and money and ego in one of these
Speaker 1: most important scientific projects in recent history. Like you can
Speaker 1: often get the feeling when you're reading about science just
Speaker 1: from you know, say, articles in the news or in
Speaker 1: Scientific American whatever, that scientists are often presented as sort
Speaker 1: of like mechanistic uh discovery machines. Like a scientist appears
Speaker 1: you've never heard of them before. They're quoted in an
Speaker 1: article saying what they found in a new study so
Speaker 1: the version that the face of them you get is
Speaker 1: a person who appears to deliver a newly discovered piece
Speaker 1: of information. And for some reason I feel like this,
Speaker 1: at least in my mind, it can contribute to this
Speaker 1: feeling that they're just sort of like machines whirring in
Speaker 1: the background that eventually churn out information. Yeah, like with
Speaker 1: with Lego in particular, I remember when when we're reading
Speaker 1: up on this for the black Hole episode. Uh, I
Speaker 1: certainly had the thought, like, I wonder if at any
Speaker 1: point someone had to pitch this to a politician, And
Speaker 1: this book is all about that, and I mean, you can,
Speaker 1: perhaps you can, you can clude me out here, but
Speaker 1: I can only imagine how difficult it would be able
Speaker 1: to to explain what this was, especially with pictures, to
Speaker 1: a politician who generally speaking, it's it's an exceedingly safe
Speaker 1: bet that if you're talking about a politician, you're talking
Speaker 1: about somebody with very limited scientific understanding. Well, you don't
Speaker 1: even have to get to the politician level before politics
Speaker 1: become an issue, because there's politics within the groups of
Speaker 1: scientists who are anticipating the politics of politicians, because what
Speaker 1: they're having to do is figure out Okay, we we
Speaker 1: want to try to make experimental progress, but we know
Speaker 1: funding is going to be limited, So what do we
Speaker 1: do in order to get the best chance at getting
Speaker 1: the funding that would get us to the experimental result?
Speaker 1: And so their arguments about like, should we try to
Speaker 1: do this incrementally in small little waves of experiments they
Speaker 1: get bigger and bigger, or should we try to go
Speaker 1: in all at once and build a huge facility that
Speaker 1: can really prove what we want to show um And
Speaker 1: they're serious debates about this, And the characters in it
Speaker 1: are human. They're very human, and there's something just truly
Speaker 1: fascinating and surprising about the story. This book tells that somehow,
Speaker 1: from the meta organism of science, powerful profound, objective discoveries
Speaker 1: are sort of cobbled together and achieved by collections of squabbleing,
Speaker 1: flawed individuals through this sort of tape together ramshackle process.
Speaker 1: It's not a book about the genius of anyone individual scientists,
Speaker 1: though there are very smart scientists in it. It's a
Speaker 1: book about a sort of emergent, impersonal genius, a collective
Speaker 1: genius through process. And I mean that really goes back
Speaker 1: to what we're talking about earlier with some of Sagan's
Speaker 1: points about how like one of the points he made
Speaker 1: in in in the in that book is that is
Speaker 1: that you can't just teach like what science does. You
Speaker 1: can't just teach the triumphs of science. You have to
Speaker 1: teach the also the failures of science, the necessary failures
Speaker 1: of science. There are a lot of failures in this book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's essential to understanding it. So
Speaker 1: I means so that when a particular failure or or
Speaker 1: a particular study that gets rejected whatever. We've all seen
Speaker 1: examples of this, when that makes the news, people aren't
Speaker 1: going but don't think, well, I guess we can't trust
Speaker 1: these scientists because they got it wrong. Because them getting
Speaker 1: it wrong is essential. Yeah. Yeah, it's in the intial
Speaker 1: part of the process, and and it actually makes the
Speaker 1: process work. Um. I also wanted to say just the
Speaker 1: epilogue to this book is amazing. It gave me goose
Speaker 1: bumps multiple times, both in its account of the lego
Speaker 1: scientists trying to verify the first recorded signal and then
Speaker 1: when it sort of placed that observation in the context
Speaker 1: of the entire history of the observable universe. So I
Speaker 1: would say this is a great book if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about physics in a way that's very
Speaker 1: clear and easy to understand. It's very well written, and
Speaker 1: even more than that, it's a great book about the
Speaker 1: nature of science and scientists themselves, and not as all
Speaker 1: knowing gods, not as discovery machines, but as kind of scrappy, weird, clever,
Speaker 1: deeply human characters who have systems of thought and tools
Speaker 1: in place that eventually help them get it right. Awesome,
Speaker 1: But we're gonna take one more break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back we'll discuss some fiction. Thank alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So here's another one I don't think I've mentioned on
Speaker 1: the podcast before, and this one is a book called
Speaker 1: The Soul of an Octopus, A Surprising Exploration into the
Speaker 1: wonder of Consciousness by Si Montgomery from uh So uh Sy.
Speaker 1: Montgomery is a naturalist and author. She's written books about
Speaker 1: other Most of her books seem to be about animals,
Speaker 1: but this is the only one of hers I've read.
Speaker 1: Um But so, I already think I knew sort of
Speaker 1: how interesting octopuses were, at least in theory. Like you know,
Speaker 1: I'd read all of their crazy feats of escape, they're
Speaker 1: inquiring play behaviors, the way they they play with different
Speaker 1: objects and sort of penetrate locked boxes and things like that.
Speaker 1: They're surprising predation strategies. The way they squeeze through holes
Speaker 1: only a tiny fraction of the size of their bodies.
Speaker 1: The way they seal themselves in their dens with rock
Speaker 1: coverings or armor themselves with coconut halves, the way they
Speaker 1: taste with their skin and change color to mimic their
Speaker 1: surroundings with this kind of frightening accuracy. All this stuff.
Speaker 1: But what I did not know before reading this book
Speaker 1: was how emotional I could feel about an octopus. So,
Speaker 1: so you're you're not recommending this to like hardcore sushi enthusiasts.
Speaker 1: Definitely not if you if you wanna keep eating octopus
Speaker 1: without thinking about a book that made you cry. Uh,
Speaker 1: this book is just an absolute delight. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: exactly what genre to call it. I would say it's
Speaker 1: partially a science book about zoology biology marine invertebrates, primarily
Speaker 1: the octopus, so it cites a lot of research in
Speaker 1: it and talks a lot about observations of octopus behavior.
Speaker 1: But that's only part of it. It's also partially a
Speaker 1: personal memoir specifically about and I am not kidding one
Speaker 1: bit here, love, affection, and the complicated personal relationships between
Speaker 1: humans and cephalopods. There is a lot of human and
Speaker 1: octopus love in this book. And it's also partially a
Speaker 1: philosophical and occasionally theological reflection on the nature of consciousness
Speaker 1: and mind and people's beliefs about the soul and how
Speaker 1: those concepts could or could not and should or should
Speaker 1: not be applied to animals like the octopus. So this
Speaker 1: book's really kind of got it all. It's full of
Speaker 1: interesting facts and observations and anecdotes from experts about octopuses,
Speaker 1: but it's also got this moving personal narrative that I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure if you have feelings, will make you cry
Speaker 1: about octopuses. And I mean really, I literally cried about
Speaker 1: an octopus in the first chapter of this book. And
Speaker 1: it is uh. It's a It's got a thoughtful and
Speaker 1: earnest consideration of what consciousness consists, of whether other animals
Speaker 1: possess it, what it would be like to have the
Speaker 1: mind of an octopus. Um, there's here's just one example
Speaker 1: of the kinds of thoughts about octopus consciousness that are
Speaker 1: explored in this book. So you have to consider the
Speaker 1: way the octopus nervous system is put together. It is
Speaker 1: very different than our mammalian nervous system, where we've got
Speaker 1: a brain where most of our neurons are, and then
Speaker 1: you've got a spinal column and you know, nerves reaching
Speaker 1: out throughout the body that can send information back and forth.
Speaker 1: But but basically we think pretty much all of the
Speaker 1: bulk of the information processing happens in the brain. An
Speaker 1: octopus has a brain, but in a significant way, it
Speaker 1: looks like the body itself and not just the brain
Speaker 1: does a lot of the thinking with with neurons loaded
Speaker 1: in different parts of the body. Specifically, it's individual arms,
Speaker 1: and the arms pass nerve signals along within each other
Speaker 1: that never even seemed to reach the brain. So, if
Speaker 1: you have a nervous system like this, and if you
Speaker 1: consider what would happen if there is such a thing
Speaker 1: as consciousness or experience in an animal like this, what
Speaker 1: would that consciousness be like? Would it even make sense
Speaker 1: to believe it was confined to a single sensation of self? Like?
Speaker 1: Could it be possible um to have consciousness without having
Speaker 1: a sense of self? You are conscious, but you have
Speaker 1: no concept of I. Instead, there are sort of like
Speaker 1: multiple networks all can acted that are having an experience
Speaker 1: but don't necessarily identify themselves as a self. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing that it really makes
Speaker 1: makes me sound I mean, it makes me feel silly
Speaker 1: when we do ask questions like what is the what
Speaker 1: is the mind of the octopus? You know, like like
Speaker 1: in the sense that we are trying to, uh, just
Speaker 1: compare it to what we have like this this this
Speaker 1: narrow human you know, cognitive dimension that we we place
Speaker 1: so much emphasis on what is the octopus is human mind?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, and it's like it doesn't have a human mind.
Speaker 1: It has this this other form of of of of cognition,
Speaker 1: of of of of of neural control. And it's by
Speaker 1: trying to compare it to us and using our minds
Speaker 1: as the gold standard. Uh, it just it sets up
Speaker 1: this in this impossible task right where we just say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's not like what we have, so
Speaker 1: it it can't be. It can't be on the same level.
Speaker 1: It's like what kind of car too does this animal have?
Speaker 1: What doesn't have a car? It has a motorcycle? A
Speaker 1: well it's unless you're being You've just heard the call
Speaker 1: for an octopus motorcycle gang movie. I would watch it. Well,
Speaker 1: they made were Wolves on wheels, why not octopods on wheel?
Speaker 1: It would make one rad um. What do you call it?
Speaker 1: The cut? The motorcycle jack hut or whatever. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they caught it a cut. I think kind of sons
Speaker 1: of anarchy, Sons of anarchies where I get most of
Speaker 1: my biker knowledge that in Wear Wolves on Wheels. I
Speaker 1: don't know much about biker lowre that's not in Wearwolves
Speaker 1: on Wheel. I'm just say it would make a cool
Speaker 1: uh MC logo. Yeah it would. But then again, I
Speaker 1: think about how so if an octopus was to drive
Speaker 1: a motorcycle, it might have trouble. It might have trouble
Speaker 1: because I wonder if it's arms that are controlling, say,
Speaker 1: the different handles of the bike would really coordinate all
Speaker 1: that well. Because another thing that's very weird that the
Speaker 1: book talks about is the concept that the individual arms
Speaker 1: of an octopus us have individual personalities as much as
Speaker 1: individual octopuses have different personalities than one another, and they
Speaker 1: very much seem to like there. There are lots of
Speaker 1: people who work with octopuses who have found that an
Speaker 1: octopus will have continually more shy or bold arms. It's
Speaker 1: almost just as if the arms are minds within the
Speaker 1: overall body that can express themselves in different ways. That
Speaker 1: is fascinating. So what if you had a shy arm
Speaker 1: and a bold arm, or like a peaceful arm and
Speaker 1: an angry arm. It seems like that kind of thing
Speaker 1: could actually be possible with an octopus. But like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, a lot of this book is also it's
Speaker 1: sort of narrative memoir. It's like about the relationships between
Speaker 1: the author and other humans and octopuses, and these relationships
Speaker 1: often seem, if this makes any sense, to actually be
Speaker 1: based on mutual friendship and affection. There are these large
Speaker 1: passages about people, including the author, just touching octopuses and
Speaker 1: letting octopuses touch them, and it you know, it's possible.
Speaker 1: Maybe the love and relationship is an illusion, like a
Speaker 1: mere projection from the minds of the people who spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time touching and feeding octopuses, but they
Speaker 1: seem very convinced and just as a point of comparison,
Speaker 1: like what if somebody told you that your relationship with
Speaker 1: your favorite pet your dog or whatever was just a
Speaker 1: projection of your mind, and your dog had no mind
Speaker 1: or experience. It was just exhibiting stimulus response behavior. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't rule that out as a possibility, we have
Speaker 1: to say scientifically, as far as we know, that's possible,
Speaker 1: just really doesn't seem true to people's experience. And then again,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, the human relationship with the octopus
Speaker 1: is such an alien kind of relationship. These are these
Speaker 1: are not dogs, these are not mammals, they're not even
Speaker 1: vertebrates that they might as well be from another planet.
Speaker 1: They're clearly very intelligent based on their behavior and their
Speaker 1: problem solving abilities, but the nature of their intelligence is
Speaker 1: so unbelievably strange to us. And one part of the
Speaker 1: book talks about that. You know, so they're they're all
Speaker 1: these sort of like cuddling sessions between humans and octopods
Speaker 1: in this book. And so you've got these sessions where
Speaker 1: octopuses and aquariums are cuddling with their caretakers, embracing voluntarily
Speaker 1: with their arms, stroking each other in a way that say,
Speaker 1: a human and a dog would share physical contact and affection.
Speaker 1: But then this often ends with the octopus pulling, pulling,
Speaker 1: with this enormous strength, trying to pull you down into
Speaker 1: the water into its tank. So what's it doing there?
Speaker 1: I mean, it seemed to be excited to see you
Speaker 1: showing positive displays when you show up, it wants to
Speaker 1: touch you and all that, and then it starts to
Speaker 1: pull you in. What's going Is it trying to eat you?
Speaker 1: Is it trying to drown you? Is it trying to
Speaker 1: come see if you'll come into the water and play
Speaker 1: with it. There's so many wonderful mysteries to consider about
Speaker 1: the mind of an octopus, if such a thing exists,
Speaker 1: and we can't even necessarily comprehend the cognition behind in
Speaker 1: the behavior is even though there's clearly something complex going on.
Speaker 1: That reminds me a bit of a Jonathan Colton song
Speaker 1: about I think it was called I Crush Everything. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong on that, but it's the It's a
Speaker 1: tragic love song of of a giant squid that falls
Speaker 1: in love with love with ships and he goes to
Speaker 1: embrace them, but it cannot help a crush and pull
Speaker 1: them under. That's fantastic. I'd like to hear that. But
Speaker 1: another thing so but so I will say Um. I
Speaker 1: want to offer a couple of caveats about the book
Speaker 1: in a second, but I wholeheartedly recommend this book, despite
Speaker 1: whatever disagreements I have with the author on individual points. Uh.
Speaker 1: She she's a great writer. It's a great story. It'll
Speaker 1: really make you think about other animals. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: cool part is I also noticed she writes a lot
Speaker 1: of children's books, and I imagine she would be great
Speaker 1: at this. Yes, and I'm actually pretty excited about one
Speaker 1: that is sadly not out yet. It doesn't come out
Speaker 1: until September September twenty, I believe that this year. But
Speaker 1: it's titled Inky's Amazing Escape, How a Very Smart Octopus
Speaker 1: Found his Way Home. Uh and and it is by
Speaker 1: sy Montgomery, and then it's illustrated by Amy Schimmeler Safford.
Speaker 1: And I've I've looked at some of the pages that
Speaker 1: are available you and it looks it looks wonderful. What's
Speaker 1: going to deal with an octopus that escapes from, you know,
Speaker 1: a human habitat and uh and and I believe it's
Speaker 1: going to be an exploration of some of the themes
Speaker 1: that we've just we've just discussed. But of course, uh,
Speaker 1: aimed and condensed for for for children to read or
Speaker 1: for parents to read with their children. Uh, it looks great.
Speaker 1: It's available for preorder now. Uh. I accidentally purchased another
Speaker 1: octopus book when I was looking for this one. Other
Speaker 1: octopus children's books. Yes, yeah, so not The Soul of
Speaker 1: an Octopus, but the children's right. I accidentally past thinking
Speaker 1: I was, I was grabbing, uh, the sy Montgomery book.
Speaker 1: I grabbed one called Octopus Escapes Again by Laurie ellen
Speaker 1: Angus that is currently available for purchase. And uh, and
Speaker 1: this one is actually really great too. This one is
Speaker 1: a beautifully all straded book that just shows a instead
Speaker 1: of an octopus escaping from human captivity, it's an octopus
Speaker 1: trying to feed, trying to is trying to sustain itself
Speaker 1: in the natural world and having to elude various predators
Speaker 1: to do so. And it's one of these these wonderful
Speaker 1: kids books that it doesn't anthrop anthropomorphies or or overly
Speaker 1: anthropomorphizes an animal. It depicts actual um predatory and in
Speaker 1: defense activities by and behaviors by the animal, but also
Speaker 1: in a very relatable and child appropriate way. Well that's
Speaker 1: a happy accident. Yeah, yeah, I read that one to
Speaker 1: my son this morning, and he he loved it. While
Speaker 1: I'm on the topic of children's literature, uh, since it
Speaker 1: seems like I read a lot of children's literature this
Speaker 1: day of these days, since you have a six year old, um,
Speaker 1: and I don't have time, of course, to to highlight
Speaker 1: all of the really cool children's books out there. I
Speaker 1: love it when a children's book does a great job
Speaker 1: of making a scientific topic, UM enjoyable and and and
Speaker 1: grasp able by a child. Uh and uh. And there
Speaker 1: I read a lot of dinosaur books because my my child,
Speaker 1: like a lot of children, really loves dinosaurs, and and
Speaker 1: well he should. But I recently ran across one titled
Speaker 1: Explorer Dinosaurs Dinosaurs and all caps with an exclamation point.
Speaker 1: And this is a book by Nick Forshaw and Andy
Speaker 1: for Shaw, and it's part of the Explorer series with
Speaker 1: books on bugs, mammals, and plants. And it's it's just
Speaker 1: so good that technically it's illustrated by Andy Forshaw and
Speaker 1: written by Nicholas Forshaw, Patrick Skipworth and Christopher Lloyd, not
Speaker 1: back Christopher Lloyd, different Christopher Lloyd. Uh. And it's published
Speaker 1: by What on Earth Books. It delivers in ways that
Speaker 1: a lot of children's dinosaurs books do you know. It
Speaker 1: has some wonderful illustrations of the creatures, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: depictions of their anatomy, and discussions of paleontology. But I
Speaker 1: do find that, first of all, this one goes a
Speaker 1: little deeper than a lot of kids dinosaurs book dinosaur books.
Speaker 1: For instance, it gets into the k T extinction event,
Speaker 1: it talks about various other are major extinction events that
Speaker 1: have occurred, uh during the Earth's history, even the one
Speaker 1: that we are seemingly in right now. And uh. And
Speaker 1: the the illustrations as well in this book are are
Speaker 1: are a different type of illustration that I've seen recently
Speaker 1: in children's dinosaurs books, because generally what I I I see,
Speaker 1: I see, of course, like sort of classical realistic examples
Speaker 1: of paleo art, you know, where you have some really
Speaker 1: gorgeous dinosaurs that look real and I love that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Then you have like terrible c g I,
Speaker 1: which there's way too much of in dinosaur books for children.
Speaker 1: And then you have it in books not like straight
Speaker 1: up books. You'll see book after book where your computer
Speaker 1: generated images in books print of dinosaurs, and it seems
Speaker 1: like it's been a popular thing less twenty years, and uh,
Speaker 1: I hate most of it. Even if the content is good,
Speaker 1: it's like there's a terrible dinosaur illustration. I'm instantly thrown off.
Speaker 1: And then likewise, sometimes it's stuff is too cartoony, but
Speaker 1: this stuff strikes a really wonderful balance. These illustrations feel
Speaker 1: like animals, but there's just enough like a cartoonish whimsy
Speaker 1: to them that they feel unique. So this is a
Speaker 1: This is a wonderful book. It also has a six
Speaker 1: foot fold out of dinosaurs presented in chronological order, so
Speaker 1: I highly recommend that one as well. And finally, but
Speaker 1: before we close out the nonfiction portion of the podcast,
Speaker 1: we receive a lot of free books from publishers here
Speaker 1: at the show promoting new publications. Most of these look awesome,
Speaker 1: and we don't have time to really even use most
Speaker 1: of them on the show. Others were getting around too.
Speaker 1: We have like a growing stack of books and and
Speaker 1: authors and experts that were like, oh man, we've got
Speaker 1: to We've gotta have this author on to discuss this book,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it takes several months or a year to
Speaker 1: get around to it. Um, but I wanted to highlight.
Speaker 1: Uh just really quickly. Here a book called How to
Speaker 1: Live in Space Everything you Need to Know for the
Speaker 1: not so distant Future. I Colin Stewart, who's a fellow
Speaker 1: at the Royal Astronomical Society and an accomplished astronomy journalists.
Speaker 1: This one is going to be published by Smithsonian Books
Speaker 1: also this September, but it's but it is also available
Speaker 1: for pre order, so if you I would recommend this
Speaker 1: if you were a space sci fi writer, pick it up.
Speaker 1: If you're planning to go into space, maybe read a
Speaker 1: copy just in case you miss something. But it's a
Speaker 1: perfect crash course in the history, the present, and the
Speaker 1: future of space exploration, in space, travel, of humanities, life
Speaker 1: beyond our Planet. Is divided into three sections. You have training,
Speaker 1: Life in Space and the Future, which deals with space tourism,
Speaker 1: the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and interstellar travel. So again I
Speaker 1: highly recommend this book if you're if you're into space,
Speaker 1: if you want to write some sci fi, if you're
Speaker 1: just into science fiction, um, it's definitely worth picking up.
Speaker 1: Very very readable. So I do want to say before
Speaker 1: we leave the subject of the octopus. The Soul of
Speaker 1: an Octopus by Si Montgomery while while I do think
Speaker 1: it is a fantastic book, I also want to say
Speaker 1: that I do not necessarily agree with all of the
Speaker 1: ideas she expresses in the book, because there's an ongoing
Speaker 1: debate about animal cognition, animal consciousness and all that stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and Montgomery is clearly opinionated, Like you can definitely tell
Speaker 1: she believes that an octopus has some form of consciousness,
Speaker 1: and she often reads intentions into animal behavior in a
Speaker 1: way that would probably not be strictly appropriate if she were, say, like,
Speaker 1: researching animal behavior in a lab. But the book is
Speaker 1: not necessarily intended as an unbiased scientific investigation. It's sort
Speaker 1: of about the facts and the science about octopuses, but
Speaker 1: also about the felt experience of having a relationship with
Speaker 1: a non human animal and a potential alien mind. And
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, we know what that feels like
Speaker 1: if you've got like a dog, right, and an unbiased
Speaker 1: observer in a lab, but might not want to speculate
Speaker 1: about what a dog's mind is like. But if you've
Speaker 1: got a pet dog and you interact with it all
Speaker 1: the time, you're gonna attribute a mind to it. Almost
Speaker 1: everybody does, and so a lot of the book is
Speaker 1: just about that experience, but not with a dog with
Speaker 1: something very slimy and writhing that sometimes wants to pull
Speaker 1: you into the deep. One last idea I want to
Speaker 1: mention before we move on is the idea of the
Speaker 1: words soul. So soul is there in the title of
Speaker 1: the book, and I often am really frustrated that there
Speaker 1: is not a widely used secular word for soul, divorced
Speaker 1: of all the supernatural connotations of the soul, like I
Speaker 1: think the soul is such a useful concept and doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be bound up in supernatural ideas like dual
Speaker 1: is um or ghosts or the soul surviving the body.
Speaker 1: What I mean is soul in the sense of the
Speaker 1: most enduring and important parts of your personality, your integrity,
Speaker 1: your values, and your value uh the core of who
Speaker 1: you are as a person. And I think soul in
Speaker 1: that sense is a useful concept, and it's a very
Speaker 1: powerful word that no other word in English really substitutes for.
Speaker 1: Or I sometimes find myself wondering if it can be
Speaker 1: rescued for this usage without always implying something about supernaturalism
Speaker 1: to people. I find myself using and thinking about the
Speaker 1: term mind state more and more like that as a
Speaker 1: sort of a less loaded term for soul. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I feel like that that doesn't convey all of those
Speaker 1: kind of um permanent and important qualities that sold does.
Speaker 1: You know, Like you you could tell somebody that that
Speaker 1: their behavior, you know, reflects something about their soul, and
Speaker 1: that's saying something different than saying it reflects something about
Speaker 1: their mind state. Though if you say soul, the person
Speaker 1: thinks you're talking about something magic. I think it's part
Speaker 1: of the problem. The right soul has come to represent
Speaker 1: a number of ideas that that that at the very least,
Speaker 1: like speaking kindly about them, cannot be proven. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and I'm not just talking about the idea that there's
Speaker 1: something in us, there's something of us that survives death,
Speaker 1: uh the eye deea, that there is this kind of
Speaker 1: like moral creature within all of us, that sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's obviously got connotations that branch out in all different
Speaker 1: kinds of directions. Uh. Though if anyway, if you if
Speaker 1: you do explore the book, there is an interesting part.
Speaker 1: It's very brief, but she does also contemplate the theological
Speaker 1: implications of octopus minds and octopus souls. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: I thought that was an interesting consideration to sort of
Speaker 1: from a religious perspective that I had never considered before,
Speaker 1: Like is there an afterlife for an octopus? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: not so much that, but like a responsibility, like the
Speaker 1: responsibilities of a religious person to an octopus. No, more
Speaker 1: like straightforwardly, like if there is such a thing as
Speaker 1: a soul, do octopuses have souls? Like do dogs have souls? Well?
Speaker 1: Do octopuses have souls? And would they have one soul
Speaker 1: or would they I don't know each limb, like you say,
Speaker 1: like multiple souls or maybe even that doesn't make sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost like this is a problematic term that that
Speaker 1: doesn't really apply to anything in the natural world, or
Speaker 1: does it. The discussion continues, but anyway, soulivan octopus, big
Speaker 1: thumbs up from me. Okay, looks like we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to call it there for today, because, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: we started talking about books and then we talked for
Speaker 1: way too long for a single podcast episode. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna make this part one of our two parts Summer
Speaker 1: Reading episode. If you want to continue the conversation, join
Speaker 1: us again next time. That's right. In the meantime, head
Speaker 1: on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's where you will find all the podcast episodes, including
Speaker 1: past Summer reading episodes. Uh and oh yeah. If you
Speaker 1: want more information, you want links, you want titles, you
Speaker 1: want the specific spelling for some of these authors were discussing.
Speaker 1: There will be a list of the books discussed here
Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode at stuff to
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