Mark Reece's Blog - Posts Tagged "science"

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a very interesting book. Many works on evolutionary biology discuss the topic in overarching terms, with a focus on evolutionary change as it appears over long period of time. By contrast, The Beak of the Finch gave a much more detailed case study, which was interesting both in showing the practicalities of how scientific research is conducted, and also how evolution can occur very rapidly in harsh environments.

Most of the book focuses on the work carried out by Peter and Rosemary Grant, a husband and wife team who devoted many years to studying finches on the Galapagos islands. They carried out their work with great diligence- trapping birds to mark them, recording their ancestry, and studying aspects of their environment, including, for example, the availability and hardness of the nuts the birds feed on. This careful research enabled the grants to record evolutionary change in real time. It is fascinating to know that during a drought, a difference of less than a millimeter in beak size was often the difference between life and death. This harsh selection pressure led to a rapid change in the peak size of the birds within a few generations.

The passion of the Grants for their science is evident in the writing, which lovingly describes the care they took over their work, in addition to their care for the finches and other wildlife on the islands. The book has a novelistic in passages where the Grants' lifestyle and thoughts are described (this does get slightly strange in places, where their clothing and mannerisms are noted at some length).

Although heavily focused on the finches, the book also touches upon similar empirical studies that show evolutionary change over a small number of generations, including guppies and pesticide resistant insects. The latter subject was particularly interesting in the description of how the speed of the change took pesticide companies by surprise. The book has made me want to read some of the original studies.

All in all, a very fine popular science book, which has developed me understanding of the topic considerably.



View all my reviews

The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct by Bert Hölldobler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A wonderful book by two eminent scientists, who possess the two gifts needed for popular science writing: the ability to condense research without simplifying it too far, and good writing. The book is an expansion of a chapter from The Superorganism by the same authors, where they introduce the concept of eusociality, which they define as:

1) Cooperative care for immature individuals.
2) Overlap of at least two generations in the same society.
3) The coexistence of reproductive and non-reproductive members.

This book examines the atta genera as an exemplary case of eusociality, given the intricate caste system that pertains within those species of ants. The head width of the leaf cutter workers varies from between 0.7 to 5 millimeters, with the interactions between them described as a production line, consisting of the workers of different sizes carrying out a variety of tasks, including cutting leaves from plants, breaking them into smaller parts, carrying them to the nest, then carrying out the variety of tasks necessary to incorporate them into the colony's fungal garden.

The book has a series of wonderful pictures, many of which were taken by Holldobler, which are not only beautiful, but add a lot to the text. This include pictures of ants themselves, and also excavations of nests (which made me a little sad, given the descriptions of the work that were put into building them).

The skill of the experiments conducted by myrmecologists to discover many different aspects of ant societies are incredible. There are many wonderful details in the book about, amongst other things, the manner in which leaf cutters use their mandibles to cut leaves, the nature of the biochemistry that ants use to communicate, and the incredible synergy between ants and fungus, which enables them, in combination, to lower the level of carbon dioxide in a nest to safe levels.

This is a short book, but a delightful one. It is science as a joyful thing.



View all my reviews

The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain by Gina Rippon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Although this book focused on reviewing purported sex differences between male and female brains, it also gives an introduction to some aspects of neuroscience, such as child development. The central argument is that sex differences in brain structures are generally smaller than are typically supposed, and that even where they exist, their connection to social behaviour is often unclear.

The main reason why I think that the book is a success is because Rippon has a good understanding of the social sciences, which enables her to question how to structure categories, and which of the variables being measured is dependent on the other. For example, Rippon gives many examples of situations where a brain difference has been described as the cause of social behaviour, as if the causation is beyond question. However, in such a case, there are many possibilities, including:

1) The brain differences cause the differences is social behaviour.
2) The social behaviour causes the brain differences.
3) The brain differences are incidental to the social behaviour.
4) The metrics used in the differentiation are social constructions rather than properly discreet categories.
5) There are errors in the study's design.

Given what Rippon states about brain plasticity, that is, the ability of the brain to 're-shape' itself as a result of experience, determining the chain of causality, that is, distinguishing between 1) and 2) in the above list, may be more of a philosophical rather than scientific task.

It seems to be the case that most humans believe that identifying sex is very important- Rippon gives example of this in infants, who are able to tell the difference between male and female voices. That phenomena is also apparent in other circumstances, such as the worry that is sometimes felt by people who don't know the sex of someone they meet. I wonder whether this urge is behind the passion by which the topic has often been pursued.

The structure of the book is a little wayward at times, filled with digressions, but not in a way that I found distracting. The author is witty and urbane, making the book easy to read, despite the complexity of the topic, and the large weight of references in relies on. The wider perspective that Rippon brings to the topic makes the book enjoyable and interesting.



View all my reviews

The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines by Brian Deer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Brian Deer carried out outstanding investigative journalism with the Andrew Wakefield story. This included learning a lot of medical terminology/methodologies, patiently researching disparate documents from many different sources, gaining the trust of numerous witnesses, and showing personal fortitude, necessary, for example, when he was sued by Wakefield and his confederates. The public service Deer rendered is considerable- some of the details revealed in this book are incredible. For example, Wakefield et al carried out various medical examinations on vulnerable children that they knew were unnecessary- a shocking abuse of power. The motivation for this was money. For all the talk by the anti-vaccination movement about 'big pharma', what is telling is that Wakefield, before being discredited, was given massive resources to research his ideas- in once telling instance, he rejected the offer of funding, as it would have forced him to follow proper scientific methods.

The MMR scandal highlighted flaws in the way that people draw connections between events, particularly when they are stressed. Many of the parents in the now discredited research carried out by Wakefield gave high prominence to the alleged temporal correlation between their children being vaccinated, and their educational and social problems. This ignored problems with assigning causation, and placed too high a regard on their ability to accurately recall events. 'I know what I saw' can be a dangerous attitude given how flawed one's memory and sensory perceptions can sometimes be.

The book has become relevant again in recent years as the anti-vaccination movement gained influence after the Covid pandemic. The leaders of that movement deserve all the exposure and scorn that a book like this provokes. They lie to vulnerable people and harm children for money- a more degenerate and repulsive group is hard to imagine. What was particularly striking when reading Deer's account is the attitude towards neurodiversity on display from a disturbingly large minority of the population, many of whom believe that it is preferable to risk their children dying of infectious disease rather than being autistic. This belief is supported by depicting autism using the most disabled autistic people available to create grotesque propaganda- one of the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement is claimed to have said that they understood why parents of autistic children might want to kill their children.

Unfortunately, Deer's view of autism isn't wholly unproblematic either- there are several points in the book where he creates a dualism between 'really autistic' people, i.e. those who are severely disabled, or have intellectual disabilities, and 'trendy autistics'- at one point, he makes a sarcastic aside about advocates wearing badges. This is unfortunate, as it seems likely that the MMR scare would not have had the power it did without toxic attitudes towards neurodiversity.

The writing style of the book also grates on occasion. Its curiously tabloid style seems unnecessary when considering the inherent interest of the subject matter. Bit part characters in the narrative are given strange potted histories that are often unintentionally funny. For example, Wakefield's first wife, who has no relevance to the events in the book, is described as 'a diet conscious, blonde-haired Zelda to [Wakefield's] Scott'. Eh? The editing is often poor.

Despite these flaws, I would recommend this book, both for those who want to learn more about the MMR scandal, and for an insight into contemporary anti-vaccination conspiracy theories.



View all my reviews

Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book contains gives some practical advice, but is mostly concerned with emphasizing the joys and excitement of the life of a research scientist, and in that respect, it is a success. Wilson's anecdotes of his career are interesting and entertaining, and he explicates the scientific mindset well.

Some of the worldview seems to posit a romanticized view of academia, and Wilson's thought on non-scientific fields are much less developed. Nevertheless, this was an enjoyable read.



View all my reviews