Just as fossils provide a window into the past, evolution leaves a footprint on DNA. In The Making of the Fittest, Sean B. Carroll (http://seanbcarroll.com/about/) sets out the overwhelming evidence for evolution provided in DNA. Carroll offers examples from sequences of DNA that once coded for genes no longer used, remnants of ancestral lives, […]
The Making of the Fittest Read More »
China has achieved a staggering transformation in the last 30 years, and now stands on the threshold of becoming the world’s largest economy. It is flexing its military muscle in the South China Sea, whilst at the same time building transport links to the West which will allow rapid export for its vast manufacturing output.
My Country and My People by Lin Yutang Read More »
This classic by Alan Moorehead (https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/01/obituaries/alan-moorehead-73-writer-acclaimed-for-war-reporting.html) is one for your shelf of travel literature. Based on contemporary records, as well as character portraits, this is the exciting story of fifty years of African exploration and the attempt to reach the sources of the Nile. Across these pages we meet a mixed group of reckless and determined
The White Nile by Alan Moorehead Read More »
This widely influential 1966 book by Mary Douglas (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/may/18/guardianobituaries.obituaries) should be on the shelves of anyone interested in cultural theory or anthropology. The line of inquiry in Purity and Danger traces the meaning of ‘dirt’ in different contexts. What is regarded as dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place. Douglas clarifies the differences
Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas Read More »
John Boyne (http://johnboyne.com/) was born in Dublin, where he still lives. His first short story was published by the Sunday Tribune and in 1993 was shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia. He has chaired the jury for the
The Heart’s Invisible Furies Read More »
At a tiny hamlet in the Mississippi Delta there stands Bryant’s Grocery. Here in August 1955, a 14-year-old black youth from Chicago, Emmett Till, allegedly flirted with Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Several days later, Emmett’s body surfaced, tortured and mutilated, in the nearby Tallahatchie River. Carolyn Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam
The Blood of Emmett Till Read More »
In the week which marked the death of Stephen Hawking on 14 March 2018, many people will be prompted to read one of his books or another on cosmology. Afterglow of Creation is one from which I learned much and enjoyed reading. This is the story of the cosmic background radiation, the ‘afterglow’ of
Afterglow of Creation Read More »
Many people now find the old creeds unconvincing, and are increasingly turning to naturalistic explanations of their world. At significant moments in their lives, such as weddings and funeral services, many opt for a humanist ceremony (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/increasingly-popular-humanist-weddings-to-overtake-church-of-scotland-ceremonies-within-two-years-8581924.html). What, then, of the intellectual underpinnings of this shift in understanding? James Thrower’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thrower) concise account of atheism
Western Atheism by James Thrower Read More »
Some years ago, one began to hear people say ‘too much information’. Additionally one’s state of awareness on any matter was confined on a ‘need to know’ basis. Both phrases acknowledge that the totality of human knowledge (especially specialist scientific knowledge) so vastly exceeds any one mind’s capacity to absorb it that the hapless individual
Too Much to Know by Ann M. Blair Read More »
