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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: FRANS DE WAAL

Primatologist Frans de Waal sees widespread evidence for fellow-feeling in other species and in our own biological heritage. "Empathy and solidarity are bred into us," he writes, "so that our society’s design ought to reflect this side of the human species, too." Read the full interview.

SCIENTISTS' NIGHTSTAND: CLIFFORD A. PICKOVER

As a popular-science author himself, Clifford Pickover admires the exhaustive range of Isaac Asimov. "Asimov wrote more than 400 books and is the only author with a book included in every major Dewey-decimal category," he says. "I sit in awe of him." Review Pickover's recent reading and recommendations.

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Physics and Pixie Dust
A review of Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World, by Eugenie Samuel Reich. Reich's exploration of the scientific frauds perpetrated by Jan Hendrik Schön, a researcher at Bell Laboratories, is impressive and sobering, says Kaiser
David Kaiser

Despicable, Yes, but Not Inexplicable
A review of Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans: An Evolutionary Perspective on Male Aggression Against Females, edited by Martin N. Muller and Richard W. Wrangham. “Sexually coercive males are not just attempting to have sex with particular females,” says Stanford; “they’re trying to control female sexuality in general”
Craig Stanford

Dr. Strange
A review of The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom, by Graham Farmelo. In Farmelo’s hands, the story of Dirac’s contributions to modern theoretical physics is both gripping and illuminating, says Gordin; the author captures the beauty and ambition of Dirac’s view of physics and sorts through the mythology that has grown up around him as a result of the many anecdotes that circulate about his oddity
Michael D. Gordin

Twilight of the Efficient Markets
A review of The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street, by Justin Fox. The theory of efficient markets in finance should be relegated to the Museum of Nice Tries, says Shalizi; he praises Fox’s book recounting its history, calling it “a model of what the popularization of social science can be, but too rarely is”
Cosma Shalizi

Runaway Change
A review of Critical Transitions in Nature and Society, by Marten Scheffer. Like canoes, natural systems have tipping points, argues Scheffer; once a hard-to-recognize threshold is exceeded, runaway change can occur that is difficult to reverse—a relatively wet area can turn to desert, a heavily wooded area can become a savanna. Could the integrated study of complex systems give us the insight to predict and control such shifts?
John R. McNeill

A Thin Broth
A review of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Mooney and Kirshenbaum offer a media-centric diagnosis of the problem of scientific illiteracy, says Miller, and they see improvements to science journalism rather than improvements to the educational system as the solution
Jon D. Miller

The Loitering Presence of the Rational ­Actor
A review of The Bounds of Reason: Game Theory and the Unification of the Behavioral Sciences, by Herbert Gintis. Empirical findings have necessitated that game theorists modify their assumption that players are rational—that they can figure out the payoff of all possible moves and choose the most favorable one. Gintis wrestles with findings that contradict conventional rationality assumptions, but his attempts to explain those findings are not entirely satisfactory, according to Sigmund, who is disappointed that Gintis allows only a marginal role for evolutionary game theory
Karl Sigmund

Viva Voce
A review of Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, by Greg Milner. Milner, who has considerable technical expertise, takes a dour view of the state of the recording industry, deploring in particular the pursuit of loudness at any cost that has led to a compression of dynamic range
Brian Hayes

Shorter takes on four books
Reviews of Fresh Pond, No Impact Man, In Search of Jefferson’s Moose and The Stuff of Life

OFF THE SHELF

In the Barnes and Noble Review: a review by A. C. Grayling of The Strangest Man; a review by James Parker of Perfecting Sound Forever; and an essay by Daniel Menaker diagnosing the crisis in book publishing.

Jerry Coyne reviewed Unscientific America for Science; nonsubscribers can access the review from a link on this page.

In the New York Review of Books, Freeman Dyson reviews The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, and Lawrence Weschler talks about David Hockney’s new hobby: painting on his iPhone with the Brush application.

In The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert reviews Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man, and The Book Bench blog links to a trailer for the documentary about Beavan’s project; Jill Lepore reviews Matthew Stewart’s new book about the science of ordering people around—The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting It Wrong; and James Wood discusses the scientific fictions of Richard Powers. At the New York Times site, you can read an excerpt from Powers’s latest book, Generosity.

The special 300th edition of Edge is about Darwin in Chile and includes presentations by, among others, Daniel C. Dennett, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley.

In the Times Literary Supplement, James McConnachie reviews Richard Wrangham’s Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.

In the New York Times, Dwight Garner reviews The Hidden Life of Deer, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas; the Times also offers an excerpt from the book. Also in the Times, Randall Stross wonders whether, with e-books going mainstream, books will be “Napsterized.”

In the Guardian, Kim Stanley Robinson complains about the ghettoization of science fiction.

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