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Ladataan... A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. HaldaneTekijä: Samanth Subramanian
Ladataan...
Kirjaudu LibraryThingiin nähdäksesi, pidätkö tästä kirjasta vai et. Ei tämänhetkisiä Keskustelu-viestiketjuja tästä kirjasta. This was an absolutely wonderful book about an absolutely fascinating man. Subramanian does a great job of capturing Haldane's early influences, especially that of his father, and how they led him to the life of science and politics that he led. His curmugdeonly traits are here, of course, but they're presented kindly. Most of all, Haldane's relentless restless curiosity comes through. The science in the book is very well reported -- clear for a lay audience, and accurate in the details of those fields I understand, so that I trust the details in those I don't. Subramanian must be a competent communicator of science himself, besides being a good biographer. Haldane's marriages, his politics, his late love affair with India, and his shifting commitment to Communism and socialism over the course of his life were news to me. What I mostly knew about him was his extravagant experiments on his own body, in pursuit of the biological sciences. Those stories are here too, of course. The book led me to re-read a number of Haldane's papers ("On Being the Right Size" is so good!), and reinforced my wish that I'd been able to meet the man. The maths of population genetics interested me since my undergraduate days in the 1980's and the contributions of Haldane seemed central to their development. His professional and personal life make for a fascinating read. His commitment to the scientific method is admirable, although, in his unadulterated formulation, may have lead down some unproductive political and personal paths. I've come to admire his holding to principles despite their consequences. You'll have to turn to other sources for a thorough review of his science, but this book does provide a serviceable sketch. I found this book fascinating, well written, and well organized. As a scientist working in genetics, I was already familiar with Haldane's foundational work. I found the additional information about his personality and non-professional life to be riveting and I look forward to using it as a lens to reexamine his work in the future. But I suspect many of the scientific details included in the book, particularly about theories of natural selection and population genetics (my own field), are more detailed than the average reader would prefer, and not explained in general enough terms for their full understanding. näyttää 4/4
Samanth Subramanian's biography of JBS Haldane, A Dominant Character (Atlantic), reveals another flawed and brilliant scientist. A geneticist who helped to define our understanding of evolutionary biology, Haldane was described by Arthur C Clarke as "the most brilliant scientific populariser of his generation", and by a student as "the last man who knew all there was to be known", but he also excused Stalin's attacks on scientists and science. The book shows how politics and science are often bound up together, and the dangers of allowing political principles to corrupt scientific ideas. It's deliciously full of danger, adventure and scandal. In lectures — which drew large crowds — and in pubs, Haldane tossed off important and futuristic ideas like firecrackers. He wrote a revolutionary paper that helped transform the way biologists think about the origin of life. His vision of what would become known as test-tube babies helped inspire Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” Haldane was a terrific writer in his own right. His political essays were “like razor blades in print,” Subramanian says.
"A biography of J. B. S. Haldane, the brilliant and eccentric British scientist whose innovative predictions inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. J. B. S. Haldane's life was rich and strange, never short on genius or drama-from his boyhood apprenticeship to his scientist father, who first instilled in him a devotion to the scientific method; to his time in the trenches during the First World War, where he wrote his first scientific paper; to his numerous experiments on himself, including inhaling dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and drinking hydrochloric acid; to his clandestine research for the British Admiralty during the Second World War. He is best remembered as a geneticist who revolutionized our understanding of evolution, but his peers hailed him as a polymath. One student called him "the last man who might know all there was to be known." He foresaw in vitro fertilization, peak oil, and the hydrogen fuel cell, and his contributions ranged over physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, mathematics, and biostatistics. He was also a staunch Communist, which led him to Spain during the Civil War and sparked suspicions that he was spying for the Soviets. He wrote copiously on science and politics in newspapers and magazines, and he gave speeches in town halls and on the radio-all of which made him, in his day, as famous in Britain as Einstein. It is the duty of scientists to think politically, Haldane believed, and he sought not simply to tell his readers what to think but to show them how to think. Beautifully written and richly detailed, Samanth Subramanian's A Dominant Character recounts Haldane's boisterous life and examines the questions he raised about the intersections of genetics and politics-questions that resonate even more urgently today"-- Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt. |
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Google Books — Ladataan... LajityypitMelvil Decimal System (DDC)570.92Natural sciences and mathematics Life Sciences, Biology Life Sciences History, geographic treatment, biography BiologistsKongressin kirjaston luokitusArvio (tähdet)Keskiarvo:
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"[..] science advances not with the linearity of a locomotive but with a muddled gait of a drunk: with zags and zigs, with stumbles and hesitations and backslides, even if the overall direction of progress is forward." -p61
"A flawed paper was, for Haldane, so uncommon that it stuck out in his career of publications like an untuned trumpet in an orchestra." - p206 ( )