New Books in Science

Dr. Peter Hotez is a pediatrician-scientist who develops vaccines for neglected tropical diseases affecting the worlds poor. He is also the father of a daughter who was diagnosed with autism. The alleged link between vaccines and autism has long been disproven, but it is still a belief held onto by the anti-vaccine movement. This puts Dr. Hotez in a particularly powerful position to speak out.As the anti-vaccine movement grows and vaccine-preventable diseases continue to spread due to the misinformation spread by the movement, Dr. Hotez is on a mission to spread the truth. In the book Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), Dr. Hotez uses his knowledge of vaccine science and experiences as a parent of a child with autism to dispel the dangerous myths the ani-vaccine movement spread.This deeply personal and passionate book is a must read for any parent who is vaccine hesitant, parents of a child with autism, as well as health and science policy experts.Jeremy Corr is the co-host of the hit Fixing Healthcare podcast along with industry thought leader Dr. Robert Pearl. A University of Iowa history alumnus, Jeremy is curious and passionate about all things healthcare, which means he’s always up for a good discussion! Reach him at jeremyccorr@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press’s series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.”Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator.Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science.Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

With Paris as the organizing locus of his new book, Du moyen âge à nos jours, expériences et représentations de la folie à Paris [From the Middle Ages to Today, Experiences and Representations of Madness in Paris], Benoît Majerus uses an impressively wide range of visual sources, from religious images and architectural photographs to neuroleptic advertisements and administrative maps. These images are integrated into the text and function not only as illustrations, but also as images with their own story to tell.  Majerus’ narrative arc follows the twists and turns of madness in a city long associated with mental pathogens and their cures and reveals how the history of psychiatry can be told differently through the lens of visual culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Much of the debate about the roles of nature vs. nurture in the development of individual people has settled into accepting that it's a bit of both, although what each contributes to a given trait or feature, how much, and they interact are still matters of dispute. In What's Left of Human Nature? A Post-Essentialist, Pluralist, and Interactive Account of a Contested Concept(MIT Press, 2018), Maria Kronfeldner critically examines instead the 'nature' side of this dichotomy: what exactly is a human "nature"? Is it some kind of fixed human essence, a statistical norm, a normative ideal of how a human being ought to be? Kronfeldner, who is an associate professor of philosophy at Central European University in Budapest, argues against an essentialist view of nature, and replaces it with three concepts – descriptive, classificatory, and explanatory natures – that can do the various jobs that we want a "nature" concept to do without contributing to dehumanization, as the essentialist concept frequently has. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Of the many barriers to a more robust presence for systems approaches in the academy, the relative scarcity of sufficient introductory textbooks in the field stands out as a particular irritant.  In the decades since the publication of von Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory in 1968, a vast agglomeration of conceptual frameworks and methodological heuristics in the study of systemic phenomena has continued to accrue while the facilitation of entry points to the field combining both accessibility and thoroughness have largely failed to keep pace.  George E. Mobus and Michael C. Kalton have leapt bravely into that breach with their co-authored volume, Principles of Systems Science (Springer Verlag, 2015).  As the title indicates, Mobus and Kalton are firmly focused upon an approach to systems grounded in the traditional scientific method and, while by no means objective realists of any remotely naïve sort, their project most definitely leans towards more positivistic approaches to the study of systemic phenomena; clearly separating their work from the wider, and arguably “softer” field of Systems “Thinking”.  Leaning on Herbert Simon’s notion of the near-decomposability of hierarchical systems as well as the computational accounts of contemporary cognitive science, the book’s 700 plus pages are carefully and thoughtfully structured to guide the reader through an array of crucial systemic topics including notions of system boundary, dynamics, emergence, complexity and adaptation.  Of particular note is the thorough and rigorous treatment cybernetics receives within the overall scope of the systems sciences; something that makes this book something of a bridge builder between two fields with blurry boundaries between them that, too often, seem to jockey for the historical high-ground and supreme position of being “meta” to each other.  While clearly keeping cybernetics within the wider conceptual margins of Systems Science, the central role that it is given to the very notion of what constitutes a system is sure to satisfy many who straddle both sides of the debate but consider cybernetics their disciplinary, intellectual, and ethical home.  Carefully balancing scope with detail, this sweeping work of diligent scholarship does much to provide the kind of foundational textbook of which upper-level undergraduate and graduate students have long been in need. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Migraine headaches can be absolutely devastating. In the book Navigating Life with Migraine and Other Headaches (Oxford University Press, 2018), William B. Young and Stephen D. Silberstein  set out to dispel the myths around migraine headaches. Young and Silberstein define what exactly a migraine headache is and what sets it apart from other headaches. They also dives into the various causes and explanations on how they occur.This book is an excellent resource for people who suffer from migraine headaches and their family. Advice is given on how to manage these headaches, how to optimize doctor visits, and even when to go to the emergency department.Jeremy Corr is the co-host of the hit Fixing Healthcare podcast along with industry thought leader Dr. Robert Pearl. A University of Iowa history alumnus, Jeremy is curious and passionate about all things healthcare, which means he’s always up for a good discussion! Reach him at jeremyccorr@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Is alternative medicine quackery? In the book Do You Believe in Magic? Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural: A Look Behind the Curtain (Harper, 2014) (Harper Paperbacks, 2014),Paul A. Offit explores the legitimacy of the alternative medicine industry. In this book exposes some of the most popular therapies and how ineffective, expensive, and even deadly they are.Dr. Offit investigates why this industry is unregulated and why so many people buy into alternative therapies that have no concrete evidence of working. He also explains the placebo effect and how some non-traditional methods can provide some good for patients. In the book Dr. Offit advises “There is no such thing as alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”Jeremy Corr is the co-host of the hit Fixing Healthcare podcast along with industry thought leader Dr. Robert Pearl. A University of Iowa history alumnus, Jeremy is curious and passionate about all things healthcare, which means he’s always up for a good discussion! Reach him at jeremyccorr@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

In this episode, cross-posted from from the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock, Dr. Yael Schonbrun takes a dive into evolutionary psychology with professor and author, Dr. Steve Stewart-Williams. Steve’s recent book, The Ape That Understood the Universe: How Mind and Culture Evolve (Cambridge University Press, 2018) offers an opportunity to step away from our held understanding of human nature by taking on the alien perspective. Steve’s vast knowledge and wonderful sense of humor will give you new perspectives on emotions and drives, and new ideas to guide values and behaviors. This interview explores such topics as:How Knowledge Of Our “Human Design” Can Help Us To Make Better Choices In Our Everyday LivesHow And Why Men And Women Differ In Our Desire For Casual Sex, Our Preferences In Partners, And In Our Preferred Levels Of Parental InvestmentHow Knowing That We Are Not Blank Slates Can Empower Us To Be More Effective In Building Value-Driven LivesSteve Stewart-Williams is an associate professor of psychology at Nottingham University, Malaysia Campus. His research explores how evolutionary biology can offer insights into the human mind and human behavior and he focuses, in particular, on sex differences and altruism. Steve has written two books, most recently The Ape That Understood the Universe. Go to Steve’s university website or personal website to find out more about his work.Dr. Yael Schonbrun is a clinical psychologist in private practice, an assistant professor at Brown University, and a co-host of the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

A fundamental problem in science, and in philosophy of science, is that of theory choice. Scientists propose theories to explain data, but when two scientific theories can both explain the same data, what criteria do scientists use to choose between them? And given that even very popular scientific theories can turn out to be wrong, how are the criteria for theory choice related to truth? Do scientists even aim at true theories, as realists hold, or, as anti-realists hold, do they just care that the theories can explain what's observed? In Theoretical Virtues in Science: Uncovering Reality Through Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Samuel Schindler lays out an extended case for realism based on a close critical look at the main virtues that scientific theories are thought to aim for besides empirical adequacy, such as simplicity, explanatory scope, and fruitfulness. On Schindler's view, the extra-empirical virtues are also epistemic: for example, a simpler theory is also more likely to be true, and so scientists are epistemically justified in choosing a simpler theory over an empirically adequate but more complicated rival. Schindler, who is associate professor at the Centre for Science Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark provides an excellent discussion of the theoretical virtues themselves, their roles in actual theory choices, and their roles in realist-anti-realist debates about the nature of scientific theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century (Verso, 2017) introduce readers to important work in Anglophone cultural studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, media theory, speculative realism, science studies, Italian and French workerist and autonomist thought, two “imaginative readings of Marx,” and two “unique takes on the body politic.” There are significant implications of these ideas for how we live and work at the contemporary university, and we discussed some of those in our conversation. This is a great book to read and to teach with! Carla Nappi is the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh. You can learn more about her and her work here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science