NYT article on genes 10 Nov 2008 Here, by the incredibly young, handsome and way too successful Carl Zimmer, late of the Seed stable. Carl brings to mind my favourite Truman Capote saying: It is not enough to succeed. Friends must be seen to have failed. Anyway, go read the bastard’s excellent essay. I will just sit here in my pool of failure. Evolution General Science Humor
Education Interdisciplinarity never works 18 Jun 2010 Wait until the psych students convince the physics students that they are just hallucinating their pendulums. The the philosophy students will show them all that it’s just a matter of an error in language and they can all go about getting on with their oof!… where did that come from? Read More
Humor My life as a book 8 Oct 2010 Here’s a page [H/T @BoraZ] that suggests we do personal development and therapy by imagining our lives as books. Oh, yeah, I can see it now: Chapter 1: In which I learned geek stuff Chapter 2: In which I used geek stuff to get money, and raised little geeks Chapter… Read More
Epistemology Science is not a religion, nor does it involve faith 15 Nov 201115 Nov 2011 Suppose you had a friend who saw the world in terms solely of his football team. If you are discussing politics, he refers to the boardroom of the team; if you are talking morality, the on-field ethics of his favourites stars. Now you start to talk about science, and he… Read More
It’s a decent review of the past 50 years of genetics for the lay person. I think that’s why Zimmer is so successful; he conveys mind numbing quantities of science into something readable for the average individual with little background in science. In any event, I know most of that, and I’m a bit upset that he didn’t go more in depth with how untranslated regions within an a sequence function (like operators), but it was still a decent place to send people for a very general overview.
It’s a decent review of the past 50 years of genetics for the lay person. I think that’s why Zimmer is so successful; he conveys mind numbing quantities of science into something readable for the average individual with little background in science. In any event, I know most of that, and I’m a bit upset that he didn’t go more in depth with how untranslated regions within an a sequence function (like operators), but it was still a decent place to send people for a very general overview.
For a layman like me, it’s a great piece of work. One of the difficulties a non-specialist faces in keeping up with the field is that it changes so quickly, and new discoveries keep happening. That’s why I started reading Scienceblogs. Zimmer is indeed absurdly talented. But reading him was what led me to other fascinating blogs like this one. (Fishing for compliments, John?)
For a layman like me, it’s a great piece of work. One of the difficulties a non-specialist faces in keeping up with the field is that it changes so quickly, and new discoveries keep happening. That’s why I started reading Scienceblogs. Zimmer is indeed absurdly talented. But reading him was what led me to other fascinating blogs like this one. (Fishing for compliments, John?)