Originally posted by heyelander
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I'm looking for good books to read. Suggestions?
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Originally posted by Midnight Otter View Post"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
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Originally posted by johnnya24 View PostI don't often recommend books, but this was a massive eye opener.
THE VITAL QUESTION, by Nick Lane
Wiki Link"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
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Originally posted by johnnya24 View PostI don't often recommend books, but this was a massive eye opener.
THE VITAL QUESTION, by Nick Lane
Wiki Link
1.0 out of 5 starsSpeculation presented as fact.
ByEdward N. Bassetton February 23, 2017
Format: MP3 CD
This book was a gift and so I felt compelled to read it. What a shame that Nick Lane bought into other scientists' speculative notions. His book, Life Ascending, is actually pretty good. The "vital question" focuses on the origin of metabolism and the first eukaryotic cell. The author posits that all eukaryotes descended from one single cell. This is an absurd hypothesis suffering from a dearth of evidence. Mitochondria vary in form and function, and not all eukaryotes have mitochondria (anaerobes simply don't need mitochondria). Of course, Lane and his muses will respond that the original mitochondrion evolved to some other functions. That's clutching at straws. The ancestral bacterium of most mitochondria is practically a dead match with an alpha proteobacterium in the Rickettsia group. (Just as the ancestor of chloroplasts is a dead match with extant cyanobacteria.) Furthermore, the evidence for some archeon being the ancestor of the nucleus is severely lacking, as we have no (none, zero) extant organisms on the planet to support such speculation. Lane is channelling Martin and Russell in this book, which was published without the peer review vetting that would be required of a "real" scientific thesis. Furthermore, how can one pretend to explain the origin of life or eukaryotes without even dealing with the evolution of information processing. This book is bad on so many fronts."I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
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Originally posted by Mithrandir View PostThis dude thinks the book sucks:
1.0 out of 5 starsSpeculation presented as fact.
ByEdward N. Bassetton February 23, 2017
Format: MP3 CD
This book was a gift and so I felt compelled to read it. What a shame that Nick Lane bought into other scientists' speculative notions. His book, Life Ascending, is actually pretty good. The "vital question" focuses on the origin of metabolism and the first eukaryotic cell. The author posits that all eukaryotes descended from one single cell. This is an absurd hypothesis suffering from a dearth of evidence. Mitochondria vary in form and function, and not all eukaryotes have mitochondria (anaerobes simply don't need mitochondria). Of course, Lane and his muses will respond that the original mitochondrion evolved to some other functions. That's clutching at straws. The ancestral bacterium of most mitochondria is practically a dead match with an alpha proteobacterium in the Rickettsia group. (Just as the ancestor of chloroplasts is a dead match with extant cyanobacteria.) Furthermore, the evidence for some archeon being the ancestor of the nucleus is severely lacking, as we have no (none, zero) extant organisms on the planet to support such speculation. Lane is channelling Martin and Russell in this book, which was published without the peer review vetting that would be required of a "real" scientific thesis. Furthermore, how can one pretend to explain the origin of life or eukaryotes without even dealing with the evolution of information processing. This book is bad on so many fronts.
This guy sounds like his world is about to fall in ...
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Originally posted by Mithrandir View PostThis book was a gift and so I felt compelled to read it. What a shame that Nick Lane bought into other scientists' speculative notions. His book, Life Ascending, is actually pretty good. The "vital question" focuses on the origin of metabolism and the first eukaryotic cell. The author posits that all eukaryotes descended from one single cell. This is an absurd hypothesis suffering from a dearth of evidence. Mitochondria vary in form and function, and not all eukaryotes have mitochondria (anaerobes simply don't need mitochondria). Of course, Lane and his muses will respond that the original mitochondrion evolved to some other functions. That's clutching at straws. The ancestral bacterium of most mitochondria is practically a dead match with an alpha proteobacterium in the Rickettsia group. (Just as the ancestor of chloroplasts is a dead match with extant cyanobacteria.) Furthermore, the evidence for some archeon being the ancestor of the nucleus is severely lacking, as we have no (none, zero) extant organisms on the planet to support such speculation. Lane is channelling Martin and Russell in this book, which was published without the peer review vetting that would be required of a "real" scientific thesis. Furthermore, how can one pretend to explain the origin of life or eukaryotes without even dealing with the evolution of information processing. This book is bad on so many fronts.--------------------------------------
You know a girl in a hat is just so…vogue.
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Reading White Fragility: Why it's so hard for White people to talk about racism.. Very insightful read.If DMT didn't exist we would have to invent it. There has to be a weirdest thing. Once we have the concept weird, there has to be a weirdest thing. And DMT is simply it.
- Terence McKenna
Bullshit is everywhere. - George Carlin (& Jon Stewart)
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are? - Satchel Paige
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Best books I've read in the last couple of years were:
Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough
The Liberation Trilogy (3 books: An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, & The Guns at Last Light) by Rick Atkinson
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fiction or non-fiction, novels or short stories or essays?
For example, I've recently enjoyed reading several of the "Best American" series. There are a bunch that come out every year, best american sports writing, best american science and nature writing, best american travel writing, you get the idea......all available at your public library!"You know what's wrong with America? If I lovingly tongue a woman's nipple in a movie, it gets an "NC-17" rating, if I chop it off with a machete, it's an "R". That's what's wrong with America, man...."--Dennis Hopper
"One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real." -- Klaus Kinski
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