Week 9, Gene Expression Book Club, Autumn In The Heavenly Kingdom
The armies of the Taiping and Imperial forces race to and fro, to and fro. To say that this part of the narrative does not feel linear to me is […]
Week 8, Gene Expression Book Club – Not Born Yesterday
Hitler was a follower, not a leader. That’s the primary message of chapter 8. I find many of the arguments in this chapter about how demagogues and prophets persuade and […]
Week 7, Gene Expression Book Club – Not Born Yesterday
A major argument in Not Born Yesterday is that humans are more rational on an individual level than you think. It’s kind of an inversion of books that came out […]
Week 6, Gene Expression Book Club – Not Born Yesterday
“Who To Trust?” That’s the title of chapter 6 of Not Born Yesterday, and this has a very Robert Triver’s vibe (e.g., his book The Folly of Fools: The Logic […]
Week 5, Gene Expression Book Club – Not Born Yesterday
James Surowiecki’s Wisdom of the Crowds came out in 2005. The basic insight is groups of people are often much more accurate than individuals. Not Born Yesterday accepts this finding, […]
Week 8, Gene Expression Book Club, Autumn In The Heavenly Kingdom
The summer palace of the Chinese emperor is burned down, and all of Europe is outraged! Well, perhaps not all of Europe, but the most surprising aspect of this chapter […]
Week 4, Gene Expression Book Club – Not Born Yesterday
Chapter 4 of Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe is titled “What to Believe.” You could retitle it “Let’s get Bayesian.” The author […]
Week 3, Gene Expression book club
Readers have been complaining about Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. The issue is that there’s no “there, there.” The author hasn’t really […]
Week 2, Gene Expression book club
The second chapter of Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe is short. Much of it is re-warmed evolutionary biology, with a focus on […]
Week 1, Gene Expression book club
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe starts rather quickly and succinctly out of the great. The author reviews the extant literature and folk […]
Gene Expression Book Club – it’s off!
So I’ve started reading the two books we selected: – Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War – Not Born […]