The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

David Shenk has good news. Geniuses aren’t born, and very few of us have genetic limitation on our capacities.  Just to make sure you get it, his book is entitled The Genius in All of Us.

Shenk challenges the notion that genius, talent, and the potential to excel in a field is something a few people are born with, lucky people who hit the jackpot in the genetic lottery.  He is not entirely an advocate of nurture in the nature-versus-nurture debate.  He looks at new science that suggests that that is a false notion to begin with.  Traits, including intelligence, develop form the interaction of genes and the environment.

Genes are not a blueprint that determine out traits.  Genes influence our reaction to the environment.   The environment influences the expression of our genes.  It’s complex.  Shenk devote a chapter to epigenetics.  This is material in our cells that protect and support the function of our genes.  Our epigenes influence the expression of our genes, are influenced by the environment, and most astounding are hereditable.  Environmental and behavioral factors can change the epigenes in ways that are passed on to offspring for generations and affect the expression of genes in those offspring.

Unless we have some unusual genetic disorder, the lesson of this book is that our genes are just one card in the hand we are dealt, and genes are not necessarily the most important card.  Genes are important, but so are a lot of other things.  Our traits are malleable, shaped by genes, environment, and behavior, and to the degree that we can influence those things we can change our traits.  We can become geniuses.

The bad news is the road to genius is not an easy one.  Mozart and Michael Jordon have in common that they put in a lot of time over a many years deliberately practicing and improving their skills.  Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma may seem like born prodigies, but they were surrounded my music, music teachers, encouragement, challenges, competition, high expectations, and opportunities from birth.  Abundant practice and continuing improvement from early childhood helped them become very competent musicians as children, and many more years of deliberate practice, commitment, and mentoring resulted in the genius they exhibited as adults.

Based on this, Shenk presents a chapter on how to become a genius.  Genius may not be quite the right word, especially if you starting something later in life after years of thinking you had little ability.  However, I think his advice is likely to lead to great improvement, even above normal success and excellence.  The first piece of advice is to find your motivation.  If you have the motivation to devote a lot of time to practice, and the commitment push yourself to always seek improvement, you will get better and with time will be excellent.  Shenk also has a lot to say about how this information can help parents and educators see the potential in children and contribute to the development of their traits and their success in any field.

I was very impressed with this surprisingly short book.  Actually, if you include the extensive notes, which are worth reading, it is not a short book.  It opened my eyes to a new, and I think more fruitful, way of looking at the way people develop.

Shenk, David.  The Genius in All of Us:  Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetic, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong.  New York: Doubleday, 2010.

Google

Little Shifts by Suzanna Beth Stinnet

Stinnett, Suzanna Beth. Little Shifts: Tiny Shifts that Make a Big Difference. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2004.

Stinnett has a utopian vision. If the people of the world, particularly women, will unleash there imaginations, we can they can transform their lives and the entire world in the process.



Before reading this book, I asked someone else who had read it if it was New Age-y. They said not much. As I was starting to read it, they skimmed it again and said it was more New Age-y than they remembered. It is, but in a philosophical way. Stinnett doesn’t express her views in religious terms, but like many self-help authors, indicates that some powerful, abstract force is shaping our lives and the world we experience according to our own consistent thought. For Stinnett, this is imagination directly.

It’s not all about thinking. As the title indicates, Stinnett recommends many little things people can do to make themselves happier and healthier. She calls many of them radical steps. They are radical in the sense that few people take the time to do them and they could result in a change of perspective; they are still little things that ordinary people can do.

The main audience for the book is women. Stinnett feels that women’s views and perspectives have been underrepresented in our culture and as they begin to express themselves, they’ll bring a new dimension to society that can make it fuller, happier and more sustainable.

The book has an unexpected environmental message. A concern for the environment carries through the book and one chapter is largely devoted to things people can do to improve the environment. As with the rest of the book, the vision is grand and the steps are small, so the focus is on making little changes to the way we live, buy and use (and reuse) products that can reduce our negative effects on the environment.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

The Revenge of Analog by David Sax

The joke about visions of the future that never panned out is usually, “Where is my flying car?” The proliferation and promises of digital technology over the last two or three decade might prompt us to pose some other questions such as, “Where is my paperless office?”

In The Revenge of Analog, journalist David Sax discusses how analog technologies are sometimes thriving in the digital ages. Some are making comebacks. Some never went away. Some are growing more popular because of digital technology, not in spite of it.

Sax looks at a lot of analog technologies. This includes vinyl records, paper and pen, tabletop games, books and brick-and-mortar stores.

Some of these have very interesting histories in how they have fallen, risen and interacted with digital technology. What I found most interesting in the book is the reasons analog persists. It is usually because it brings something that digital technology leaves out.

For instance, analog technology appeals to the senses. I know a lot of bibliophiles who love the smell of books, though it would not seem to be a pertinent feature. The IRL space is simply much richer that even the most detailed virtual space.

 “There’s never going to be a virtual environment as completely engaging as the physical environment is,” computer game designer Bernie De Koven quoted in The Revenge of Analog

Analog is usually slow. Generally, a strength of digital is that it is almost always faster. We don’t always want fast. Sometime the slower pace, the pauses, helps us to take things in and savor them. For instance, when you listen to a vinyl record, you can’t skip songs at the touch of a button, you have to lift the needle and move it or even change records. You can’t listen to any songs you have in random order, but you have to listen to song on a single album in the order the artist or producer arranged them unless you introduce a lot of pauses as you interact with the discs and player.

Analog is limited. The digital world can be so rich with information and choices that it can be overwhelming. Paper and pen limits the size, colors and effects you can produce. These limitations help us hone in on the main issues quickly and get moving.

“People think limitations are bad things. But it moves the process forward, in a good way. You can easily get lost in the process. It’s easier to stick to a plan when you have limitations,” analog recording studio owner Chris Mara quoted in The Revenge of Analog

In the real realm of communication, analog is more intimate that digital. The ultimate analog communication is a face-to-face conversation, mediated by nothing but the air in between two people. We send off a lot of nonverbal signals when we speak, and we sense these signals from others, which gives us a more rich and nuanced understanding of what is said (and unsaid) than we can get from a text message or even over Skype or Facetime.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Sax, David. The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter. New York: PublicAffairs, 2016.

Elixir by Brian Fagan (245)

Fagan, Brian.  Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2011.

Unlike other authors of books about water, Brian Fagan in Elixir gives much more attention to the culture, as one might expect of an anthropologist.  In most of the cultures he discusses in his book, water is closely associated with ritual, often considered sacred.  Fagan’s interested in the human relationship with water goes beyond ritual and religion and includes politics and technology.

Fagan describes three phases of the human relationship with water.  In the first stage, water is an unreliable, often scarce, and highly valued resource.  This value is reflected in the careful management, ritual, and even sacred reverence of water.  In the second stage, from the Industrial Revolution to our own day, water is a commodity, little considered and treated as if it were superabundant.  In the emerging stage, water is a finite resource we need to conserve.

*

Most of the book is covers the first stage.  He discusses the historic relationship and management of water from around the world.  Some of these were famous for their extensive management of water, sometimes with equally extensive infrastructure, such as the Egyptian and Romans.  Others are lesser known, like the highly ritualistic and religious Balinese system that is still operating.  Some we know relatively little about in spite of their antiquity, such as the pre-Columbian Mayan and Andean cultures.

Because of this approach, Elixir is also a work of cultural and physical geography.  The reader can, in imagination, travel the world and see how civilizations are shaped by the sometimes harsh realities of the environment and how humans shape their environment.

The commodity stage is covered much more briefly.  To be fair, it is only a few hundred years old.  It is our age, when technology has allowed us to reach ever more difficult and remote sources of water.  Even in the industrial era, not everyplace has had truly abundant water.  Fagan points to arid and semiarid regions of Africa and Asia as locations poised on exhausting their water.  This is an issue in the United States, too, especially in the southwest, where politics and unrealistic optimism have trumped wisdom and reality for more than a century.

For the stage we are entering, the issue becomes conservation and sustainability.  Acknowledging that we are using our fresh water supply faster than it is regenerated, especially in some parts of the world, and making changes to our practices an technology, will require another cultural shift if we are to have sustainable water supplies.

When it comes to sustainability, I was surprised how much faith Fagan expressed in technology and human ingenuity.  Even so, he implies that we should look to our past.

In the early stage of our relationship with water, we valued it, even reverenced it, immensely.  It is time to place a high value on water again, even without religious aspects.  Also, in the past water management was a very local affair, and surprisingly democratic.  Though few of the governments Fagan discusses were democracies, they had mechanisms for hearing and considering the needs of everyone in the community.  Even in empires with powerful central governments that built and managed extensive waterworks, community-based water management operated alongside, and often it was the food surpluses of these local, village-managed operations that made empire-building possible.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Water by Marq de Villiers

Water by Steven Solomon

When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce

Google

What's New May 1, 2009

50 Book Reviews Posted on Keenan’s Book Reviews
The Alma Mater
Alternative Fuels and Energy Resources Articles and Links (Updated)
Federal Infrastructure & Environment Nominees Announced
House Passes National Water Research and Development Initiative Act
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
Interesting Stuff May 1, 2009
Kansas City Launches Infrastructure Blog
Missouri Water Resources News
More Federal Environment & Infrastructure Nominees Announced
My Googleganger is still going: http://twitter.com/keenanpatterson, Keenan Patterson
National Water Research & Development Initiative Reported Out of House Committee
New profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/keenan.b.patterson
Pharmaceuticals in Water (Updated)
Smart Grid Program Announced
What I Read (2)
What's New April 17, 2009

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Modern life presents us with too much stuff and too much information to deal with. In The Organized Mind, psychologist Daniel J. Levitin explains how we can work with our mind, instead of against it, to handle information and make better decisions.

Attention is the critical resources for taking in information, making good decisions, and forming memories. The difficulty is that we only have so much attention to go around. Our attentional systems work to make us unconsciously ignore many of the signals that come our way; we would be overwhelmed if they did not. Our built in systems pay attention to change or to things that seem important. Our natural state is to have a wandering mind, broadly attentive to the environment, screening out the stable and safe, occasionally zooming in on something novel or critical.

We can also use the executive functions of our mind to focus attention where we want it. This can consume a lot of energy, but we can do it very effectively, sometimes focusing to the point where we lose track over everything else.

Both forms of attention have their strengths and limitations. In addition, it is costly to our attention bank to switch between modes or to switch focus from one subject to another. The load of information that we have to deal with can exhaust our attentional system, leading to inattention, poor memory, and bad decisions.

Levitin offers solutions to alleviate these problems and work with the strengths of our brains. The primary suggestion is to offload as much information as possible to the environment. The less we have to remember, and the fewer minor decisions we have to make, the better off we’ll be. Highly successful people use systems of habits, calendars, filing, labels, and standards to minimize the amount of information they have to carry in their memories. It is often not so important to know something as it is to be able to find it when you need it.

A related concept is to use categories and chunk up information. Our minds do this naturally. For instance, we typically don’t remember a telephone number as seven digits, but as two chunks of digits. We can apply a chunking strategy by breaking large jobs into doable tasks, or be grouping related tasks together. We can create scenes or stories in our mind (we do it anyway) to connect a string of events. Sleep seems to be important our natural chunking process, consolidating memories, connecting new information to old, and formulating new concepts.

Levitin presents many tools to organize information and things to make it easier on our brains. In my opinion, one of the most helpful tools is the fourfold table. This is a simple method to organize statistical information and assess the probabilities of certain outcomes. We have horrible intuition for understanding probabilities and assessing risks. Even people trained in statistics typically get probabilities wrong when they guess. The fourfold table, which Levitin describes in some detail with examples, allows one to break down the numbers and evaluate the most relevant probabilities.

The Organized Mind is not a how-to manual, though it has many strategies for organizing based on how the brain works. Levitin discusses the structure and function of parts of the brain, but is not excessively technical. A reader could skim these sections without too much loss. A reader could also focus on a particular aspect of organizing (business, time, and even social life) based on the way the book is organized, though the first few chapters have a lot of information that is background for the other sections.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

The Thinking Life by P. M. Forni

Levitin, Daniel J. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in an Age of Information Overload. New York: Dutton, 2014.

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

Higher intelligence is linked to higher achievement. The demands of our world and culture are calling for higher achievement to address increasingly complex problems. As individuals and societies, we should strive to increase intelligence, which is possible, to arm ourselves to overcome these challenges. This is the opinion advanced by education professor Martin E. Martinez in his book Future Bright.

Martinez builds his case by starting with the link between intelligence and achievement. He cites studies that indicate that in school, work, and personal life, achievement is positively correlated to intelligence.

He moves on to describe what intelligence is, drawing on historic and current theories and research. A significant portion of the book is devoted to defining and understanding intelligence. The prevailing model is hierarchical. A single general intelligence is linked to achievement in all areas. There are also different types of intelligence that are linked to success in clusters of specific skills. Intelligence is affected by both genetics and the environment, and by both individual and cultural factors. If you are looking for a primer on intelligence that covers a lot of ground relatively briefly, you can find it in these chapters.

The hope that Martinez offers is that intelligence is, in part, learned, and it can be increased. Two major types of intelligence, most strongly related to general intelligence, are fluid and crystalline intelligence. Fluid intelligence is related to successfully dealing with novel situations. The heart of fluid intelligence is problem solving.  Crystalline intelligence is structured knowledge, such as is attained from formal education. It is not merely an accumulation of facts; it is an organized mental repository of useful information. The primary skill for crystalline intelligence is critical thinking, the ability distinguish credible, worthy, and useful ideas.

Problems solving and critical thinking are skills that can be learned and improved. Similarly, we can learn new information. By these means fluid and crystalline intelligence, and with them general intelligence, can be increased.

Intelligence is not the only determinant of success, for many intelligent people are not successful. Another important factor is what Martinez call “effective character.” These are personality traits that Martinez suggests can be learned or improved in most people. The critical trait is conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is associated with setting and pursuing goals, working with diligence, and seeking excellence.

Martinez offers several strategies for increasing intelligence. One that is in keeping with the motivation behind this blog is to increase crystalline intelligence (structured knowledge) by reading books. A work as long a book must be structured well to be coherent from beginning to end. In addition, effective written communication presents ideas in a manner that lends itself to analysis by critical thinking. Nonfiction books are especially useful for cultivating crystalline intelligence.

Though the strategies are aimed at the individual, he discusses how some of them are adaptable to parenting and schools. Because Martinez in the early chapters suggests societal benefits to higher intelligence, it makes sense that his book would also include suggestions for policy and cultural adaptions.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

How to Build an Android by David F. Dufty

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

No Excuses by Brian Tracy

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Martinez, Martin E. Future Bright: A Transforming Vision of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

What's New June 3, 2009

Another National Infrastructure Bank Bill Proposed
Energy Appointments Confirmed
Federal Nominees for Infrastructure and Environment Posts Announced
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
Interesting Stuff June 3, 2009
Missouri Plans for SRF Funds from the Recovery Act
Pharmaceuticals in Water (Updated)
Progress report
What I Read (4)
What's New May 16, 2009

New & Interesting Stuff Feb. 21, 2016

Bill Gates is backing a waterless toilet that could revolutionize global sanitation

Consider Year-Round Daylight Savings Time

Federal facilities won't accept Missouri driver's licenses as IDs after Jan. 10

I chose the wrong profession

Infrastructure & Environment Review

Life's Matrix by Philip Ball

Liquid Assets

New & Interesting Stuff Dec. 13, 2015

Ozzie Smith & John Goodman Named Missouri Squires

Transportation and Engineering News

Waste and Want by Susan Strasser

Water News

The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw

McGraw, Phil. The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Psychologist Phil McGraw, television’s Dr. Phil, began to build his national reputation as a jury consultant for Oprah Winfrey when she was sued for statements she made about beef. It turned out his psychological practice was broader than reading potential jurors, and included weight management. McGraw has laid out his approach to weight management in The Ultimate Weight Solution.

McGraw describes seven “keys” to weight management. They seem to cover every aspect of life that relates to food. They can be loosely divided into two categories.

The first category involves discovering and counteracting mental and emotional issues that drive or support become on staying overweight. There are many subtle ways people may be sabotaging their weight-loss efforts. Some may have psychological issues that may require professional help, but many can use McGraw’s strategies to change their thinking and use new ways of coping with emotions that are more consistent with good health.

The second category focuses on behavioral change. In general, the approach is to institute healthy behaviors that will supplant unhealthy habits. Each key contains specific actions one can take to make practical changes. These strategies touch on habits, environment and relationships.

McGraw devotes more ink to the behavioral part. Ultimately, if one is going to attain and maintain a healthy weight, one must behave in a way will result in it.

The overall philosophy is that people behave the way they do for reasons. They may not be consciously aware of those reasons. Those reasons might not make sense if they were evaluated rationally. Even so, in some way a person finds the advantages of their behavior to be greater than the disadvantages. Change involves reevaluating the payoffs and costs of old behaviors and implementing new behaviors that have more desirable and rational payoffs.



A secondary philosophy that comes through is that one shouldn’t rely exclusively on one strategy, or even just diet and exercise, and especially not willpower. The keys touch on thoughts, emotions, habits, relationships, environments, exercise and diet. The more supports you have, the more likely you are to succeed.

As you might expect from a book on weight management, there is also information on nutrition and exercise. Obviously, how much we eat, what we eat, and our level of physical activity is behaviors that greatly and directly affect our weight.

McGraw provides some brief explanations of the science behind his strategies, including a bibliography of the works to which he refers. The book is not very technical, though. It is a practical guide aimed at people seeking to control their weight, not a clinical manual or textbook.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

You Can, You Will by Joel Osteen

In You Can, You Will, megachurch pastor Joel Osteen discusses qualities of a winner. Actually, Osteen might say that you’re already a winner, you just need to start believing and acting one to see in come to fruition.

First, winners have a vision and they stay focused on in. A practical way that Osteen suggests to keep your vision before your eyes is to put things in your environment, like sayings or objects, that remind you of your vision.

Winners stay focused on their goals. In particular, they don’t get derailed by trying to please everyone or to please people who are never happy. They know the difference between being kind and generous and taking improper responsibility for the happiness of others.

Osteen encourages people to expect good things to happen. Reinforce this belief by actively remembering good things that have happened to you in the past.

Be positive intentionally. Do your best to enjoy whatever you can in your current situation, even while you hope and work for something better.

Winners strive for excellence. Do the best you can and look for ways to improve. Show your desire for excellence by taking care of yourself and your things.

Always be growing. If you’re not working to improve your abilities, you’ll get left behind. Besides, if you have big dreams, there are probably many things you need to learn and improve on your way to achieving them.

Make service a lifestyles. Try to make life actually better for actual people. As a bonus, you’ll have more satisfaction with life.

Finally, be enthusiastic. Stir up your passion. It’s easy to get bogged down and discouraged, so you have to intentionally maintain a good attitude that will carry you through rough times.

Mostly, this is standard self-help material. Osteen touches on a more deeply and fundamentally Christian topic in the chapter on serving others. The Bible repeatedly describes God as a helper of the poor, widowed, orphan and oppressed. He repeatedly expresses the pleasure he takes in His people when they help needy people.

Though he doesn’t devote a chapter too it, Osteen emphasizes the need to surround yourself with good people. You need to spend time with people who will challenge and encourage you. Spend as much time as you can with people you want to be like.

Joel Osteen also wrote I Declare.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. You Can, You Will: 8 Undeniable Qualities of a Winner. New York: Faith Words, 2014.

New & Interesting Stuff April 19,2012

12 “Christian” Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy by Henry Cloud & John Townsend

Alternative Fuels and Energy Resources Articles and Links (Updated)

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont & The Revenge of Kali-Ra by K. K. Beck

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

Bill Watch - 112th Congress (Updated with more bills related to infrastructure and the environment)

Colossians

EPA Announces Director for Gulf of Mexico Program

Fluoridation

God wants us to be constantly...rising to new heights

New & Interesting Stuff April 5, 2012

The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull

Ruth (229)

What's New Nov. 14, 2009

Action Packed (16)
Language and the Pursuit of Happiness by Chalmers Brothers
Missouri Environment & Infrastructure Roundup
November Featured Book
November Featured Category
What's New Halloween 2009 (It just happened to fall on a Saturday)

New & Interesting Stuff Halloween 2015

An Endless Sediment Story: The First Five Decades of the Canal de Marseille

Energy & Transportation Update

The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

400-year-old church re-emerges from beneath Mexican reservoir

The hydraulic telegraph of Aeneas – long-distance communication of antiquity

Infrastructure & Environment News

New & Interesting Stuff Sept. 20, 2015

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Professional Amateur by T. A. Boyd

New & Interesting Stuff February 15, 2012

3 economic misconceptions that need to die
Almost all good writign begins with terrible first efforts
Asteroid Vesta may hold vast water ice reserves
Bill Watch (Updated)
Bill Quickies (maybe not the best title)
Black History Month Links
Collapse of 19th-Century Sewer Closes Portland Street
Congress Debates Infrastructure, Jobs Bills
Disney comic strip artists kit
Ephesians
Golden Gate Bridge 75 Years Old
Highway Trust Fund Running Out of Money
Infrastructure & Environment Tweets
Infrastructurist Blog Closes
Life is So Good by George Dawson & Richard Glaubman
New & Interesting Stuff January 9, 2012
Nominations Announced for Federal Environmental & Energy Positions
On the Mississippi…and Lake Michigan
Passion is always a slippery slope to God
Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers
Short Items

Sudoku
-Mathematician claims breakthrough in Sudoku puzzle
-Solving the Sudoku: Magic number turns out to be 17
-There is no 16-Clue Sudoku: Solving the Sudoku Minimum Number of Clues Problem

Water News
We can’t live without water operators

Language and the Pursuit of Happiness by Chalmers Brothers

Brothers, Chalmers. Language and the Pursuit of Happiness. Naples, FL: New Possibilities, 2007.

The central theme of this book is that language is pervasive in the human environment and that actions in language have consequences in our lives. We can take actions in language that lead to better results.

Brothers draws ideas from a number of areas including language, learning and mind-body connection. Though the chapters committed to this material have exercises associated with them, they mostly serve as background material. The first half of the book is committed to describing these concepts.

Most of the second half is committed to describing different type of language actions. Each is summarized below.



Assertions and Assesments. Assertions are statements of fact; they can be proved or disproved. Assessments are judgments and opinions; they may be valid or supportable, but they are not verifiable like facts. People run into trouble by treating unhelpful assessments as if they are true assertions.

Declarations. Declarations created possibilities or context. With declarations, we may initiate, conclude, resolve or assess. Declarations are powerful because of the context they create, defining for us what is and is not possible.

Requests and Offers. Requests and offers are actions in language by which we try to achieve a desirable future that might otherwise go another way. Requests and offers are similar to declarations in that they are creative actions, but they go farther in enlisting others in undertaking some action to achieve a desired future result.

Promises, Commitments and Agreements. Promises are important because of the effect of keeping or not keeping them. Broken promises break our trust, relationships, success and self-esteem. Kept promises improve these things. Because of this, it is important to manage our commitments, taking responsibility to fulfill them or renegotiate them when we cannot.

I found the book a little hard to read. I think this was partly due to the layout of the book and the use of several forms of emphasis. The concepts seemed somewhat disjointed, and the author’s attempts to tie things together resulted in some wordiness. I felt the not especially long book was a long read.

What's New Feb. 10, 2011

Bill Watch (Updated)
Discover the secret of praying Scripture
The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
Environment & Infrastructure Bills Introduced in Congress
Missouri Transportation Commission Elects New Chair
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by Bryan Lee O’Malley
What's New March 2, 2011
Writing: Steal Characters

How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

The prevailing myth of invention is that it is the product of a solitary genius. Steven Johnson takes on this myth in How We Got to Now.

Johnson’s book is a history of invention with a focus on six particular innovations. He demonstrates that simultaneous invention is common, suggesting that societal knowledge, norms and expectations play a part in invention—at least in providing an environment in which certain types of inventions can be created and flourish.

Thomas Edison and the light bulb is the classic myth challenged by simultaneous invention. Humphrey Davy demonstrated an incandescent electric light in 1802 and Frederick de Moleyns received the first patent for a light bulb in 1841. By the time Edison got involve, people had been working on light bulbs for 30 years, and the potential for electric light had been now for 70 years. Edison and his team of collaborators deserve a lot of credit for creating a commercially successful electric lighting system, inventing solutions to many problems along the way, but is a story of systematic hard work.

Edison’s electric lighting system depended on a lot of prior technology, which relates to another of Johnson’s points: clusters of inventions. An invention can illuminate a previously unnoticed problem (or create a new one). For instance, the availability of affordable books that follow Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press revealed that many people were farsighted. This sparked a demand for reading glasses. The tinkering with lenses led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes. Galileo took up the telescope and made discoveries in astronomy that reshaped how people saw the world. Robert Hooke used the microscope to explore a seemingly alien world of the very tiny thing all around us, though the revolution he inspired took longer to bloom.

Johnson explores other aspects of invention and society. I think it is fair to say that his view of how invention works is a lot messier than the myth. Inventors are at the right place at the right time, with open minds that are prepared (likely by accident) to make a connection and a willingness to do the work of thinking, testing and making something new. They probe the boundaries of their fields, tinker and throw themselves into hobbies that bring them, often with companions, to crossroads that challenge their notions of where they can go and how they can get there.

On the whole, Johnson presents a vision of hope in our history. We are not dependent on genius or serendipity; human creativity is both a social and an individual process in which the collision of ideas leads to new ideas. We live in an era where the collision of ideas may be more possible than ever.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Big Necessity by Rose George

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

Circles by James Burke

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

The Pinball Effect by James Burke

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Steven Johnson also wrote

The Ghost Map

The Invention of Air

Johnson, Steven. How We Got To Now: Six Innovations that Make the Modern World. New York: Riverhead, 2014.

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

Stark, Rodney. The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. New York: Random House, 2005.

Rodney Stark argues in The Victory of Reason that the West grew to prominence in science, technology, commerce, and power because of its foundations in Christianity. Personal freedom, democracy, and capitalism grew and eventually flourished in Western Civilization because Christianity provided a philosophy and set of beliefs that such things were possible, achievable, and valuable. These things failed, stumbled, and declined in other parts of the world because the cultures, particularly religions, that prevailed there supported philosophies and beliefs that lead another direction.

It starts with a notion of God that is almost unique to Christianity: God is a being of reason. Therefore they could use human reason, however imperfect, to understand God and increase our understanding of Him. Christian theology wasn’t simply asserting scripture, but reasoning about God and His Word to increase, refine, and improve knowledge and doctrine.

The Christian faith embraced progress through reason in doctrine. Christians looked forward to becoming progressively better believers. God is immutable, but those who believe Him can grow in understanding as they mature and with successive generations. This religion of belief contrasted with religions of practice, which inherently looked backward to established law.

These foundational beliefs in reason and progress carried over into Christian views of the physical world. It was a real place made by God. In addition, because God created the world using His reason, we can understand it using ours, just as we can use reason to increase our understanding of God. This belief gave impetus to modern science. Some credit goes to the ancient Greek philosophers, some of who had faith in reason and others in experimentation, though not both at the same time. Islamic philosophers admired, preserved and closely studied the Greeks. However, it was Christians who took these resources and added their own worldview to create modern science. Early scientists were Christians, often supported by the church directly or through universities, which were connected to the church at the time. Western nations gained a lead in science that they still hold.

Progress carried over to social and political issues as well. In particular, Christian beliefs about human equality made the church a leader in the abolition of slavery in Europe and later the Americas. It also gave rise to increasingly democratic governments, personal freedoms, and property rights. This created an environment where capitalism could flourish. Capitalism love technological development, and it didn’t hurt that it was growing in cultures that were amenable to science, and these things grew together creating new levels of freedom, opportunity, and wealth. Christian theologians had the flexibility and reasoning power to adapt doctrine to these new developments while remaining true to received scripture.

Stark supports his arguments with examples from history. One of the more interesting things about the book is the way he compares examples from the Christian world to counterexample from other cultures, such as China or Islam. China was a prominent, technologically advance culture that did not hold its lead. Islam preserved Greek knowledge during Europe’s supposedly dark ages, but did not advance. It was the late bloomers in the Christian West who had the philosophical tools to build success upon success. He also contrasts the winners and decliners in Europe and the Americas, showing how successful and wealthy nations became that way by embracing religious liberty, democracy, and capitalism, while those that declined held to or recreated feudal systems.



If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck
Descarte’s Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel
God Wants You to Be Rich by Paul Zane Pilzer
How We Got Here by Andy Kessler
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen
The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek