Should fitness share the stage with beauty? My review of Prum’s “Evolution of Beauty”
The Times Sunday Book Review, six days ahead of the Sunday paper, published today my review of Richard Prum’s “The Evolution of Beauty” (and a...
Category: Readings
John Berger and Susan Sontag’s delicious shoptalk and big hair
What a fabulous conversation this is, between two giants we’ve lost. You see here, in this quiet, quietly intense, intensely curious conversation — in which (a ...
Two Sharp Takes on Mukherjee’s The Gene
Nathaniel Comfort, “Genes Are Overrated”: Mukherjee gives us a Whig history of the gene, told with verve and color, if not scrupulous accuracy. The ...
There are rants and there are rants. This here is a rant.
As Jezebel notes elsewhere, this bomb-throwing freelancer revenge rant burns bridges with admirable abandon. Been a while since I’ve read one quite so fun...
How Failure Is Moving Science Forward
Psychology, biomedicine and numerous other fields of science have fallen into a crisis of confidence recently, after seminal findings could not be replicated in...
Biology/Biotech/Brains and Behavior/Culture/Culture of Science/Genetics/Readings/The Best Thing I Read Just Now
Brooke Borel’s strange story about Kevin Folta interviewing himself, among other (mis)adventures
The Kevin Folta/GMO/Monsanto/Right-to-Know/conflict-of-interest variety show and bazaar — a saga about a food scientist who took $25,000 from Monsanto wi...
Anthropology/Biology/Books/Brains and Behavior/Culture/Culture of Science/History of science/Politics/Readings
A rowdy, harrowing, vital book: My Times review of ‘Galileo’s Middle Finger,’ by Alice Dreger.
I’ve a review of Alice Dreger’s latest book in this week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review; it just appeared online. “Galileo’s Middl...
The frightening beauty of Sally Mann’s children
Sally Mann on the frightening beauty of her children, in the New York Times Magazine. I find this an especially moving reflection. That’s the critical thing abo...
Calvin and Hobbes walk into a bar. Grammar cop says Oh no they didn’t.
From today’s Read 2 You’d think a column arguing that Calvin and Hobbes is the best comic strip ever couldn’t start an argument. Yet it does. ...
How you read, Alice Munro writes, and war comes home
Here are three of the five items on today’s edition of my semi-regular “Read 2 of these and call me in the morning” mailing. The life, death, and resurrection o...