Science & Islam, a History – Ehsan Masood

Icon Books, HBK £14.99 RRP; 8th January 2009

ISBN-13: 9781848310407

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Accompanying a BBC television series that I’ve not seen, Ehsan Masood‘s Science & Islam, a History is a readable pop-sci-history book and a great introduction to what lies behind the veil of the mythical Dark Ages, which I remember being taught were a period of scientific and philosophical vacuum. Behind the curtain of Western Europe’s descent into superstition and ignorance lies a largely untold story – that of the scientific achievements of the Islamic peoples. Continue reading “Book review: Ehsan Masood – Science & Islam, a History”

Offered without comment, from New Scientist:

“Fruit flies have free will. Even when deprived of any sensory input to react to, the zigs and zags of their flight reveal an intrinsic, non-random – yet still unpredictable – decision-making capacity.

If evolution has furnished humans with a similar capacity, this could help resolve one of the long-standing puzzles of philosophy.

Science assumes that effects have causes, and that if we understand the causes well enough we can predict the effects. But if so, our experience of being free to make choices is an illusion, since we are in effect just sophisticated robots responding to stimuli. If our behaviour is unpredictable, this is only because random events prevent us from responding perfectly to our environment.”

It’s taken me a little while, but I’m finally getting into the podcast thing. Not making them, you understand (not yet, anyway), but listening to them. Once the routine is nailed, it’s a great format – subscribe in your feed-reader, download new episodes, dump them to your phone and listen on the way to and from work. Beats the hell out of radio, and removes that whole ‘which album’ dilemma that music brings with it. So, here’s a little round-up of the podcasts I’ve started to follow, most (but not all) of which have a science fictional flavour to them. Please let me know if there are any missing that you think I might be interested in! Continue reading “Podcast round-up”

These are, quite frankly, brilliant:

Continue reading “Hazards of the future”

Café Scientifique has started up again here in Portsmouth, and yours truly was there to catch the action. This event featured a talk by Prof. Ajit Narayanan, Head of the School of Computing at Portsmouth University, entitled ‘Can we find a mind gene?’

Continue reading “Cafe Scientifique: Can we find a mind gene?”

Where are we going, and why are we going there? Continue reading “Roadmap required”

I can say with certainty that there were at least forty or so people in the UK last night who weren’t obsessing over the fate of twentytwo overpaid men in shorts and one air-filled leather sack. We had far more interesting things to think about. Continue reading “Cafe Scientifique: Who’s afraid of conscious machines?”

Neil Stephenson’s ‘Baroque Cycle’ is huge. That’s no hyperbole; three volumes, each weighing in at around 900 pages. A big story, and no mistake. Continue reading “(Multiple) Book Review: Neal Stephenson’s ‘Baroque Cycle’”