I am now on the lookout for The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which I expect will be just as good!

Check out my summary of the book below or the official website.

This epic story by Susanna Clarke is a fun and elaborate immersion into a world not too unlike our own. The copious footnotes, in particular, are delightfully effective in bringing lay readers such as ourselves up to speed on the history of English magic on which this tale rests.

I highly recommend reading this book before the movie comes out. I don’t see how film could possibly do justice to do this enthralling yet massive tome!

The authors advance three lines of evidence in favor of this thesis. The first is based on observation of the mating behaviors of our close animal cousins. Most animals are not monogamous but most species have a limited and advertised period of female fertility during which the males are fiercely protective of their (generally temporary) mates and aggressive toward other males. Bonobos and humans, by contrast, hide the period of female fertility and use non-procreative sex as a way to bond individuals in the tribe. Moreover, this shared paternity makes males invested in the outcome of all children in the tribe and is hence more rather than less adaptive for the group.

The second line of evidence relies on observations (from the days of European colonization to the present) of peoples that still have a forager lifestyle similar to how it is supposed our ancestors lived. Many (most?) have a very fluid sexuality where sex with multiple partners is often not only permitted but expected. Children are considered the community’s children. The authors claim that it was the shift from foraging to agriculture (which they describe as the most significant event in human history) that led to a preoccupation with individual property and its inheritance (as opposed to the shared resources heretofore used). That, in turn, led to shrinking the sphere of sharing (sexual relations, child rearing, resources) from the community to the nuclear family. This is where the “standard narrative” of sexuality arose (men want to spread their seed as widely as possible, women want to make sure their man will provide for them and their children) and led to the inferior status of women that has historically plagued Western societies. As an aside, the authors suggest that, after agriculture led to the notion of property, property in turn led to the notion of poverty.

The final type of argument is the observation that if the “standard narrative of sexuality” were really as natural as its adherents claim, we would not need so many strictures so often enforced to guard against pre- and extra-martial sex: those behaviors would be rare. Moreover, the fluid sexuality model provides a better evolutionary framework in which to understand homosexuality: it survives in the group because it is a form of pair-bonding.

One of the interesting themes running through the book is how easy it is for scientists, both social and natural, to be biased by their own culture. Darwin himself did not venture to challenge the Victorian notion of marriage (though there are some suggestions he may have suppressed thoughts heading in that direction), while modern anthropologists and primatologists appear to contort their interpretations to make our notion of marriage inevitable.

I expect many people will dismiss or attack this book because it is threatening—threatening to the way we’ve constructed our lives and society, threatening to “traditional marriage,” threatening to our human exceptionalism. This perceived threat does not mean the claims are false, of course. Indeed, if they better describe who we are and how we got here, then perhaps we can better understand how hard it can be to live up to our cultural ideals, and be sympathetic to each other when we stumble.

Should we change our society in light of these findings? That is a more complicated question. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that we today are members of a society shaped by a history of agriculture, property, differing sexual roles, and a monogamous definition of marriage. These legacies will not disappear overnight; it is not clear that they all should (do we really want to give up agriculture? can we?). That said, some parts of our cultural legacy we have been succeeding in improving (slavery, women’s rights), and maybe marriage, the concept that tries to capture the essence of our emotional and sexual bonding, will get its turn.

For Seattle readers: One of the authors will give a reading next week.

More detailed reviews of the book can be found at The Huffington Post and at The Moderate Voice

Nasr seems to emphasize how all Muslims have this basic set of beliefs, and though some pervert them by being extremists (a la Taliban) and some forget them by being assimilated into the Western world, for the most part Muslims form one big brotherhood. While I am not an expert on Islam, what I’ve read from other sources makes this claim sound rather Pollyanish.

Still, this was an interesting (and even inspiring) read and I recommend it to anyone looking for an insider’s perspective into Islam.

Music I heard with you was more than music / And bread I broke with you was more than bread

Thus did Hugh Franklin propose to Madeleine L’Engle, beginning the union chronicled in Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage, book four of the The Crosswick Journal series of L’Engle’s autobiographical writings. This is a sweet book that reminisces about her early life and marriage and becomes more and more preoccupied with Franklin’s illness in the author’s present. In fact, the second part of the book more than anything journals L’Engle’s attempt to cope with his deteriorating condition, trying to balance hope, acceptance, and normalcy.

What surprised me about this book is how religious L’Engle was. Not terribly so, mind you, but in this book she does talk about her belief in Jesus and the solace and inspiration that she finds in religion. I suppose it’s not unexpected, since the only books of her that I read were the Time Trilogy, which have an underlying spiritual theme. I always interpreted that theme to be generically (rather than theistically) about good and evil, love and hate, though in retrospect I was taking it metaphorically where possible (the need to Deepen) and suspending my disbelief elsewhere (“he calls them all by name”).

This leads me to my meta-reaction: little atheist me chuckles on reflecting that some of my favorite books growing up are (yes, present tense) ones that deal with Big Themes by authors who turn out to be decidedly theist. L’Engle is one, of course; C. S. Lewis pops to mind as another. I suppose the main attraction lies with the fantasy and science-fiction elements, not to mention the archetypal fight between Good and Evil. It also helps that these are works of fiction, which live in a separate universe where I can suspend my disbelief. For though I know that the physical world that we share is mathematically and scientifically fascinating but unsentient, I can also inhabit inner worlds where magic and Epic Struggles do exist. And really, who wants to live without magic?

It was such a pleasure, then, on a recent flight, to gorge on the short stories in The Best American Short Stories 2002. With authors ranging from Michael Chabon to Arthur Miller to others of whom I had not heard, these stories were eclectic and delightful. And what made the whole experience more charming is that this was a book I picked up from the library on a whim during one of those rare days when I ventured outside the office.

For example, say that, absent any risk factors, you take an HIV test that comes back positive. Your doctor tells you there are 999 chances out of 1000 that you will be dead within a decade, based on the 1/1000 false positive rate. What do you do? Most people might panic. If you are Leonard Mlodinow, though, you learn from the CDC that the a priori infection rate in your cohort is 1/10000, and correctly recalculate the odds that you really are infected after the test to be 1/11. (Do you see how?) Big difference!

These are the types of anecdotes that abound in Mlodinow’s acclaimed book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. The book’s approach is narrative, focusing on the various historical figures and events that led to advances in probability and statistics, and explaining some interesting probabilistic brain teasers, such as the Monty Hall problem. The final chapter touches on the role of chance and perseverance in personal success (à la Outliers).

Mlodinow explains a few concepts, such as sample spaces and Pascal’s triangle, and talks about (but does not explain in any technical depth) others, such as combinatorics and Bayesian statistics. In this regard, I found the book a bit lacking, but I am probably not the target demographic, being mathematically savvy, having studied some of these concepts before, and going through a wannabe-amateur-statistician phase.

Where the book excels is in illustrating why an understanding of probability and statistics is so important. If it leads to more students choosing or being required to learn about these fields, it will have done its job.

The book deals with an interesting topic, but I felt that it was a slow read. I would have liked the chapters to feel more coherent and pull this lay person along in a more systematic and fast-paced manner.