Philosophy of science reviewed by Ivan Osnaya

Osnaya Ramírez Rodrigo Ivan                                                            English writing

Book review of a non-fiction book

“Philosophy of science” by Samir Okasha

First published in the Oxford University press in 2002.

ISB 0-19-280283-6

Reviewed by Rodrigo Ivan Osnaya Ramirez

8 points in a scale of 10

October 27th 2013.

First of all it´s important to talk a little bit about the author, Samir Okasha is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of New York, he has published numerous articles in philosophy journals in the areas of philosophy of science, philosophy of biology and epistemology. He studied in the UAM in Mexico City and has held a Jacobsen fellowship in philosophy at the University of London. In this book he talks about seven topics that are divided in chapters all of them related with all kind of sciences from mathematics and physics to biology and psychology, one idea that we can observe trough all the book is the debate between science and philosophy. I choose to read this book because I am making science and I consider that is necessary to hear other points of view about this complex topic.

In the first chapter of the book Samir starts given us a brief introduction about what is science obviously in this chapter we can read a lot of names that sounds very familiar to us: Aristoteles, Galileo Galilei, Descartes, Darwin and Newton. The author introduce us to the development of science from the first observations of nature to the molecular biology and the discovery of the two chains of the DNA ,given us at the same the historical aspects of these events which is very interesting for all the readers that are interested in science.

The second chapter was one of the most interesting to me because Okasha talks about scientific reasoning and how this reasoning should be deductive and non inductive, he gave a lot of good examples to clarify his point and also gives  a lot of good reasons to make us think that a great amount of knowledge that we have nowadays came from inductions and not necessary from inductions, this chapter is very interesting and at the same time can cause you a little headache because it makes you think a lot about science and its explanations of the world. This is exactly the topic of the third chapter, the explanations in science.

Is something very common that the explanations in science are made for questions that started with a “why” and normally the answers to these questions are made in the next way: A causes B. The explanations in science are made to explain a phenomenon and at the same time to predict the phenomenon in the future. But a thing that has been very criticized in this type of explanations is that they are unilateral and if A can explain B, B not necessary can explain A so this can be a problem because may be other false explanations to the same phenomenon that fit perfectly. Samir starts to talk about science and how may be can’t explain everything and how in the past science has explained thing that nowadays we know that doesn’t work as the scientists said in the past.

The fourth chapter is very interesting because its about what should science study, the observable or also the unobservable thing and also makes me thing about one phrase that Samir uses in his book: If physics study the atoms and everything is made of atoms; why physics can’t explain everything. This question was brutal for me as a reader and as a scientist and made me think  for days about it, so if you are involve in science it can cause the same reaction in you.

The last three chapters of the book had something similar that makes me join them they talk about some problems and critics in science the 5th chapter is about the scientific revolution and how sometimes it’s seems that the new knowledge is better that the old one, a mistake that most scientist commit when they are looking for data, also Samir talks about how scientists nowadays moves more horizontally than vertically.

In the chapter number six and seven he criticizes the science and explain many points that are not necessarily true, I can imagine that for him those points are true but at the same time I consider that Samir needs to read more about some specific topics in science to understand them sometimes I had the feeling that he was speaking without necessary had the knowledge of the topic (e.g. genetics, phylogeny, ontogeny etc...).

In general the book is very well written and Okasha uses a lot of examples that are very clear even he gave to the readers some drowns and cartoons that make easier the reading. The author uses a language that is very clear maybe is not very easy for all the people but I consider that for high school students can be a good book to read and to be involve in the world of science and philosophy.

Reading this book I Iearned that the scientists community has to be more critic with themselves in order to achieve better researches also I learned that I must be more objective even with my own research  because sometimes the personal interests can be involve and this is never a good thing for your own work. Since I haven’t read another book of philosophy of science I believe that this was a good book to start and even I’m planning in read other books of the same author and of other authors. I strongly recommend this book especially if you are studying science because it can open your eyes to the vision that the philosophers have about the scientists.

´´Nabokov: His psycho-funny masterpiece´´ By Andrés Rubio (review from ´´Lolita´´. Nabokov, Vladimir 1959.)

★★★★★´´Nabokov: His psycho-funny masterpiece´´
By Andrés Rubio on October 24, 2013

 This review is from ´´Lolita´´. Nabokov, Vladimir 1959.

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-born novelist born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. His real success came to him when he started to write novels in English; being Lolita his most famous novel.

5 stars. Definitely this classic of modern literature and pop culture is what it deserve, not only because the controversial story that made the critics talk a lot, it’s the modern and unique style used by Nabokov that make the reader to not stop until reach the last page.

When I decided to read this book, it was because I read an article about writers that made wonders when they started to write in another language foreign to their born countries. Nabokov was one of these examples of ´´wonder writers´´. So I was guided for the curiosity and then I get an old version printed in 1970 with a very peculiar prologue. I say it was peculiar because it was written on the mid-seventies, and society didn´t conceive the idea of a novel about a forty years old man falling in love with a twelve years old girl.

The story is told by Humbert Humbert, the main character of the book. He was a normal Parisian man who for some reason in his twisted mind develops an obsession for the little girls starting with the death of his first teenage lover, who died of sickness.  For Annabelle’s dead, he tried to found her on other young girls, but never found someone who really could compare with her. He named the little girls of his obsession ´´nymphets´´ explaining that they have a part angelical, a part demoniac side that is inside their girl’s body. During the book he manages his pedophilia like something normal and spontaneous. Even though its obsession he got married with a woman named Valeria that cheated on him with a Russian old-man. When he got divorced he moved to the United States and for destiny tricks the first house where he was supposedly going to live burned. So he finished living on a house of a widow woman called Ms. Haze. When she was showing to him the house he was definitely thinking to not live there, but, when she was showing to him the garden he met ´´Lo´´, Ms. Haze little daughter.  Humbert was shocked when he saw that ´´nymphet´´ and started since that moment to memorize and to describe every face and movement that little ´´Lo´´ made. Then he decided to live there. Lolita like all the little girls was stubborn and always was disobeying her mother, so that why her mother decided to send her to a camp. That day when Ms. Haze was taking Lolita to the camp left a note to Humbert saying to him that she was deeply in love with him and that when she returned when the camp she wanted to marry him, if not, he must left the house after reading the note. He stays, but just for Lolita. Humbert as a writer he enjoyed writing a lot about Lolita and wrote about his new wife and a very evil woman who treated badly the poor girl. One day she found the scripts and argued with him then she ran out of the street and died hit by a car. The Humbert went to the camp to pick up his now step-daughter Dolores. He didn’t say to her that her mother was dead until a few days passed. The Humbert and Lolita started to travel between fights and reconciliations. They started some kind of romance where Humbert didn´t notice the pain that he was giving to the little girl.

So here is where the story will get more intense at the point that Humbert Humbert shows his dark-side human nature that showed us that he would make the impossible to keep Lolita with him and never let her go.

I fully recommend this book because the author manages his main character´s psychology and thoughts at a level you can feel that Humber Humbert really existed and you are reading his personal diary. That is a good thing that show us that the most valuable and interesting thing in Nabokov´s masterpiece is its main character ´´charisma´´ that in a moment of the reading you will find yourself sympathizing with him and see it all by his twisted mind. You will understand his rationalized behavior through his life that made you think that his way of seeing the world is correct and right. So, go on and find by yourself the mystery of Lolita´s story and mental background. 

4 out of 5 stars

It is not easy to be the bad one

A review of Wicked: the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West 

By Beatriz Lara

We all know the story of Dorothy, the sweet girl from Kansas who magically ends up in the land of Oz and in order to get back home she has to kill the wicked witch of the West. What we have forgotten is that every story has at least two versions. What about the witches view of the story? Was the witch really that wicked?

That is the question that the American novelist Gregory Maguire answers in his book Wicked: The life and times of the wicked witch of the West published in 1995. The story is set in the Land of Oz in the years before Dorothy’s arrival. Through the five chapters of the book, Maguire narrates the story of Elphaba, a green-skinned girl born in Munchkinland and that grows up to be the antagonistof the famous children tale The Wizard of Oz.

Wicked is the first book of the saga The Wicked Years. All the books in this collection are referenced in characters of The Wizard of Oz. Wicked is also the basis of the Broadway musical of the same name presented almost ten years after of the publication of the novel.

The five chapters are entitled by its location and narrate different episodes of Elphaba’s life: her childhood, her college years where she gets involved in an activist movement in defense of the Animal’s rights and against the dictatorial policies of the Wizard of Oz; all her attempts to get rid of The Wizard and how she meets Dorothy.

Maguire’s biggest achievement in this novel is to give the classic characters a new view. He worries about showing the reader the other versión of the story, making him/her question the charachters moral and motives. He transforms the fantastic nature of a children story and merges it with human complexity.

Wicked is not a children story, even though it is based on one. Maguire uses the original story and charaqcters created by Lyman Frank Baum and gives them a “grown up twist” by adding some criticism about subjects like Politics, Religion and Philosphy. Therefore, it is not as easy to digest as the original Wizard of Oz.

It is a more complex lecture that is worth reading because of the debate it creates of what or who is good or bad. In Wicked, Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West is revindicated, shown as a compassive, justice lover sorceress willing to defend an ideal. After all, it must not be easy to be known as the bad one.

Small Gods

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Susana L. Valadéz (Mexico), October 28, 2013

This review is from: Small Gods
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (born 28 April 1948) is one of the most popular English authors of fantastic novels today. He was knighted for services to literature in 2009. “Terry” Pratchett is the author of the Discworld series of about 40 books. Small Gods, the 13^th book of this sequence, was published in 1992. It was adapted as a serial for BBC Radio 4.

The story starts whit the short tale of the relationship between tortoises and eagles.
After that, we are taken to the Hub, the center of Discworld, where the history monks live and take care about all the History and they make sure that when something important is happening, there is someone who is watching that really happens. Lu Tze, one of the history monks, is sent to Omnia, because something was just going to happen, a couple of battles and an assassination.
Meanwhile in Omnia, in the year of the Notional Serpent we find novice Brutha. Even he is too old for being a novice, he lives under the supervision of Brother Nhumrod, and he isn’t considered very important, brilliant or smart, but Brutha’s memory is so good that he didn’t know the meaning of the word “forget” or disobedience.

With Great God Om appearing as a tortoise, problems start to appear into Brutha’s life, one of the most important when the Exquisitor (not inquisitor, he’s more like a supervisor) Vorbis, who has really black eyes, asks him to join a group that is going to travel to the city of Ephebe to defeat the unbelievers, like the Great God Om wants. Because Vorbis think that if the Great God doesn’t want him to attack the ephebians, he will stop him. He is proudly in charge of the Quisition, and of everyone who let him be their superior, including particularly novice Brutha with his eidetic-memory.

Poor Brutha finds himself in the middle of a war between Omnia and Ephebe because Vorbis said that Om is the only true God (and everyone who says otherwise is wrong and should die!), and the inner conflict that knowing the Great God is a tortoise, so he is neither omnipotent nor the only small god who lives and obtains his powers thanks of his believers’ faith. And Om faces the true that Brutha is the only one who…

“Small Gods” is a very interesting and funny novel that makes fun of some aspects of the religions in general, so people can relax and take it not to serious but as an important part of their lives. Terry Pratchett has the ability of write this novel and put some jokes that can distract us from the rest of the text, but he also know how to take us back to the story. I certainly enjoyed reading this book, and I feel proud to write that I understood many of the jokes that are included in the book (even one related to programming!)
I recommend this book to readers up to 15 years, because it is easy to read (even if you are a non-native English speaker), but there are some complicated issues that require more general culture knowledge and even the jokes are sometimes hard to understand. Despite the fact that it could be difficult to read, Terry Pratchett gives us a fictional new and interesting whole world in this book.

The Big Sleep: the beginnings of Philip Marlowe

The Big Sleep: the beginnings of Philip Marlowe

Reviewed by Verónica Hernández Landa Valencia
October 17^th, 2013

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) is an icon between the fans of crime novels. He contributed to the renovation of the genre born in the nineteenth century with a new and unexpected focus. In Chandler’s novels, the rational process followed by the main character to solve a mystery is not so developed than in nineteenth century novels, as those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Instead of that, the mystery is created by the atmosphere: strange characters that belong to a dark world inhabited by persons with mental disturbances, lawless men and woman —not only those who came from the underworld, but also those who use checkbooks and cover their shady business under the appearance of legality.

        The Big Sleep (1939), ranked by the Time’s, in 2005, in the list of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century novels, is the first Chandler’s hardboiled crime novel starred by Philip Marlowe, the character that made Chandler famous. In this first work of Chandler, Marlowe is already represented with all the attributes that have made him emblematic: a tough and self-sufficient middle-age man, with a great intelligence and an acute sense of humor, who lives in the borders if the dark world where he constantly have to get into to solve mysteries, hired by the most enigmatic and exotic people.

          In this novel the reader can also recognize some characteristics of the second characters that will be exploded in other novels, such as The High Window: a rich, willful and mysterious person ―in this case a man, Mr. Sternwood―, who cannot be easily interpreted, and is surrounded by the strangest people the reader can imagine. Commonly, this character hires Marlowe to solve a case without telling him the entire story. Therefore, the investigation takes Marlowe to unexpected paths.

It is also possible to find the exotic Chandler’s female characters that made him famous: women almost subnormal that only act in extreme situations, and hers actions usually results in big troubles; powerful and arrogant women that will be dominated by Marlowe. Here, it becomes necessary to recognize that, for the reader who is accustomed to this kind of character representation and understands the time when Chandler wrote his novels, these characters wouldn’t represent a problem, even can be really attractive, but they can be irritating for those who don’t like a misogynistic treatment of the characters. 

         The story starts with general Sternwood, an old man about to die, hiring Marlowe because he wanted to stop being blackmailed, without paying anything to the blackmailer. The problem started because Mr. Sternwood had two rebels and uninhibited daughters that always got in troubles; somebody called Geiger founds out a dark secret ―gambling debts of Carmen, the youngest Sternwood’s daughter―, and tried to use it to earn easy money. Nevertheless, the Sternwood family had more secrets to hide, and this turned more complicated Marlowe’s work.  

          What it seemed to be a simple arrangement ―once Marlowe’s knew about Geiger’s dark secrets and had information to pay Geiger’s blackmail with the same coin―, become an investigation about a chain of blackmails and murders that, apparently, started with Geiger’s, but Marlowe will discover that the murders started some years ago, by the hand of the most unexpected person.

         From the start, the investigation Mr. Sternwood commissioned Marlowe seemed to have a little fold that was mysterious: the name of Rusty Reagan ―the husband of Vivian, Mr. Sternwood oldest daughter, who disappeared suddenly years ago―, appeared since the first conversation with Mr. Sternwood. The general never told Marlowe two investigate the fate of Reagan; however Marlowe knew that the general expected to, not because he wanted back Vivian’s husband, but because Regan was a friend of him. In contrast, Vivian seemed more worried because she believed that Mr. Sternwood asked Marlowe to find Regan. Meanwhile, Carmen was creating more problems.

Once the blackmail situation was solved, finding this mysterious character, Reagan, becomes the center of Marlowe’s investigation. It leads him not only to meet more blackmailers, but also bookmakers, an owner of a gambling house, dangerous blonds,  desirable women ―and others not so desirable―, a hired murderer that almost put in danger Marlowe’s life, and let him a little beaten. That is the strange way that guides Marlowe to the past of the Sternwood family.    

For lovers and experts of twentieth century crime novel, to read Chandler’s books is considered almost an obligation. In the case of The Big Sleep, to the well known author’s technique to create singular characters and environments, is added the freshness of the first Chandler's novel in this literary genre.  

Thinking about Communication in the web

5.0 out of 5 stars.

October 29, 2013.

By Edwin León.

Language and the Internet by David Crystal.

Internet is a medium that has made deep changes in human lives. Marketing processes, democratic decision making, education and audiovisual diffusion are some examples of this transformation. The way in which people interact with each other has also been transformed because of the possibilities that Internet gives, breaking the time and space limits worldwide. Language and the Internet (2001) by David Crystal, the first edition in Oxford University Press, is a book that explains extensively how World Wide Web and computers have changed communication between people.

David Crystal, who is an honorary Professor of Linguistics in Wales University, analyzes with scientific rigor the changes that users have lived in their chatting since the public availability of the Internet until the beginning of the twenty-first century. Crystal is a world foremost authority on Linguistic studies. In addition to English as a Global Language and Language Death, Language and the Internet completes the author’s perspectives about current changes in English language; however, his arguments could be applied to languages all around the world which are used in virtual platforms.

Crystal starts his book explaining how chatting has made individuals to create new resources to communicate with their peers, so that they can adapt and take advantage of the properties of the medium. He notices the emergence of a novel way of talking between users, neither spoken nor written, but a combination of both. This is what David Crystal names Netspeak. After describing it, he presents how the users have adopted this linguistic register to build a community and to identify themselves as part of it. The body of Crystal’s book is shaped with the analysis of four Internet situations where Netspeak is used: E-mail, chatgroups, virtual worlds and the web itself.

The author advocates for a non-prescriptive theory of Language shaping. He thinks about Language as a medium which necessarily needs to change throughout the time and space. This conversion is just part of natural and cultural human evolution. Internet has revolutionized a lot of routines and habits of human life and Language would not be the exception.

Crystal’s work is a pioneer study on the topic. It has been referred in subsequent works such as Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World (2008) by Naomi Baron, who is also a linguist interested in the technological influence in human communication. In fact, Baron and Crystal constantly refer each other in their researches. Language and the Internet has transcended the United Kingdom boundaries too. In Latin America, Guadalupe López and Clara Ciuffoli considered this book to write their own purposal entitled Facebook es el mensaje: oralidad, escritura y después (2012).

Language and the Internet is a book mainly addressed to scholars and researchers of Linguistics, Communication Studies and ICT’s Development Studies. Nevertheless, it could be useful for an everyday Internet user who wants to know more about the communication practices in which he/she is involved. Although Crystal uses a lot of technical terms related to Linguistics, his written style is not so complex to become confused at reading his reflections. He actually adds some humorous thoughts about his own findings along the text.

Language is an important quality of human beings which defines not only social interaction in a certain group, but also the symbolic values of a culture. David Crystal gives a deep approach to this issue in the digital age, explaining their causes, characteristics and consequences. There may be a lot of concepts and arguments that can be rejected. Personally, to talk about a Netspeak seems to be risky because he is establishing the medium as the dominant element in Language transformations above from users. Notwithstanding, Crystal's contribution is definetely valuable no matter the controversies that it can incite.

Crystal doesn´t analyze the instant messaging interaction although it was very popular in the 2000. He neither considers the social networks and its influence on Internet users' conversations because they become a boom until 2006. Notwithstanding, the author highlights that the four studied Internet situations are certainly not the only ones which will impact on human communication. In this sense, when David Crystal acknowledges Internet as an integrating medium, he foresees the emergence of websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Language and the Internet is an obligatory reading to understand current communication practices. Comprehending language and its uses is one way to know more about society itself and oneself.

"The Invention of the Jewish People" by Shlomo Sand

“Thus Israel became the first country in the world to officially recognize the Catalan nationality.”

When the professor Shlomo Sand questioned the ethnic origin of the Jews, the most reluctant critics saw an “anti-Semitic Semite”, an Israeli who hates himself and his nation, while other malicious critics took advantage of this controversy to bolster their own obtuse racial ideology. It's hard for us to understand the real origin of the “errant race“ just because is not possible to question these  “historical  dogmas”.  Sand’s travel across the Jewish history is exciting and revealing.

We have learnt through history (and maybe Hollywood) how some troubled and anguish people ran away because of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in the first century AD. We know that these fugitives became millions and populated several areas of Europe. Theodor Herzl, a visionary man, was the architect of the Zionist dream: the long- awaited return of the "Eretz Israel", the Promised Land for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, etc. Therefore, any attempt at recovering this territories and expelling its current residents might be the most exciting and fair human epic, but, what if not? What would happen if the fiercest Zionists were not descendants of the biblical race? Why did Sand get in so much troubles investigating the origins and expansion of the Semitic races through Asia, Africa and Europe? When we entered the forest of history, its thickness deprives us of the light and we tend to lose orientation.

The fall of the temple of Jerusalem was just the impetus for Jews to conquer the world not with arms but ideas. We must recognize the great labor of the Jewish proselytism which began in the first centuries of our era. It is impressive how the teachings and the beliefs were inculcated in the most diverse people: Arabs, Turks, Mongols met a new God. The birth of the Talmud gave a new dimension of the cosmogony of the Jews, new laws, new behavior and a new raison d'etre. Their creed made them stronger and braver. What does it matter if they are different from others? They would die before becoming “marranos” (Jews converted to Christianity, on several occasions against their will). Of course, this religious revolution was not focused on the love to neighbor and so, some ideological courses were more focused on a kind of bewitchment; a typical case was the Shabbetaian Movement, a religious activity based on the hope of a new Messiah capable of changing this state of things. But these movements were ephemeral, just the essential things remained, the Jewish religion was widely accepted.

 Thus, thousands of people of Arab origin adopted the new faith and diffused it. Hence many Jews who came to Spain were “Jewish” just for their religion. On the other hand, in Central Asia, Khazards adopted the new faith as an opposition to the Arab regimes they fought with. The descendants of these Khazard Jews will be the ones who immigrate to East Europe and populate this continent for the next centuries.  Now we can understand that most of the Jews from Europe and America (because of the subsequent immigration) do not have a Semitic origin, but Khazard, and curiously, these people are the ones who support the Zionist politics: the return to a land where their ancestors were never from. Here is when we can get confused:  where are the real Jews? Did they get lost forever in the Diaspora?  In most cases, they remained in Palestine. Sand denies the existence of a Jewish nation in the Old Testament, therefore, this could be a chance for the Palestinian people to preserve their territories.

Unfortunately, as we expected, this book tends to be misunderstood by the people who hypocritically advocate respect for different races and democracy and end up being more racist than a Nazi. In the worst of the cases, the fanatics of the “conspiracy theories” find fertile ground to plot their more twisted ideologies.  I recommend the reader not to fall into the trap of the hatred and resentment.   I understand Sand is not making a mockery of the Jews with his book like it was a new version of the German Magazine “Simplissimus” which delighted anti-Semites a century ago.  This is not an apology for terrorism this is not a justification for the violence provoked by the “nationalist Palestinians”. Shlomo Sand leaves the open door to debate and confrontation of ideas, if anyone wants to get involved they must search for more works of the author in order to becoming a scholar, or  simply censor Sand.

This book is not recommendable for anyone but experts in history. This is not a reason to hate the Jewish people regardless of whether or not they are Khazards, and certainly, we must respect those who are comfortable with the Zionist propaganda (Hasbara).  Sand certainly has had great success with this work, and even with Jews who respect and admire him.  Finally, I still believe that Sand begun with a big error of perception, because Mexico is the Promised Land, simply the Zionists brought the broken compass.