Broca's Brain - Carl Sagan

...the pain of childbirth is especially marked in human mothers because of the enormous recent growth of the brain in the last few million years. It would seem that our intelligence is the source of our unhappiness in an almost literal way; but it would also imply that our unhappiness is the source of our strength as a species - Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan is easily my favorite 'popular scientist' of the 20th century. Other than Sagan, the other two 'popular scientists' that I am most familiar with are Richard Dawkins and the late Richard Feynman, and they pale in comparison to Sagan. While Dawkins is in incredibly intelligent man (see 'The Selfish Gene') he comes off as boorish when he ventures outside the realm of science and ends up attacking the views of others (see 'The God Delusion' and the aftermath that followed). Sagan also criticizes religion (see below) but does so in much more respectable and intelligent fashion. Out of these three, Feynman may have had the biggest impact in his field of choice, but is mostly popular not for his popularization of science, as much as the popularization of his figure. Feynman was the rockstar's rockstar when it came to popularity, and thus his most popular books mainly feature stories about how great, funny and quirky he was (not that the more technical works don't exist). Carl Sagan had a different type of charisma than Feynman, he made you care about what he cared about, and most importantly tried to get other people to see science and nature with the passion that he did.

Broca's Brain is a collection of essays written by Carl Sagan that are loosely organized into sections. The first section entitled 'Science and Human Concern' is mostly a collection of essays that deal with the 'big picture' of science. Covered are topics of the nature of human knowledge and inquiry, a criticism of our current system of education with Einstein as an example, and an essay praising science and technology in our world. Sagan is the best when he's discussing the 'big picture' of our world and where we fit in it. Often his writing turns sentimental and romantic (the subtitle of this book is 'Reflections on the Romance of Science') but he makes it work.

The following two sections cover paradoxes and hoaxes in 'alternative science' and essays about various astronomical subjects in our solar system. Although the section on people who support incorrect theories or pseudoscience (or as he calls them 'paradoxers') is pretty interesting, a large chunk of the book is spent in this section debunking an obscure scientist from the 70s that had some pretty radical (and ridiculous) ideas about how our earth formed. I ended up skimming this chapter and some of the subsequent chapters about our solar system (Really Carl? A whole chapter on how we name craters on the Moon?) because I found them pretty dull. This could be a fault of mine, after the surface details I have always found astronomy pretty boring, but I felt like the book lost steam at the halfway mark. In addition, because the book is more than 30 years old reading about our 'current' understanding and where we can go in the immediate future, makes the book feel especially dated. It's obviously impossible to keep the momentum going on a book that is a collection of essays, but I could have done with a pared down version of the solar system section.

However, Sagan redeems himself in the final part of this section on space and astronomy. Sagan is known for his work on SETI (search of extraterrestrial intelligence) and his support of space exploration and he holds up his reputation here. Like Fox Mulder, I can imagine Sagan sitting in a basement office working under an 'I want to believe' poster. Being a scientist and skeptic, he doesn't believe that little green men (or any other color) have ever visited our planet. He does however, believe that the odds are in our favor for there to be a large contingent of intelligent beings on other planets throughout our galaxy. The push to look for these civilizations with radio telescopes may be his enduring legacy.

The final section, entitled 'Ultimate Questions', is also excellent. Here Sagan tackles the battle between reason and religion, our view of the universe, and psychedelic drugs. His opinion on religions can be summed up by the following quote:

These mystical insights must mean something. But what? Human beings are, by and large, intelligent and creative, good at figuring things out. If religions are fundamentally silly, why is it that so many people believe in them?

Sagan believes that religions are mostly wrong, but he also understands that in some way humans are 'prewired' for it, and that there must be something fundamental that religions tell us, even if it is about ourselves. Instead of attacking everyone who believes (like Dawkins), he tries to understand why people believe, and what kinds of truth can be found in our adherence to religion as a species. He also makes an interesting attempt to connect the creation of religions and explanations that they give us to the universal human experience of birth. I'm not sure if I 'buy' his argument, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless. Sagan even attempts to connect these ideas to our current theory of cosmology and the creation of the universe. He argues that our whole idea of the big bang, and the different ways the universe can play out can be related to the stages of childbirth. We consider ourselves an analytic and reason driven society, but is it possible that we still view the world through our own experience? It's when he raises these kinds of questions that Carl Sagan makes you really think, and contemplate what it means to be human.

Moneyball - Michael Lewis

Before going into my review, an introduction is needed for those of you who have never heard the phrase 'Moneyball', don't know who Billy Beane is, and think that sabermetrics involves crafting or wielding swords. This book is about the methods that Billy Beane, the general manager (GM) of the Oakland A's, uses to level the playing field against teams such as the Yankees that can afford to have a payroll of at least 3 times that of the A's. Considering that the Yankees can pay vast sums of money for free agents, there is no way that the A's (or other financially strapped teams) can compete with them using similar tactics. The Oakland A's are the first team that starts to take advantage of the development of sabermetrics, an increased study of baseball through existing and new statistics. Written in 2003, Moneyball follows Billy Beane's attempt to field a competitive team with one of the smallest payrolls in the league. He goes after players with 'bad bodies' and other flaws that can be had at the right price, but still fit into his system. Interwoven is a brief history and explanation of sabermetrics, and personal stories about Beane and some of the players the Moneyball approach helps him target.

Although this book has been pretty famous for a while, especially in the baseball community, I had yet to even think about reading it until now. I enjoy sports, but am not really a 'fanatic', and I never considered myself someone who read books about sports. That being said this was a fantastic read (after getting past the first 3 pages where he twice compared baseball prospects working out for scouts as 'sports cars being tested'). It was interesting, intellectually stimulating and had some great characters. I'm not sure how appealing it would be for someone who doesn't follow or enjoy baseball, but even for a casual baseball fan it's at least entertaining and makes you question everything you've ever learned about how to play baseball.

The Moneyball approach, as it is called now, emphasizes getting on base, avoiding outs, and scoring runs. This may sound like obvious way to play baseball, but as the statistical and analytical analysis done by sabermetrics has shown, many of the time honored baseball strategies don't follow this scheme. The starting point for this approach is 'which statistical measure is most highly coordinated with scoring the most amount of runs'. Suprisingly this is not batting average, steals, RBIs or any of the traditional ways offensive players are judged. The answer lies is on-base-percentage (OBP). Essentially the OBP modifies the batting average by including walks. Traditionally walks were thought to be mistakes by the pitcher, rather than something that batters can use in their arsenal to get on base. Also included in the Moneyball approach is de-emphasizing steals, discouraging sacrifice bunts, and from the managerial piont of view, drafting college players instead of high school 'phenoms' and sacrificing fielding ability for OBP.

Whether or not this results in compelling or fun baseball is another matter. Personally I find the American League strategy (perfected by Earl Weaver of the 70's Baltimore Orioles) of getting on base and waiting for a 3 run homerun dull. Hit and runs, stealing bases, and 'small ball' are exciting to watch! However Billy Beane and other baseball executives are in the business of winning games, not making them more fun. Another criticism I have of the method is that this book focused on an American League team, and thus it's approach the game involves the designated hitter. I imagine the statistical advantage of sacrifice bunting and stealing changes when there is an extremely deficient hitter at the plate.

However this book is not meant to be an all encompassing in terms of sabermetrics or baseball strategy. It's mostly the story of someone who went against the established way of thinking and the baseball 'insiders' to become very successful at evaluating players and putting a team together in quite an unorthodox fashion.

In terms of history, it's slightly disappointing how all of this has turned out. Because of the moderate success of Beane, many teams have started to take a similar approach, eliminating Oakland's advantage. More specifically, the Boston Red Sox have hired many people who invented, and obsess over sabermetrics and have combined this method with their huge payroll to become a modern baseball dynasty. At least the Yankees are still overpaying free agents with flashy numbers but little substance.

Inaugural Entry

This blog is my attempt at adding a useful contribution to the internet. After the slow but inevitable downfall of my community of livejournal friends I have needed somewhere else to post my thoughts. I find facebook too informal and frankly a mess, and although I have come around on twitter it's a completely different beast. I intend for this blog to be a little less personal that livejournal was but hopefully more interesting to people not me.

My original impetus for finally getting a blog (if you don't count me claiming this domain name in 2003) was because I enjoy posting my book reviews on GoodReads. However my circle on GR is fairly small, and I find that most people just give a list of everything they've read with a ranking without an actual review. I also don't want people to have to 'join' yet another social networking site to read what I write. Additionally I often want to review other media than just books.

Thus I intend for this blog to be somewhat of an 'AV Club: Louis Edition.' Possibly added will be posts relating to bicycles, food or science; other things that I spend a fair amount of time with besides the aforementioned media.