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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Are You Scientifically Curious?














If you are, then these two books should pique your interest.

Michael McCarthy’s lyrical book, The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, puts a new slant on species extinction. He remembers riding in a car at night when he was a boy and how moths appeared in the car’s headlights, “in such numbers there would be a veritable snowstorm....” I remember summer nights as filled with lightning bugs as the sky was filled with stars. Moths and lightning bugs still appear in our evening world, but not anywhere near the numbers Various insect species have declined 70-90% since 1968. Did you notice those populations dwindling? What should we think about their decline?

A different exploration, a “conversatioal essay” (according to the Weekly Standard), is The Wandering Mind: What the Brain Does When You’re Not Looking, by Michael C. Corballis. The author takes up a defense of absent-mindedness! Surely, many of us will feel vindicated and comforted by his evidence and arguments!

The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy
by Michael McCarthy
Hardcover, 262pp w/ index
$24.95

The Wandering Mind: What the Brain Does When You’re Not Looking
by Michael C. Corballis
Paper, 173pp w/ index
$16.00

The new hardcover books in the photo below are now on sale at Dog Ears Books, at 30% or more off the original retail price.


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