New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

The social practice we call science has had spectacular success in explaining the natural world since the 17th century. While advanced mathematics and other precursors of modern science were not unique to Europe, it was there that Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and others came up with theories that got modern physics and chemistry off the ground. In his latest book, Wondrous Truths: The Improbable Triumph of Modern Science (Oxford University Press, 2016), J.D. Trout mounts a spirited defense of the claim that the best explanation of the rise of science in 17th Century Europe is that Newton and others got lucky; among other serendipitous factors, they happened to come up with versions of preexisting ideas that were just right enough to explain just enough of the world, and that was enough to get the ball rolling. Trout, who is Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Loyola University in Chicago, defends the scientific realist view that scientific theories are successful because they are by and large true, not just predictively accurate. He also sharply distinguishes the psychology of explanation–the Aha! feeling of understanding–from the truth of an explanation. On his ontic view of explanation, we can experience being satisfied with bad (false) explanations, and there are true theories we may never understand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

McKenzie Wark, a scholar in media studies and culture, dives into her acclaimed work, 'Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene.' She interlaces Soviet and American contexts to explore labor's centrality in knowledge production. Wark discusses Alexander Bogdanov’s influence on understanding ecological crises and critiques of society through literature, notably by Andrey Platonov. She also connects these ideas to Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, showcasing how science fiction can envision better futures amidst current societal challenges.

In The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Asif Siddiqi approaches the history of the Soviet space program as a combination of engineering and imagination, both necessary to achieve the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. Beginning in the late 19th century, Siddiqi demonstrates that a popular fascination with space travel and amateurs engaged popular science were the driving forces behind the development of technologies that led to the Soviet space program. From the writings of Konstatin Tsiolkovsky to space exhibitions in the 1920s to Sergei Korolev’s pioneering work, Siddiqi challenges established Soviet narratives of the space program’s history. Asif Siddiqi is Professor of History at Fordham University. The Red Rockets Glare was first published in 2010 and came out in paperback in 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Our modern networked world owes an oftentimes unacknowledged debt to Guglielmo Marconi. As Marc Raboy demonstrates in Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World (Oxford University Press, 2016), it was he who pioneered the concept of wireless global communications. As a teenager he was fascinated by the recent discovery of radio waves, and by the time he was in his early twenties he had developed an apparatus that used these waves to transmit and receive messages. Traveling to London, he demonstrated a gift for publicity as he established himself as a technological pioneer in an age of rapidly emerging wonders. Thanks to his unassailable patents, Marconi soon created a global communications empire, one that made his name synonymous with radio and was so dominant that it brought the nations of the world together in an unprecedented international agreement to regulate the field of wireless telegraphy. Raboy recounts Marconi’s roving life as a celebrated figure, the development of his multinational business concerns, and his later relationship with the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and the shadow it cast over his posthumous reputation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

New technology has made us more connected than ever before. This has its advantages: instantaneous communication, expanded circles of influence, access to more information. And, of course, our connectedness has concomitant drawbacks including issues with privacy and safety. In Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life (Sage, 2016), Mary Chayko, a professor at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, examines the influence technology is having on society and the ways that members of society are shaping the uses of new technology. Using scholarship from communications, information studies, sociology and other fields, Chayko weaves together an interdisciplinary analysis of what our myriad connections mean for the present and for the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

One of the most commonly used words right now in education is “innovation.” It seems to be part of any response to our collective anxiety over the fact that the way we educate children does not seem to have changed as quickly as the ways we access information, communicate with each other, or travel from place to place. Of course, before innovation was an education buzzword, it was a buzzword in Silicon Valley. It is easy to list examples of companies that are innovative — Google, Apple, Uber, etc. — but it is much harder to define. This leaves us to wonder, is innovation in schools just integrating more apps and touchscreens? If not, what is it? And if we want innovation in schools, how do we get there? In The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity (Dave Burgess Consulting, 2015), George Couros, provides a framework evaluating whether school practices are truly innovative as well as a guide for leaders interested in fostering changes in their schools that are both original and positive. Couros joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with him on Twitter at @gcouros. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at info@trevormattea.com or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Caroline Ford’s Natural Interests: The Contest over Environment in Modern France (Harvard University Press, 2016) explores the roots of French environmental consciousness in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Far from being a product of the postwar environmental movement, Ford shows how French society began to understand how humans adversely affected their surroundings during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Popular writers like Francois-Antoine Rauch demonstrated how deforestation altered the climate and damaged the habitability of the nation. War, revolution, and a series of devastating floods brought the questions of deforestation, urbanization, and industrial capitalism into conflict with the finite resources of nature. Public worries over resource depletion and climate change mingled with a new bourgeois consciousness developing in the nineteenth century. France’s countryside became a place of romantic longing for families, a source of inspiration for artists, and an important symbol of national pride. Historical landmarks became sites of a unique French heritage to be preserved and protected for future generations. Empire also became a site of environmental sensitivity, where the conflicting interests of Europeans and colonized peoples played out through discourses of conservation and ecological change in French Algeria. James Esposito is a historian and researcher interested in digital history, empire, and the history of technology. James can be reached via email at espositojamesj@gmail.com and on Twitter @james_esposito_ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Alfred S. Posamentier and Robert Geretschlager, The Circle: A Mathematical Exploration Beyond the Line (Prometheus Books, 2016) goes considerably beyond what its modest title would suggest. The circle has played a pivotal role–that’s “role” with an ‘e,’ but its ability to “roll” with an ‘l’–has helped produce our industrial civilization. Moreover, the circle appears in our art, our literature, and our culture as well. This delightful book will not only reacquaint readers with the pleasures of the geometry they once knew, but will show how the circle continues to enchant mathematicians today, who continue to discover new and surprising properties about this most fundamental of shapes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Is the scientific value of objectivity in conflict with the social justice commitment to diversity? In her latest book, Objectivity and Diversity: A New Logic of Scientific Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Sandra Harding (Education and Gender Studies, UCLA) argues not only that objectivity and diversity need not be in conflict, but that good research ought to be committed to both values at the same time. The book draws on a rich array of scholarship, spanning from 20th century philosophy of science to contemporary studies in indigenous and postcolonial philosophy and activism. It is an intricate study of the ways in which objectivity, positivism, and secularism are all deeply intertwined with their social contexts and historical moments. The book ultimately advocates a science that is both responsive to a methodological requirement for strong objectivity, and originates in local communities. Emily Crandall is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a current fellow at the Center for Global Ethics and Politics in the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center, which co-sponsors the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society