New Books in Science
New Books Network
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 12, 2018 • 31min
Rachel Z. Arndt, “Beyond Measure” (Sarabande Books, 2018)
Our world today is full of algorithms and metrics designed to help us keep up, to keep track, to keep going. New devices, such as the smartwatch, now make it possible to quantify and standardize every conceivable human activity, from keeping track of personal bests at the gym to getting... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Oct 11, 2018 • 55min
Theodore M. Porter, “Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity” (Princeton UP, 2018)
In Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity (Princeton University Press, 2018), Theodore Porter uncovers the unfamiliar origins of human genetics in the asylums of Europe and North America. Rather than beginning his story with Gregor Mendel or 1909, the date when Wilhelm Johannsen coined the term “gene,”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Oct 9, 2018 • 41min
Hervé Guillemain, “Schizophrenics in the Twentieth Century: The Side Effects of History” (Alma, 2018)
Schizophrènes au XXe siècle: des effets secondaires de l’histoire [Schizophrenics in the Twentieth Century: The Side Effects of History] is a strong argument in support of the history of psychiatry “from below.” Using vast archival resources and ample patient files, Hervé Guillemain demonstrates convincingly how schizophrenia in France was a... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Oct 4, 2018 • 1h 5min
Peter Harries-Jones, “Upside-Down Gods: Gregory Bateson’s World of Difference” (Fordham UP, 2016)
The work of polymath Gregory Bateson has long been the road to cybernetics travelled by those approaching this trans-disciplinary field from the direction of the social sciences and even the humanities. Fortunately for devotees of Bateson’s expansive vision, Peter Harries-Jones has continued the expert analysis that gave us 1995’s A Recursive Vision:... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Oct 4, 2018 • 1h 13min
Byron Reese, “The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity” (Simon & Schuster, 2018)
In his new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity (Simon & Schuster, 2018), futurist, technologist, and CEO of Gigaom, Byron Reese makes the case that technology has reshaped humanity just three times in history: 100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Sep 27, 2018 • 1h 17min
S. Hayes and D. S. Wilson, “Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Predicting, and Influencing Human Behavior” (Context Press, 2018)
Evolution science and behavioral science both have strong theories that can help us understand humans in context, and yet, until now, the two fields have been mostly separate. In this episode, cross-posted from the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock, Dr. Steven Hayes and Dr. David Sloan Wilson share how they... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Sep 17, 2018 • 1h 4min
Anjan Chakravartty, “Scientific Ontology: Integrating Naturalized Metaphysics and Voluntarist Epistemology” (Oxford UP, 2017)
A scientific ontology is a view about what a scientific theory says exists. Longstanding philosophical debate on this issue divides into two broad camps: anti-realists, who think scientific theories are committed to the existence only of those things that can be observed, and realists, who hold that these theories are... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Sep 13, 2018 • 34min
Andrew J. Hogan, “Life Histories of Genetic Disease: Patterns and Prevention in Postwar Medical Genetics” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2016)
How did clinicians learn to see the human genome? In Life Histories of Genetic Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), Andrew J. Hogan makes the subtle argument that a process described by scholars of biomedicine as “molecularization” took place gradually and unevenly as genetic tools became applied to prenatal diagnosis.... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Sep 5, 2018 • 49min
Albert Müller, ed., “The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name: Seven Days With Second-Order Cybernetics” (Fordham UP, 2014)
Between his retirement from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne in 1975 and his death in 2002, many cyberneticians made the pilgrimage to Pescadero, California to unravel the oft-elusive subtleties of second-order cybernetics with the master himself, Heinz von Foerster. Fortunately, for all of those not blessed to have had... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Aug 9, 2018 • 50min
Dorothy H. Crawford, “Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped our History” (Oxford UP, 2018)
The history of mankind is interlinked with microbes. As humans evolved and became more advanced, microbes evolved right along with us. Through infection, disease, and pandemic they have helped shape human culture and civilization. In her book Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped our History (Oxford University Press, 2018), Dorothy H. Crawford... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
