Author Archives: thebookofworks

Here is the link to my recent talk at the American Scientific Affiliation Washington DC Metro Chapter, on June 24, 2016. Its a bit dark, and its long, but about half of the video is discussion from the audience, which … Continue reading →

Genes are amazing things. They are storehouses of information. They are also able to copy themselves (with some help), and they are the reason I am here typing. In the 1970s, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins had an insight that propelled … Continue reading →

Well, they aren’t brothers – they just share the same last name. I don’t think they knew each other. I don’t even know if they even knew the other existed. One of them, James is alive and well; sadly the … Continue reading →

Several decades ago, I welcomed a new graduate student to my lab. She had just graduated summa cum laude from a major Ivy League college, and she was as smart as can be. I put her to work on a … Continue reading →

My busy two weeks of meetings and deadlines is now past, and I can devote myself to important stuff like lying on the hammock, watching the garden grow, and blogging. I recently started using Twitter to expand my social network … Continue reading →

I will not be posting here for the next week or so, since I am in the middle of a time crunch, with deadlines and obligations bearing down from several directions. I hope to get back to speed after I … Continue reading →

I have studied many things in my long career in biological research. Most of my work was on applied biology. I worked, published papers, and got grants in environmental health sciences, toxicology, cancer research, molecular epidemiology, population genetics, gene-environment interactions, … Continue reading →

It has become quite popular to doubt the reality of free will. The famous atheist Sam Harris has a book about this, and the claim that free will is nothing more than an illusion can be found throughout modern atheist … Continue reading →

I grew up in the middle of Brooklyn, NY, so I missed out on the whole trees and flowers thing until much later. But there were some advantages to being in NY. My parents brought me to see quite a … Continue reading →

Parsimony has become very popular with scientists and philosophers. The idea is that the simplest explanation for any phenomenon – the one that includes the fewest possible number of causal factors – is the best explanation. This principle was used … Continue reading →