Tag: Book Review

Land with dry and cracked ground. Desert,Global warming background

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Peter Biles
Date
February 21, 2024

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
Atomic bomb, Book Review, fiction, novels, Oppenheimer}

A Canticle for Leibowitz, a Canticle of Speculative Warning

_{A 1959 novel's speculation of nuclear fallout is yet a story of hope.} _{Peter Biles
February 21, 2024

3

Arts & Culture}

This past year seems to have been the year of the atomic bomb, at least in what I’ve read and watched. I started 2023 by reading The Passenger and Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy, a pair of novels that consistently alludes to Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer arrived a few months later in July, sobering audiences worldwide and reinvigorating public interest in the godlike power these brilliant scientists had unleashed on the world. Most recently, I read the 1959 dystopian novel by Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz, a speculative tale about nuclear holocaust and the perennial human tendency for self-destruction. What a cheery year it’s been! Maybe I’ll switch things up and read Anne of Green Read More ›

In the System Control Room Technical Operator Stands and Monitors Various Activities Showing on Multiple Displays with Graphics. Administrator Monitors Work of Artificial Intelligence.

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News
Date
March 23, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI, Artificial Intelligence, Book Review, ChatGPT, Data analysis, Data Mining, Gary Smith, mind matters, OpenAI, Oxford University Press, social media, Washington Post}

Gary Smith’s New Book Reviewed in Washington Post

_{Smith argues that science itself is being undermined by the tools scientists use} _{News
March 23, 2023

3

Artificial Intelligence}

Walter Bradley Center Senior Fellow Gary Smith’s book Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science was reviewed in The Washington Post today. Smith is a frequent contributor to Mind Matters and teaches economics at Pomona College. In his new book, Smith argues that science itself is being “undermined” by the tools scientists use. Reviewer Abby Ohlheister writes, Smith, an economist whose work often examines the misuse of data and statistics in a variety of disciplines, argues that the current crisis of trust in science falls at the intersection of three forces: disinformation, data torturing and data mining. Disinformation, as Smith writes, is “as old as the human race,” but accelerated in speed and reach alongside social media. Data Read More ›