Politically to your taste or not, the work is a salubrious tonic to the blinkered toxicity of the unlimited-progress mindset.
Surgical pathologist Heffner argues that the notion of unlimited progress creates a perilous optimism in both the scientific and socio-political realms.
Humans' faith in "progress" has become delusional, writes Heffner in this dense but well-guided foray into the roots and foibles of our giddy optimism that all technological and social quandaries have answers. In part, the roots of this optimism can be found in the period following the Industrial Revolution up until about the middle of the 20th century. It was then that technological/scientific progress was so spectacular that its great leaps forward infected society with a sense of unending betterment, or at least impending solutions. Science was ascendant, its objectivity and logical positivism applicable even in the social sphere: home economics, the science of administration, political science. Such headiness is a chimera, cautions Heffner; science has its limits, and it isn’t as tidy, logical or formally objective as many claim. This is especially true in the arenas that saw terrific advancement, such as medicine and transportation. Heffner provides numerous examples of a pervasive attitude that assumes that problems can be approached from a predictable, digital aspect, whereas many are more analog—continuous and unpredictable—in manner, from chemical signals leaping the synaptic cleft, to the biochemical processes of DNA and cellular instability, to weather forecasting and nuclear fusion. Heffner claims “trying to control or cure…cancer by tinkering with DNA can be seen as similar to trying to control the contour of fallen snow by altering some of the details of snowflakes.” Chaos theory seems more pertinent, tiny input parameter uncertainties resulting in unpredictable, sometimes huge, effects. Having entered into a period of diminishing research returns, incremental changes are in order. Heffner sees this as applying to the socio-political terrain as well. Here readers can joust with his conservatism—“Since the risk of calamity to the train may be increasing, the brakemen are becoming more indispensable”—and his own heady optimism that worthwhile change will receive “due bipartisan support,” vested interests be damned.
Politically to your taste or not, the work is a salubrious tonic to the blinkered toxicity of the unlimited-progress mindset.Pub Date: July 13, 2010
ISBN: 978-1450237864
Page Count: 136
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf