A humane, appropriately qualified argument that provides aid and comfort for believers—and that should also interest...
An anthropologist mounts a defense of the religious impulse as biological and cultural imperative.
Think of Konner (Anthropology and Neuroscience/Emory Univ.; Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy, 2015, etc.) as an anti–Richard Dawkins. Though, as he notes, “the most religious countries are the least developed ones” and the level of religious belief is declining rapidly among millennials in both Europe and the U.S., there’s something to religion. But what is it? Ranging broadly among traditions and talking with believers, the author identifies a few of its characteristics. One rabbi tells him, for instance, that it packs a healthy sense of awe, an ego-tempering sense that we are not the be-all and end-all of the universe, while Konner himself holds that a central factor of religion is its power to forge community and companionship. As a scientist, the author fully acknowledges that religion eludes scientific study and addresses questions that science perhaps cannot. The fact that so many of our kind have a religious impulse to begin with suggests, as an Indian neurologist memorably writes, that “when God made us, he put an antenna into our brains so we could find him, and it just happens to be in the temporal lobe.” But there’s more to religion, as Konner gamely admits, as an instrument of social control, of instilling norms of social behavior that open with the tenet, “People behave when they think they are watched." Of course, people don’t always behave—it sometimes seems that the more overtly religious a person is the more heinous their transgressions. Konner doesn’t venture much in the way of the definitive, but he urges coexistence and even partnership, noting that the days of religion’s attempting to stamp out science are coming to an end, the behavior of fundamentalist politicians notwithstanding. “Science and faith,” he writes, “are candles in a darkness that is vast compared to the light that either sheds.”
A humane, appropriately qualified argument that provides aid and comfort for believers—and that should also interest fair-minded nonbelievers.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-393-65186-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
The experiment could be a useful one, though it will darken the hearts of the dark lords—a winning argument all its own.
In a book whose title says it all, technoprophet Lanier (Dawn of the New Everything, 2017, etc.) weighs in against predatory technoprofit.
In a world of dogs, it’s better to be a cat. So, in this brief polemic, writes the author, who uses the animal terms advisedly: Dogs are easily trained to respond to stimuli, as Ivan Pavlov knew; humans are as easily trained, à la B.F. Skinner, when given proper rewards. “Dog whistles,” Lanier adds meaningfully, “can only be heard by dogs.” Cats, on the other hand, live in the world while somehow not being quite of it, a model for anyone seeking to get out of the grasp of algorithms and maybe go outside for a calming walk. The metaphor has value. So does the acronym BUMMER, which Lanier coins to sum up the many pieces of his argument: “Behavior of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent.” It’s a little clunky, but the author scores points with more direct notes: “E,” he writes, “is for Earning money from letting the worst assholes secretly screw with everyone else.” As we’re learning from the unfolding story of Cambridge Analytica, which just filed for bankruptcy, he’s got a point. Lanier advocates untethering from social media, which fosters addiction and anomie and generally makes us feel worse and more fearful about each other and the world. Continuing the dog metaphor, it—Lanier uses “media” as a singular noun, which, considering its monolithic nature, may no longer send grammarians screaming—also encourages pack behavior, howling at strangers and sounds in the night. His central objection, though, would seem to be this: “We have enshrined the belief that the only way to finance a connection between two people is through a third person who is paying to manipulate them.” If we accept that, then it’s self-evident why one would want to unplug.
The experiment could be a useful one, though it will darken the hearts of the dark lords—a winning argument all its own.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-19668-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-informed, scary, sobering, and sure to tick off police officers and prosecutors even as it contributes to keeping...
Building on his much-viewed YouTube video “Don’t Talk to the Police,” former criminal defense attorney and legal scholar Duane (Regent Univ. School of Law) offers a cogent, concise argument for keeping silent.
Why is it, asks the author, that public officials who are being questioned so often invoke their constitutional right not to self-incriminate? Because they know the law. More to the point, he suggests, they know the many ways in which all-too-human investigators can misinterpret and twist words—and that the system is fundamentally corrupt to begin with. Though the last bit may be cynical, Duane means it without hyperbole: on any given day, an American adult breaks three laws without even knowing that he or she has done so, very often as a result of unforeseen consequences of good intentions. “That is why,” Duane writes, “you cannot listen to your conscience when faced by a police officer and think, I have nothing to hide.” If the law is corrupt, then so are law enforcement officers, not necessarily out of evil intent but because they have quotas to fulfill, performance evaluations to meet, and so on—and because, increasingly, there’s an us-against-the-world mentality governing the precinct house. So what to do? Duane counsels common sense, noting that there are reasons and situations that call for cooperating with the police. If, however, there’s the remotest chance that suspicion will fall on you, he adds, then it’s a good idea to think Fifth (and Sixth) Amendment and to remember that, thanks to Antonin Scalia’s influence on the Supreme Court, it’s no longer possible to believe that “only guilty people would ever knowingly refuse to talk to the police,” even if the police and the courts seem to think so.
Well-informed, scary, sobering, and sure to tick off police officers and prosecutors even as it contributes to keeping innocent people out of jail.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3339-2
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Little A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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