Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

    The Social Fabric of Scientific Trust:  A Review of Naomi Oreskes' Why Trust Science ?   Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton   Recently, I have reconsidered a problem that emerged early in my career as a psychologist. By the time I was in graduate school, I began to hear clergy and other evangelicals attacking my profession. Because my graduate work was at the University of Missouri, in the 1970s, the issue of psychology and Christianity was not discussed in my classes. Psychology is a science. We learned how to conduct experiments before we learned how to apply principles to the assessment and treatment of people struggling with various problems in living.   I soon learned from clergy and church friends of the low esteem they accorded my profession. Oreskes’ book offers some helpful thoughts on the general issue of trusting science and scientists. Her examples include psychology so, I found her ideas particularly helpful and think others interested in the cultural rejection of

  The GOD PROBLEM How a Godless Cosmos Creates By Howard Bloom Reviewed by      Geoffrey W. Sutton In the beginning …that is about 13.787 billion years ago our universe began. Bloom invites us to return to the beginning so we might observe how the universe created itself without recourse to supernatural explanations. Time is a stairway. On each post-big-bang step we pause to observe what’s new. What’s unfolding. Eventually, humans emerge on earth and begin to use models to represent their world to modify their environment. Soon humans are standing on the steps of time and looking at the stars. Bloom captures various moments when our forebears began to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos. At first, the progress is small. Primitive ideas slowly become more complex. At times, Bloom meanders and repeats phrases like a parent reminding child of life’s truisms.  Then, a few centuries ago, Bloom is off and running from one scientist to another scooping up bits of knowledge that,

  THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD Science as a Candle in the Dark By   Carl Sagan   Reviewed by   Geoffrey W. Sutton Carl Sagan injects readers with two treatments followed by booster shots throughout the 25 chapters of The Demon-Haunted World . In the end, enlightened readers will see science, not as a mere candle, but as a brilliant search light in the murky world of opinions, conspiracies, and myths. The first repeated treatment is a healthy dose of skepticism aimed at beliefs that led so many of our ancestors astray or worse, led to horrendous unnecessary deaths. The second treatment is the inspiring and hope-filled vial of scientific discovery catalyzed by curiosity and wonderment and guided by the light of the scientific method. For the most part, Sagan moves us quickly from one topic to another but there were times when I wished he’d cut some of the UFO stories. I get it. People are gullible and believe all sorts of things about aliens. Of course there’s more. People seek