And as for your second question about using curiosity to engage undergrads who might not be interested in the essay they are writing, I feel like it often happens that my questions give unenthusiastic writers (or even resistant ones, as I describe in the post) permission to grab hold of what they’re saying in a paper. But I’d love to hear more from you, or from others, about this—have there been times where your curiosity motivated a student? Or situations in which expressions of interest did not work to motivate a student? Don’t get me wrong, though. I’ll repeat that Robin is entitled to his own opinions and biases, just as I am. It’s only the fact that he talks a lot about right-wing (ignorant) detractors of science being blinkered because of their politics, without ever once recognising the splinter in his own eye. Still, I forgive a lot for the idea that of all the behaviours we've been told are uniquely human over the years, the relevant interviewee (and the book has many, including a few fairly big names) suggests that the only one really particular to us is the ability to contemplate multiple meanings of a single thing. Though even aside from my own example, which I would have liked to ask her about (not using tools directly, but using tools to make better tools), this does suggest depressing corollaries regarding the many people incapable of doing that, the regrettably numerous types who always take depiction for endorsement and assume all creators support their protagonists' actions. I enjoyed reading this book - its certainly very thought provoking and likely to make you imagine many wondrous, space related/cosmology related things. Its a thoughtful read and its mostly a fairly easy read, at least I found it pretty accessible to start with but I admit I was in a bit of a rush to finish it and towards the end, it felt a bit more of a slog to read. Some subjects of course are more interesting than others I guess and certainly at the end, thinking too much about the ultimate death of the universe may feel a bit cold and depressing, so you may well want to be in the right frame of mind to read some of this but for the most part, this is a good read, with contributions from numerous scientists and some celebrities. I liked the quotes and the images provided alongside the text.

So I personally fail to see how this mans mind can arrive at a conclusion where he dismisses certain schools of thought in favour of others, claiming one to have no value where as science has all the value. But how can this man tell us this when he understands neither? I think maybe the last three chapters of this book don't use "right wing" as shorthand for "ignorant" at some point. Most of the other chapters do. The same can be said for the pejorative use of "nationalist" , or the interchangeable way in which "religious" and "fundamentalist" are applied. To be fair, a number of these uses are to be found in quotes, but from a structuralist point of view, we can learn a lot by the quotes that were not selected.

Open Library

The clincher for me was the comment, "I would hope that those private companies that are now financing space missions have not build up their fortunes needed to become extraterrestrial by skimping on tax or employee rights and benefits", that's exactly what they've done - it's well documented. It is a brave move to take on the complex, systematic cruelty of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries in a novella, and Claire Keegan writes with a rare power and texture. A teenage girl begs family man Bill Furlong to remove her from the convent to which he delivers coal. Societal mores means he’s urged to keep quiet about the troubling things he’s beginning to see, but Bill’s own childhood experiences compel him to both confront his past and act in his present. A restrained and intensely moral book, full of hope and love. Empireland In November, I helped lead a writing retreat that was co-hosted by the UW-Madison Writing Center and the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE) graduate student group. It took place at the UW Arboretum; the twenty-five graduate students in attendance were from a variety of disciplines, but knew each other through CHE. We started by going around the room so everyone could say what project they were working on. After our four-hour writing session, someone said that, though he knew in general terms about the research projects of other CHE grads, it was great to hear specifically and concretely what everyone else was working on that day. Coots! In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn’t just for the professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more – as well as charting Robin’s own journey with science – The Importance of Being Interested explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. From the glorious appeal of the stars above to why scientific curiosity can encourage much needed intellectual humility, this optimistic and profound book will leave you filled with a thirst for intellectual adventure. This is a book about science and thoughts for the average person. I really did not get a whole lot from this and I hated the writing style. It was written by someone who's not a scientist but interviews thought leaders in several different areas. Therefore it really didn't go that deep.

His mind is joyous, eternally curious and making connections that can be deep and humorous at the same time. If you like to laugh and be able to learn something new about science at the same time, or at least see it in a different light, then read Robin’s book. But it is also the case that interesting things generally share a number of characteristics. The research of Paul Silvia suggests that to be interesting, material must be novel, complex, and comprehensible. That means introducing ourselves or others to things we haven’t encountered before (or novel aspects of familiar things), and calibrating their complexity so that these things are neither too hard nor too easy to understand. Understandability is crucial: as Silvia writes, new and complex things are interesting “provided that people feel able to comprehend them and master the challenges that they pose.” But the essential requirements of advanced research in specialized fields encourage habits of mind that do not necessarily foster that flexibility—let alone complement our teaching mission. One such requirement is a laser-like focus on a specific question framed through sustained engagement with the literature of a subfield. If you have written a dissertation or are close to anyone who has, you’re probably familiar with the stage in any intensive research project where everything starts to seem related to your topic of study—for me, organic form in poetry. While it’s enormously rewarding—and fun!—to be in that focused and synthesizing frame of mind, I have not found that it makes me a great conversationalist. Blurb: Robin Ince abandoned science at secondary school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty years later, he fell in love with it and now he presents one of the most popular science podcasts. Every year, he meets hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers.I think The Importance Of Being Interested is excellent. It is witty, insightful and extremely interesting.