pickThe introduction for each chapter is captivating, as it should be. It makes you wants to know more about how each technology went awry. Pandora‘s Lab is an excellent book with a gripping prose and a clear message.
3 likes
Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong | 
pickThe introduction for each chapter is captivating, as it should be. It makes you wants to know more about how each technology went awry. Pandora‘s Lab is an excellent book with a gripping prose and a clear message.
What a long strange year it has been! My goal back in January was to read 300 books, and since then Covid has happen, I‘ve actually had Covid, my dad had a stroke, but I‘ve finally been able to make some records and...
My first #bookspinbingo book this month (tagged) was my 300th book!!! So now I‘m actually at 323 books completed! I never would‘ve thought...
Plus I have another blackout bingo!! (With two hibernations...😉)
pickFun read with lots of interesting science. Whether you're a science nerd, or new to the subject, this has something for everyone.
It also featured my favorite scientist, Rachel Carson. 😍
pickThis books looks at some horrible mistakes of (pseudo)science such as eugenics, lobotomies, nitrogenous fertilizers, and chemical weapons. He also has some stands that I DON‘T find controversial but others might such as vaccines are good and too much vitamin supplementation is harmful. Then he makes some conclusions in the final chapter that I don‘t feel we have true long-term evidence about such as e-cigs being non-harmful. ⬇️ 3.5⭐️ #audiobook
pickThis book was disturbing. We, humans, aren't nearly as smart as we think, too often today's miracle is tomorrow's killer. The chapters on eugenics and lobotomies was especially difficult to listen to, or understand how respected medical societies and learned physicians could have approved of these practices. 4 💥💥💥💥
Current audiobook.
WOW, WE HAVE MADE SOME BIG MISTAKES. And some that were eerily not mistakes at all.
#24B4MONDAY #readathon
Please come join us for our readathon. Have fun and enjoy some good reads! Here is my stack. I‘d like to finish five of them and make progress on Les Misérables.
#thoughtfulthursday
1. My plan is to finish Sheets and Pandora‘s Lab
2. Tater tot casserole
3. Writing letters, spring cleaning, playing with my dogs
4. If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. Katharine Hepburn (it‘s tattooed on my arm)
Thanks for the tag @JaclynW
1. Tagged - finishing it up so I can mail it back to @REPollock (sorry I‘m a bit slow in reading this month)
2. Yes maxed out on overdrive 😣 why oh why do we only get a limited number of holds online?!?
3. Two dogs, one cat, four turtles, 13 chickens
#weekendreads
1. Currently reading Pandora‘s Lab
2. 🤔 collecting art and craft supplies to stare at in shame
3. Next up is How to Find Love in a Bookshop for my library book club.
#wondrouswednesday
1. Probably Dr. Seuss
2. 4 books cases plus a TV stand which holds books and books in bins still and stack in various places.
3. Total chaos
#Two4Tuesday
1. Generally no - I will say I prefer used books over new books for the most part. I like that a book has history, or that it is gaining new life. Plus I like that it‘s not going to a trash heap (environment).
2. I use my iPad to read from a variety of apps. The app I use the most is probably overdrive.
pickA grave lesson about the consequences of bad science. For the full review, please visit http://benjamin-m-weilert.com/index.php/2019/12/18/book-pandoras-lab-2017/
pickBook number 2 for round 7 of #lmpbc - and it was a great choice. Full of information, well researched and well presented. It could have quickly become dry and overwhelming and yet it was approachable and easy to read. It covers 7 different topics, each with its own chapter. I really enjoyed the information and the format.
pickInteresting, thought provoking, also at times horrifying and depressing. The last chapter demonstrating how to use the lessons of the past to evaluate current concerns is great. This was my #lmpbc swap book, going out to @Kaila-ann hopefully before Thanksgiving!
One more chapter and I‘ll ship this off to the next person in my #lmpbc swap group!
We start the #lmpbc reads today yes? I‘m so excited for my first one!
pickSo much insight packed into this book. The title is evocative but this isn't about bashing scientists who got it wrong. Instead, it shows how easy it is to get the masses on board with an idea and to support it with enough zeal to make a cult leader burn with envy.
DDT: I did not know the history before this book. Now that I do, it's infuriating to watch us repeat the same overaction with other things, while turning a blind eye to deregulation.
pickExcellent book this, even if you don't care much for non-fiction. Flawlessly researched and precise and straight to the point. Favorite mind-blowing part; (spoiler!) How America popularized eugenics, one particular book selling so well it was translated into German. You can guess the rest.
pickA well-researched & well-written book about 7 stories of science gone wrong. Easy to read & understand. If you enjoy science (without too sciency writing) & history, this is a must read!
Rating: 5🌟
For my full review please visit https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2748009261
pickNew chair (I‘m SO in ♥️)! Anyway - focusing. This book! It‘s an amazing, well informed, blistering critique of not so much “science” gone wrong as scientists gone wrong or science done wrong. It‘s a mind boggling and not a little disturbing critique of seven things that didn‘t quite work out the way we‘d have hoped. The book is a fast read but sometimes so heavy I had to put it down for a bit to process. Nonetheless, highly, HIGHLY recommended.
🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️💔💔💔
Damnit. We got there. Having lived with threats of Malaria, Dengue and Chikungunya for a couple of years my preconceived notions on the evils of DDT are starting to wane...🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Next page: “In India between 1952 and 1962, DDT spraying caused a decrease in Malaria cases from 100 million to 60,000-. [when access stoped in the 70‘s as a result of Silent Spring driven environmentalists, these ] increased to 6 million. 💔
This is about to go wrong.... (it‘s the point of the chapter). Rumour says DDT is still used in India. It horrified me to hear. I didn‘t expect to come around to it being a good thing but I suspect that‘s where we‘re headed at the moment.
As an aside, the life expectancy in one of the Mumbai suburbs I can see from my apartment window is 39. Combination of societal disenfranchisement of slum dwellers, pollution, polio and mosquito borne disease.
Sound familiar? Horrifyingly, this is a chapter on Eugenics in the 1920‘s and the man who saved the Bison, saved the California redwoods and kickstarted the US National Parks movement, the “the single most effective conservationists in America”, Maddison Grant. He also happens to have been an ardent proponent of the eugenics movement and wrote the treatise that would become the backbone for justifications of the Holocaust.
NOT - lightweight read
The quote is “More than three billion people alive today - and billions more in the future - owe their existence to Fritz Herber and Carl Bosch” [who developed the process to remove nitrogen from air for its use in chemical fertilizers] and Puff‘s my stand in. I haven‘t been so blindsided by a book in a long time. Herber, who won a Nobel Prize for this process in 1919 also developed the gas chemical weapons of WWI and what would become Zyklon B.
😂😂😂 When it‘s not terrifying, this book about seven scientific “advancements” that have actually impeded human health and progress, is quite hysterical.
pickOne of my reading goals in 2018 is to complete books that I started. This is one of those books that I started last year, and am glad that I finished it! Seven stories of Science gone wrong! The photo is of a lobotomy, an operation that became so popular that Dr. Freedman traveled the country performing them with an ice pick! All of the stories are fascinating, and I learned to question research and not blindly accept opinions without data.
pickListened on audio, 7 things that we could have done better without. The drug/heroine section is fascinating!
Congratulations @Whimsical.Curiosity on your milestone!!
This #tbr was a gift from my mother & I am waiting to be in a headspace to read it bc intellectually I am SO interested, but TBH I am also not doing very well emotionally right now so I‘m careful about what I give headspace to.
Hugged a friend yesterday when we early-voted & went to a nice dinner after.
#hugyofriendsgiveaway
pickReally interesting overview of several ultimately harmful scientific advances. Each chapter examines a different thing so they're pretty self-contained which makes for a fairly easy read (if you're like me and start to get distracted during long nonfiction reads).
There is no scenario in which I would not buy this. 🔬
Once a year, my Book Club has a luncheon meeting. It was today at the Alumnae House at Bryn Mawr College. The book that we discussed was chosen as the Community Read for the Township, so many activities are planned to support an understanding of the book.
pickThis book was extremely interesting - Offit has a way of explaining things to the common man without sacrificing facts or necessary technicality. It touches on a lot of topics & scientific mess ups that have invariably impacted all of us in some way. Definitely a good choice if you like non-fiction/relatable science types.
pickRating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ of 5 ⭐️s.
Despite a major (for me, since I'm a literature enthusiast with the degree to prove it) fact-checking faux pas in the first chapter, which is also the weakest overall, this book is actually really easy to read, and very informative. It's not anti-science so much as it is a reminder that science is a rigorous discipline and must be apprehended thusly, instead of believed in blindly.
