Bermuda As It Used To Be

Carl Sagan. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007
0143112627 From Scientific American Sagan, writing from beyond the grave (actually his new book, The Varieties of Scientific Experience, is an edited version of his 1985 Gifford Lectures), asks why, if God created the universe, he left the evidence so scant. He might have embedded Maxwell's equations in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Ten Commandments might have been engraved on the moon. "Or why not a hundred- kilometer crucifix in Earth orbit?… Why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?" He laments what he calls a "retreat from Copernicus," a loss of nerve, an emotional regression to the idea that humanity must occupy center stage. Both Gingerich and Collins, along with most every reconciler of science and religion, invoke the anthropic principle: that the values of certain physical constants such as the charge of the electron appear to be "fine-tuned" to produce a universe hospitable to the rise of conscious, worshipful life. But the universe is not all that hospitable-try leaving Earth without a space suit. Life took billions of years to take root on this planet, and it is an open question whether it made it anywhere else. To us carboniferous creatures, the dials may seem miraculously tweaked, but different physical laws might have led to universes harboring equally awe-filled forms of energy, cooking up anthropic arguments of their own. George Johnson is author of Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order and six other books. He resides on the Web at talaya.net --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From The Washington Post Reviewed by Wray Herbert In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was looking at Mars through his new telescope, and he noticed intricate etchings in the equatorial region of the planet's surface. Schiaparelli called these lines canali, by which he probably meant something like "gullies" or "grooves," but his coinage got wrongly translated into English as "canals." It was a regrettable linguistic slip. The idea of Martian canals grabbed the imagination of American astronomer Percival Lowell, scion of the famous Boston Lowell clan, who spun out an elaborate story of a Martian civilization with a central planetary government and the technological wizardry to engineer a massive system of aqueducts. Lowell even used his own Arizona observatory to identify the Martian capital, called Solis Lacus. There are no canals on Mars. No cities either, and no government. Indeed, no signs of past life whatsoever, as we know today. All of this was an elaborate phantasm of Lowell's fertile mind, yet as late as the 1950s, popular culture was saturated with imagery of Martians as a technologically advanced extraterrestrial race. The late Carl Sagan used the misbegotten tale of Martian engineers, in his 1985 Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow, as a cautionary tale about the power of belief and yearning to trump science and reason. The Cornell University astrophysicist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and TV personality was alarmed by the persistence of such magical thinking even into the late 20th century, despite tremendous scientific progress in understanding both human nature and the cosmos. He used the prestigious lecture series (collected here for the first time by his widow and long-time collaborator, Ann Druyan) as an opportunity to challenge the evidence for everything from the Bermuda Triangle to UFOs to angels and deities. But just as important, he used the lectures to spell out his views on the common ground shared by science and spirituality. Sagan does not deny the existence of God. Nor does he affirm it. As he quips in the lively Q&A section appended to the lectures, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." What Sagan does do is insist on the primacy of scientific method and scientific evidence, and he holds the many and various "proofs" of God's existence up to these scientific standards. Most are found wanting. But Sagan is not harsh in his critiques of religious thought; he is more perplexed by t.

Paperback, New

[SW: science, critical thinking, god, philosophy, religion, cosmology, astronomy, nonfiction, religious skepticism, space,]

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Peter Benchley. Beast. NY: Random House, 1991
0679403558 350 pages, Very Good book in very good dust jacket. Foxing on edges. Possible price on front of dustjacket. From Publishers Weekly Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes Architeuthis , a giant squid, the eponymous beast of Benchley's latest tale. At an estimated length of anywhere from 30 to 90 feet and armed with two predatory tentacles, a huge, snapping beak and eight writhing arms, each lined with razor-sharp hooks; the giant squid has been wreaking havoc off the coast of Bermuda. By the time the protagonists--Bermuda native Whip Darling and Navy helicopter pilot Marcus Sharp--figure out what sort of beast they're dealing with, Architeuthis has killed five people. As they ponder this carnage, both men remember another scary fish story, Jaws --Marcus recalls "parents refusing to let their children get their feet wet," while Whip proclaims, "Whenever I hear talk about monsters, I think about 'Jaws.' " This monster, unfortunately, is not nearly as scary as the one they remember so vividly, because the reader comes to know it too intimately. Each time the squid prepares to attack its next unwitting victim, we are given an in-depth, close-up view of the beast, usually in a separate chapter. This technique, used sparingly (as it was in Jaws ), can be a heart-stopper, but overindulged, as here, it robs the narrative of dramatic tension. Worse, the author's own references to his more memorable work only serve to emphasize the weaknesses of his newest. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal YA-- Small boats are ripped apart, their passengers vanish, divers disappear, and partially eaten body parts are found. Because Bermuda's waters are depleted, Architeuthis Dux (giant squid) turns to the residents and tourists as its primary food source. Whip Darling, local marine expert with a boat for hire; Lt. Marcus Sharp, Navy pilot and amateur oceanographer; Dr. Herbert Talley, foremost authority on the giant squid; and media magnate Osborn Manning, whose two offspring fell victim to the squid, form an alliance to track down and destroy it. Beast is set in an ocean community filled with bumbling officials and red tape. The monster terrorizes the island, gobbling up its citizens and forcing a group of experts to join forces to combat it. Benchley has combined interesting, colorful characters with a surefire plot, producing another of the well-written, well-researched sea adventures at which he excels. However, its similarity to Jaws (Doubleday, 1974; o.p.) lessens its impact. --John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA.

First Edition, Hardcover, Very Good

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Peter Benchley. Beast. Fawcett, 19920701
0449220893 From Publishers Weekly Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes Architeuthis , a giant squid, the eponymous beast of Benchley's latest tale. At an estimated length of anywhere from 30 to 90 feet and armed with two predatory tentacles, a huge, snapping beak and eight writhing arms, each lined with razor-sharp hooks; the giant squid has been wreaking havoc off the coast of Bermuda. By the time the protagonists--Bermuda native Whip Darling and Navy helicopter pilot Marcus Sharp--figure out what sort of beast they're dealing with, Architeuthis has killed five people. As they ponder this carnage, both men remember another scary fish story, Jaws --Marcus recalls "parents refusing to let their children get their feet wet," while Whip proclaims, "Whenever I hear talk about monsters, I think about 'Jaws.' " This monster, unfortunately, is not nearly as scary as the one they remember so vividly, because the reader comes to know it too intimately. Each time the squid prepares to attack its next unwitting victim, we are given an in-depth, close-up view of the beast, usually in a separate chapter. This technique, used sparingly (as it was in Jaws ), can be a heart-stopper, but overindulged, as here, it robs the narrative of dramatic tension. Worse, the author's own references to his more memorable work only serve to emphasize the weaknesses of his newest. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From School Library Journal YA-- Small boats are ripped apart, their passengers vanish, divers disappear, and partially eaten body parts are found. Because Bermuda's waters are depleted, Architeuthis Dux (giant squid) turns to the residents and tourists as its primary food source. Whip Darling, local marine expert with a boat for hire; Lt. Marcus Sharp, Navy pilot and amateur oceanographer; Dr. Herbert Talley, foremost authority on the giant squid; and media magnate Osborn Manning, whose two offspring fell victim to the squid, form an alliance to track down and destroy it. Beast is set in an ocean community filled with bumbling officials and red tape. The monster terrorizes the island, gobbling up its citizens and forcing a group of experts to join forces to combat it. Benchley has combined interesting, colorful characters with a surefire plot, producing another of the well-written, well-researched sea adventures at which he excels. However, its similarity to Jaws (Doubleday, 1974; o.p.) lessens its impact. --John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition..

MM, Very Good

[SW: creature feature fiction, suspense,]

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Jones, Marie D: PSIENCE: How New Discoveries In Quantum Physics & New Science May Explain The Existence Of Paranormal Phenomena, New Page Books ISBN: 1564148955
Please no orders from New York! . Brand new, not a used item. "The once hard line between science and metaphysics is becoming more and more blurred. Marie Jones has joined the list of forward-thinking individuals who are taking us to the next level in both science and our understanding of the universe and our place in it." <br><br>-Jim Marrs, journalist and author of the New York Times bestsellers, ALIEN AGENDA and RULE BY SECRECY<br><br>"Marie is an expert layperson in communicating what can be some daunting new science to those who want to know more. She boils it down to its essentials and has done so deftly and brilliantly."<br><br>Adapted From the Foreword by Pavel Mikoloski<br><br>"What The BLEEP Do We Know!?"<br><br>PSIence introduces readers to the latest discoveries in quantum physics and New Science that may explain the existence of paranormal phenomena-UFOs, ghosts, poltergeists, mysterious apparitions, time anomalies, the Bermuda Triangle, energy vortices-and psychic abilities such as ESP, telekinesis, remote viewing, and recalling past lives.

Brand New

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