Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination
by Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi
Penguin, £20.00, ISBN 0713993081

If you have ever read (or tried) Edelman’s previous books you might expect this one to be equally incomprehensible.
It is not. Whether Edelman has learned how to explain his theories at last, or whether Tononi is entirely responsible, the result is a fascinating book with an entirely new take on the problems of consciousness.
Many theories of consciousness imply that certain groups of neurons or brain areas must be the conscious ones, without having any idea what this means. Others, as Dennett has so powerfully explained, assume an impossible “Cartesian Theatre” – a mythical time and place in the brain at which the results of unconscious processing suddenly “become conscious” or “enter consciousness” – again with no idea what this could mean. Edelman and Tononi refreshingly avoid these problems. They develop a selectionist theory of brain function known as Neural Darwinism or TNGS (the theory of neuronal group selection); with selection operating during development, during learning, and in what they call “re-entrant mapping”. They argue that although generating consciousness involves large populations of neurons in the thalamocortical system, consciousness is not a question of precisely which neurons are active, nor of how many, but of the kind of interactions between them.\They tackle what seems like a paradox – that consciousness seems, from the inside, to be both unitary and complex. That is, we cannot subdivide our own awareness, yet each conscious state is extraordinarily informative, being just one out of billions of possible states. Their solution is a mathematical theory resting on the concepts of mutual information and complexity. Consciousness depends on there being a dynamic core of neurons which is functionally integrated yet highly differentiated.
Among the many interesting ideas in the book are a non-representational theory of memory, the concept of the conscious scene as a “remembered present”, and the importance of looking at the problem from the point of view of the system itself. The theory is also testable – another reason why this book stands above the huge crowd of vacuous or mysterious theories of consciousness on offer today.

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud
by Robert Park
Oxford University Press, £18.99, ISBN 0198507453

This is an extremely enjoyable and readable book. Robert Park is Professor of Physics and former chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. He also directs the Washington office of the American Physical Society. In addition to his output in scientific journals, he also writes regularly for the Washington Post and New York Times, and this is no doubt where he honed his skills as a fine writer of popular science.
This book presents an engaging account of Park’s encounters with various aspects of what he calls “voodoo science.” He uses this term to collectively cover four varieties of bad and bogus science.
The first is pathological science, during episodes of which even eminent scientists can be prone to self-delusion which leads them to proclaim a great scientific breakthrough on the basis of flimsy evidence. A failure to appreciate the biasing effects of wishful thinking upon judgement often lies at the heart of such episodes.
Secondly, there is junk science, often to be found in the testimony of expert witnesses in the courtroom.
Given that trained scientists can be susceptible to pathological science, it should not surprise us that untrained jurors can be easy prey for the practitioner of this brand of voodoo. There is no clear dividing line between junk science and pseudoscience, in which there really is not any scientific evidence at all to support the theory in question. Instead, the practitioners adopt the trappings of science (such as technical jargon) without understanding the central concepts of the scientific method. Finally, there is frankly fraudulent science, often evolving from the other varieties.
This book engagingly provides examples of all four varieties and a lot more besides. It deserves a place on your bookshelf.

Star in the East: Krishnamurti, the Invention of a Messiah
by Roland Vernon
Constable, £20, ISBN 0094764808

What happens if you are trained from childhood to be a religious leader, and then lose your faith? The life of Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) suggests that one solution is to stay with the occupation which you’ve trained for – and continue as a religious leader.
Krishnamurti was born in India, the son of an impoverished Brahmin. At the age of 13, he became the protégé of Charles Leadbeater, a prominent (and somewhat shady) Theosophist, and was groomed for the role of World Teacher, first in the Theosophists’ Indian settlement, and later in England.
However, in his twenties, he became increasingly skeptical about Theosophy, and, in 1922, following a love affair with an attractive young woman, he experienced a major physical and psychological crisis. This led him, over the next few years, to break with the Theosophist moment, abandoning its weird and complex mythology in favour of his own, more abstract, ideas.
Supported by wealthy patrons, and by an entourage of devotees, he continued to teach and to write for more than 50 years, appealing particularly to the kind of Westerner who has religious yearnings, and who looks to the East to have them satisfied. Although, in some respects, an egotistical, indeed infantile person (something which his biographer does not try to conceal), his failings were no worse than might be expected of someone with his upbringing. Certainly, his lifestyle seems to have avoided the excesses of some recent religious leaders. Although it contains some fascinating material about the history of Theosophy, this book will appeal mainly to those who take Krishnamurti’s teachings seriously.
Unfortunately, the author makes little attempt to explain or paraphrase these, presumably because Krishnamurti himself expressly forbade anyone to do so – and for obvious reasons. Unless treated as Holy Writ, and approached with reverent humility, Krishnamurti’s writings appear to be little more than windy pantheistic rhetoric. He tells us that external facts are of no importance (so the whole of science is of no account). Nor are our thoughts of any importance (though Krishnamurti) could scarcely have had the career he did unless he made an exception in favour of his own thoughts). Instead, we are to rely on “pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past”. This will lead us to see that “the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience … is an illusion.” And so on. . . . One reader, at least, is underwhelmed by such “wisdom”.
Nevertheless, despite the unpromising material, Roland Vernon has produced a well-written and thoughtful book. Indeed, it is, perhaps, a better biography than its subject deserves.

Dreaming the Future: The Fantastic Story of Prediction
by Clifford A Pickover
Prometheus Books, $20, ISBN 157392895X

I must confess that I do not like books that are overlong, rambling, repetitive and read like extended schoolboy essays. Unfortunately, this book is all of those things. Many of the over 500 pages are taken up with annotated lists: catalogues of mantic activities organised by method, “my favorite diviners, sorted into three categories”, favourite popes, favourite saints. Each subject is lovingly described. But a look at the notes indicates that the information has been recycled from similar collections and encyclopaedias rather than researched from first-hand or specialist sources. So a canard like the old “intoxicating fumes” explanation for the Delphic Pythia’s predictions appears yet again despite the continuing lack of archaeological or geological support. It is perhaps this absence of deep knowledge that makes so many of the author’s explanations seem superficial and banal. And yet Pickover is, in fact, a skeptic. The book reads like a believer’s book: there are even directions for do-it-yourself divination. But once he has the reader’s interest, he begins to question – gently. He admits, for example, to a personal fascination with Nostradamus and goes on discuss the man himself at length. But he also questions the prophetic value of the quatrains. It’s OK to be fascinated, he seems to be saying, but maybe you ought to think more carefully about this.
By contrast, his quote from Randi that “so many naïve scholars … have pored over Nostradamus’s writings … that thousands of pages of drivel are readily available” reflects a more typical skeptical style. Yet, words like “naïve” and “drivel” insult and disparage all but likeminded readers. Pickover’s softly, softly approach is more likely to encourage reluctant thinkers. I did not find this book satisfying nor do I think that readers of The Skeptic will either. But there is a market out there that many skeptical books fail to reach because they adopt a tone that is off-putting to readers whose beliefs could be challenged if they were approached more sympathetically. These people, I believe, Pickover will reach.

The Secret Scroll
by Andrew Sinclair
Sinclair-Stevenson, UKP 24.99, ISBN 0953739864

The cover promises that this book will reveal the links between the Holy Land and Venice and Scotland and North America and Rosslyn Chapel and the Dead Sea scrolls and the Masons and the Ark of the Covenant and… It will show a secret citadel and how the secret wisdom of the Middle East passed through the Templar Order into all guilds and crafts of Europe and America. It promises at the end a priceless secret scroll and a treasure map and of course also a rock tomb. It is also promises that the Holy Grail will be found at the end of the book in Scotland.
I have a confession to make: after several brave attempts to start again and again, I gave up reading after some 50 pages. Enough is enough. This book was written for people with a higher gift for endurance than mine. It reads as fluently as a telephone directory, but that has at least some alphabetical logic to it. Every phrase is crammed with names of persons, cities, religions and dark and Gnostic powers that are all linked in a way that would make Erich Von Däniken blush with envy.
If I were given a choice how to discover the Holy Grail: either saddle my horse and leave on a long quest, or chew through this book till the end, I know which I would opt for.
To be recommended to strong readers only.

Willem Betz

Test Your Science IQ
by Charles J Cazeau
Prometheus Books, $20, ISBN 1573928518

To get my moan about the title out of the way first: the IQ is a measure of intelligence; this book is about knowledge, and the two should not be confused.
It consists of questions and answers on a great variety of scientific topics, divided into “Outer Space,” “The Earth,” “Life on Earth,” “The Emergence of Humanity,” and “The Paranormal.” The last topic has some robust dismissals of fairies, Nessie, ghosts, poltergeists, precognitive dreams, Nostradamus, Mother Shipton, astrology, and so on. There is the sad story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s gullibility about fairies and other phenomena: when Houdini pointed out that a communication supposedly from his mother was in English, a language she did not know, Doyle said she must have learned it in the afterlife! Cazeau makes some good points: with millions of dreams some must seem to fit the future, purely by chance; purported communications with the dead are “gibberish”; only premonitions that come true are remembered. Not only does the section devoted to the paranormal contain comments on such matters: others summarise the differences between astronomy and astrology and say the Tunguska explosion was not a spacecraft; planetary conjunctions are insignificant (“like assuming an elephant would falter … if you threw a cream puff at its legs”).
Galileo’s experience has echoes in modern times, with attempts to ban evolution from textbooks and foist creationism on students “when it has not one scintilla of scientific merit.” Cazeau notes that there is no face on Mars, and neither are its satellites artificial. And as he observes, if some dowsers claim to be able to find gold, why aren’t they rich?
There are well-aimed blows at iridology, crystals, homeopathy, pyramidiots, mummies’ curses and the Turin Shroud, and an excellent summary of Occam’s Razor.

Ray Ward

Deep Time: Cladistics, The Revolution in Evolution
by Henry Gee
Fourth Estate, ISBN 1857029879

The blurb makes the large claim that Gee “shows us how everything we thought we knew about evolution is wrong.” More trouble for evolutionists? For some, maybe, but this is not about undermining Darwinism. The title refers to the notion that geological time is so unthinkably vast compared with time as we mortals experience it, that it disallows the sort of storytelling that palaeontology has traditionally employed.

The chronological sparseness of fossils is a deeper problem than their geographical rarity. In a fundamental way, it makes it impossible to establish ancestral relationships other than of the broadest kind, yet we are familiar enough with scientific accounts showing how one species descended from another. According to “cladists”, evolutionists have been offering genealogical stories which assume too much about cause and effect.

Enter cladistics, which “looks only at the pattern of the history of life, free from assumptions about the process of the unfolding of history” (p.6). It is assumed, of course, that “evolution has happened; species do transmute into other species” (p.134). The central concept is the “sister-group relationship”, which reflects degrees of cousinhood, rather than assumed lineages.

What difference does this make to the Darwinian in the street? Here’s one consequence of the argument: “It can no longer be claimed that the origin of birds is inextricably linked with the origin of flight” (p.190).

This is definitely worth reading, and Gee paints a vivid picture of the science of fossils. There are also engaging tales of the Gang of Four, the cladist clique at the Natural History Museum, and Gee only once succumbs to the Gleick syndrome of telling us what brand of car he drove when visiting a scientist. Whether cladistics “represents a revolution in thought as profound as that of Darwinian evolution by natural selection” (p.135) is a moot point.

Paul Taylor

Gateway to Atlantis: The Search for the Source of a Lost Civilisation
by Andrew Collins
Headline Book Publishing, £7.99, ISBN 0747261377

A search on Amazon.com brings up 170 titles on the subject of Atlantis. The Cincinnati Public Library has 67 including fiction and juvenile literature, and the Ohio library system lists 246 entries. Some of these will be duplicates, but clearly there is no dearth of books on the legendary lost continent of Atlantis.
Andrew Collins, author of Gateway to Atlantis, himself mentions millions of copies in print, not to mention movies and comics, and he seems to have read them all (pp. 16–17). Collins is aware “we are still awaiting an unambiguous archaeological discovery” (p. 16) and that “nothing has surfaced to confirm the Atlantis legend” (p. 17). Most scholars who know classical Greek literature deny that Atlantis represents a legend with an underlying core in reality. The only source on this lost civilisation is found in two essays of the philosopher Plato. Since a true legend would be mentioned more widely, experts consider Atlantis a fiction invented by Plato.
A few scholars have considered the explosion of the volcano Thera, midway between Crete, mainland Greece and Turkey in about 1500 BCE as possibly reflected in Plato’s fiction. Collins locates the lost civilization off the American Atlantic seaboard, on the shallow continental shelf. Here it disappeared beneath the sea when the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age. This places the end of Atlantis in the period 12 to 20 thousand years ago. To archaeologists the latest among these dates coincides with the invention of agriculture. No remains of civilization, that is towns, writing, or metallurgy, have been found for this time period anywhere on earth.
Collins has a fair amount of interesting detail, but it becomes mind-numbing over four hundred pages. This is especially so when you have to plow through the first 150 pages before you find out just where he thinks Atlantis was located.