Book review of Death by Black Hole

I finished Neil DeGrasse Tyson's "Death by Black Hole and other Cosmic Quandaries" last night. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned many things about the universe that I didn't know before. From the birth and death of stars to the possibility of multiverses to the primordial soup milliseconds after the big bang that all matter is make up of, Dr. Tyson made each subject fascinating and easy to understand in layman's terms. I highly recommend this book.

The last paragraph was very fitting for this group:

If you're not swayed by academic arguments, consider the financial consequences. Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and the laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery - the frontier that drives the economies of the future - would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major break through in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.

In other words, saying that since you can't possible understand something doesn't mean God was responsible. There are many, many examples of scientists from Newton to Huygens to Galileo each reaching the limits of their understanding during their time only to invoke God when they just couldn't explain anything anymore. Fortunately we don't find scientists doing this anymore. Oh, there are a few but they are not taken seriously. One prime example is William Dembski and Michael Behe of the Discovery Institute. They claim that life is so complex that only an intelligent designer could've created it. They have published nothing that is peer reviewed and the claims they have been making have all been refuted years ago. It's sad that most people in the United States have poor science backgrounds and are unable (or perhaps unwilling) to spot bad science when they see it. Our country lags so far behind in the life sciences that we are now in second to last place just ahead of Turkey in the belief of evolution. It's sad that these people are actively trying to dumb us down and it's sad that so many people are actively participating.

On to the next book. I immediately started "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The introduction tells the story about how she and her friend, Theo Van Gogh (yes, that Van Gogh) produced a film called "Submission" about the struggles of Muslim women within the confines of that religion. She goes on to recount the day Theo was gunned down in the streets of Amsterdam by a Muslim man angry about this film, and stabbed a 5 page letter onto Theo's chest addressed to her. Theo had been warned about making this dangerous film but he so believed in the freedom of expression that he didn't back down. It was even suggested that his name not be put on the credits for security reasons. This made him angry. He said, "If I can't put my name on my own film, in Holland, then Holland isn't Holland any more, and I am not me." Very powerful opening to an autobiography! I actually wept it was so moving.

I'm into the first chapter about her childhood and find it hard to put the book down. You can tell English isn't her first language, but it only adds to the intrigue of the differences between our cultures.