Customer Reviews

The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology (Canto)

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For some, science is a super hero. It helps to save lives with developments like incubators, surgeries, and medicines. Science brings tools like computers, cordless phones, and DVDs into existence. Others, however, view science as a monster that brings with it pollution, greed, and destruction. Science, as explained in this book, is a very human activity with the full range of problems and possibilities of which man himself is capable. Explained within this book, is the findings of science and exactly how science goes about making progress. This is a very interesting and insightful read. I highly recommend it to pracitioners of science and to students who are studying any type of science. I also recommend it to the layman who wishes to know more about how science really works.

Let me precede this review by noting that my interest in this book was very limited. I read a single chapter (Chernobyl and the Cumbrian Sheepfarmers) for reference for an academic paper I am writing, but it was so poorly written that I feel the need to warn academics away from using this text. While it is possible (though from what I skimmed, I very much doubt) the rest of the book is well written, I can say with certainty that at least one chapter is a near total waste. Not only are Collins and Pinch's arguments deeply flawed an under complained, they make a number of dubious factual claims. Regrettably, they use no in text citation system, and simply provide a list of sources at the end of the book IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY AUTHOR! Not even divided by chapter, but just a lengthy list of academic essays, making it virtually impossible to source-check anything they say. To the bast of my ability, I could find a SINGLE article which they based the entire Chernobyl/Sheep chapter on and seem to have done no further research past that. I honestly suspect them of creating (or very heavily implying) some facts that are convenient for their argument. In short, while I do applaud the readability of their book, and do not think that they are purposefully lying to their audience, I do think they take some outrageous scholastic liberties and need to hire a better copy-editor.