Customer Reviews

Present at the Future: From Evolution to Nanotechnology, Candid and Controversial Conversations on Science and Nature

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Overall the book was worth reading but just barely. As another reviewer mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any real rhyme or reason to the layout of the book in terms of what is covered where.

More significantly it is just not very well written. Here is the sentence that had me laughing out loud:

"Sitting on the panel, beside the usual film folks, was Dr. James Watson, the famous codiscoverer, with Dr. Francis Crick, of the three-dimensional structure of the DNA molecule, 50 years before." (p.203)

This is not the only instance of convoluted writing.

There also are problems in the editing of the book.

For instance, on p. 109:

"Remember our energy numbers? Remember that corn ethanol gives you a return of 1.25 energy units for each energy unit you put into growing, harvesting, and turning the corn into ethanol?"

Well, no in fact I don't. Because he hasn't mentioned it until p. 114

"Their results were startling. Ethanol returns 25 percent more energy than it takes to put into it. So if you put 100 units of every into growing, harvesting, and turning corn into alcohol, you get a yield of 125 units of energy."

In conclusion, there are some interesting ideas in this book but they are marred by some poor writing and editing.

I'm a big fan of popular science books--new theories and advances pop up all the time, and it's hard to keep up with them otherwise. "Present at the Future" is definitely one of the better offerings out there, both in terms of the scope of the fields covered and in the clarity of its explanations. In fact, Flatow picks such interesting topics and discusses them so well that I often found myself wishing he's explanations had gone even more in-depth. The fact that he didn't is not a handicap however; the broad range of topics will expose readers to a lot of new potential interests they can then pursue further in other sources.

My only quibble with the book is Flatow's alarming tendency to start a paragraph with a quote, write four or five sentences, and then recycle the exact same quote--which struck me as somewhat sloppy. Surely the experts he interviewed provided him with more than one usable soundbite. But honestly, it's a very small flaw in an otherwise excellent book.

This book is vividly written and accessible to laymen or beginners who are interested in science and nature. Topics range from evolution to nanotechnology,but they are only very briefly covered. The most interesting ones include: Sleep and Learning; It's a Dark World After All; Forests and Fields of Alcohol; The New Small Is Big; Dolly Plus Ten; The Misbehaving Shower Curtain; Why an Airplane Flies; Stem Cells, Cloning and the Quest. Given the bargain price, the book is worth the money!

I recently read this and Ira Flatow's other book, "They All Laughed..." I have found both to be fun, interesting books filled with fascinating insight into the lives of important scientists and inventors - and with a great sense of fun. I mean, in this book, Ira debunks everything from the Bernoulli airplane myth, to why bubbles in Guiness float down instead of up along the glass. I highly recommend it, enjoy!

As I expected, this was a fun book to read. I did not any significant errors.

The presentation was disjointed with no clear direction.

As science writers goes Ira Flatow is pretty goods,. I may be prejudiced because my middle school ( Junior high ) science teacher was Ira Bradley.

I've read a lot of Popular science in the 55 or so years since then.

I can't give this guy a 5 star, but he's covering the issues.

He's a reporter

so we really can't expect him to have much of a sense of the mathematics or

important equations involved,

but he should read some of the great science writers of the 30's and 40's and get a sense of the history

and it's importance.

Talking about the future without mentioning Benoit Mandelbrot or Per Bak

is pretty much leaving out the "big picture". He also left out Isaac Asimov who is probably the most prolific science writer of all time.

Some of us may not be "present at the future", but we have a good idea where it is headed.