Customer Reviews

How a Fly Walks Upside Down...and other curious facts

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

 

 

This would be a good book if some of the material was not outdated. Alot of it is still true but it would be a good one to revise. Also it could use an index. It got old fast going through ever single question and it would be bad if you were looking for something specific. The grouping could have been better too. If you have got the time..it is a ok book. I would probably give a revised version 4 stars.

I bought this book thinking it was a fun-trivia book for adults. Oops! It seems to be targeted at kids. Much of the information is common knowledge among adults, and the explanations are not terribly surprising or engaging. Furthermore, the language is rather simplified, and the whole approach smacks of a children's book (maybe ages 10-15 or so). Maybe the author went overboard in "keeping it simple, stupid"--so there's not much profound information here.

Very interesting with lots of totally useless information you may never use for any practical purpose. However, that's why it's an interesting read. You will find things you never knew or cared about.

I bought this book for my son, and I found that many questions are interesting, with clear answers that a child can understand. At first the random order of the questions bothered me because it is hard to look up a question when you can't remember the exact wording, and because there is no index. But after going through the book I can understand that there are just too many categories to divide them up into, and the randomness also motivates you to read through the whole book, rather than jumping only to the categories that interest you. The writer is highly competent in most areas, and writes clearly and concisely, with a sense of humor. All in all, this is not a bad book for children.

The writer did make some common errors and he gave some out of date standard answers, when he either should have used the words "We really don't know" or "One theory states that...." These should have been used in the answers to the following questions: How old is the orange soil brought back from the moon? "How did those forest trees get petrified?" "Who has been here longer, the cockroach or the dragonfly?" and others.

For example: For the question: "Are There Any Useless Structures in Our Bodies?" The writer gives the outdated answer that "the tailbone or coccyx is useless and seems to support the theory that it is the vestige of what was once a tail from when we walked on all fours "thousands" of years ago."

His answer is wrong on two points, 1) The outdated theory said "millions" of years ago, not "thousands," and (2) modern anatomists know the tailbone serves a very important function in human physiology. The coccyx is the point of insertion of several muscles and ligaments including the one which allows man to walk completely upright. Without a tailbone, people could not walk in a completely upright manner, dance a ballet, perform gymnastics, or ice skate. This range of movement would be impossible without the tailbone. Also, various muscles attached to the tail bone (or coccyx) are important for facilitating bowel and labor movements, supporting internal organs, and keeping the anus closed.

The writer also mentions that the appendix is a useless vestige. First, the appendix has been found to have a number of functions, all of which are important. The appendix is an important part of our immune system. It is a germ free section of the dirtiest part of the body that helps the body produce antibodies and protects the intestinal tract from infection; it also is on the bottom of the only part of the intestinal tract where waste materials must move upward. The appendix performs an important role by creating fluids that force waste matter up this section of the intestines. Without an appendix we become more susceptible to a large number of diseases that are caused by bacteria and viruses, as well as to cancer. Furthermore, as Ian Taylor has pointed out, many of our alleged ancestors, including monkeys and apes do not have appendixes, while rabbits, wombats and opossums do. If this organ were a part of some evolutionary chain, where could it possibly fit in?

For the question: Must People Be Tone Deaf? The writer answers "no ... with proper training and effort, one should not be deaf to any sound at all. ...If, however, a person has no hearing deficiency and keeps saying he cannot carry a tune, you may be sure he was too lazy to train himself correctly."

A less accusatory and more accurate answer would be: A person who is tone deaf has difficulty correctly hearing relative differences between notes; however, in common usage, it refers to a person's inability to reproduce them accurately. The latter inability is most often caused by lack of musical training or education and not actual tone deafness. It has been observed that in societies with tonal languages such as Cantonese and Vietnamese, there are almost no tone deaf people. Tone deafness is also associated with other musical-specific impairments such as inability to keep time with music (the lack of rhythm), or the inability to remember or even recognize a song. Tone deafness is also known variously as amusia, tune deafness, dysmelodia and dysmusia.

Some questions (i.e. how do you explain non flying birds?) are given a basic explanation that amounts to: "because that is the way evolution produced it over millions of years." Never mind that that is not an actual answer, what if the person is not an evolutionist? It seems like if there is no answer, either "because evolution made it that way" or "because God made it that way" would be equally accurate.