Books and literature – Page 30 – a sibilant intake of breath

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

This collection of Richard Feynman‘s autobiographical anecdotes is both charming and amusing. More than anything else, it conveys what a remarkable character he is, and what an astonishing variety of things he managed to do. Few Nobel Prize winning physicists can claim to have had a one man art show, learned to pick locks and crack military safes, played the drums for a percussion-only ballet, wrangled cryptographically with the mail censors at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, spent the summer after finishing his undergraduate degree as ‘chief research chemist of the Metaplast Corporation,’ juggled, deciphered Mayan hieroglyphs, defended a topless bar in court, and fixed radios while he was still a small child. One can never tell if Feynman is being entirely honest and accurate – largely because the character he draws for himself is so uncomplicated and appealing – but one is certainly grateful for the stories.

Indeed, the book provides a nice counterargument to the division of labour. While economics and societal organization have revealed specialization in knowledge and production to be highly efficient overall, Feynman demonstrates the degree to which variety is remarkable and wonderful for the individual. The question the reader is left with is whether they can experience anything comparable without Feynman’s own extensive genius and peculiar character.

The Code-Breakers

For those with a serious interest in the history and practice of cryptography, David Khan’s The Code-Breakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet provides an enormous mass of knowledge. The scope of the 1200 page book is vast: covering everything from the earliest ciphers to the origins of public key cryptography in detail. It is probably fair to say that the period best covered is that between the Middle Ages and the Second World War, though the sections covering the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Linear B are also detailed and skilfully written. Those interested primarily in the contemporary practice of cryptography – or those seeking a more concise text – would be well advised to consider the books by Simon Singh and Bruce Schneier on the topic.

Khan’s book excels in actually describing how various cryptographic systems work, as well as how they were broken. For the most part, his analysis is factual and dispassionate. The sole exception is in the period covering the Cold War, in which his ire against the Soviet Union and those Americans who turned into traitors for it are acute. At times, the book gets into an excessive amount of detail about the bureaucratic organization of different cipher bureaus: including lengthy sections about how various wartime bodies were reorganized. In most cases, the book does not provide much biography on the men and women involved, though exceptions exist in the case of some of the most eminent or interesting cryptographers. The book does provide an interesting discussion of the history of writing on cryptography, including the impact that major publications had on the development of the field and its comprehension within society at large. Kahn also does a good job of debunking some of the many spurious claims that have been made about ‘revolutionary’ and ‘unbreakable’ cryptosystems that people have invented: stressing how the making of cryptographic systems is a realm of abstract mathematics, while the breaking of such systems is a gritty and practical exercise.

In addition to covering the techniques of cryptography and cryptanalysis themselves, the book covers many related security issues: including physical security, invisible inks, elements of spycraft, decisions about how to use information gleaned through cryptanalysis, and the use of broken cryptographic systems to transmit fake or confusing information. The book also covers the relationships between cryptographic work and the activities it is supporting. An especially intriguing section details the efforts of the American navy to combat rum smuggling during the prohibition era. Ships with floating cryptoanalytical laboratories provided vital intelligence to interception vessels, just as other cryptanalysis had helped re-direct U-boats away from German submarines during the Second World War. The book covers an enormous variety of code systems, ranging in use and sophistication. These include diplomatic and commercial systems, high level military systems used between major installations, systems for vehicles, trench codes for those on the front lines, and more. The most abstract section of the book contemplates communication between human beings and extraterrestrials, covering questions about how we could recognize alien communication, as well as mathematical steps through which a comprehensible discourse could potentially be established.

For those interested in actually breaking codes and ciphers themselves, the book provides detailed information on techniques including frequency analysis, factorization attacks of the kind used against polyalphabetic substitution ciphers, and the index of coincidence. It also provides a lot of information on the weak ways in which cryptography is often used and the kinds of errors that have allowed for key breaks into previously unreadable cryptosystems. While it would not be especially useful for attacking modern computerized cryptographic systems, it would provide some guidance for those seeking to break into amateur or puzzle-type cryptographic challenges.

The Code-Breakers may well be the most comprehensive cryptographic history available, though it is far less detailed in its description of post-Cold War cryptosystems than some of its more concise recent contemporaries. For those wishing to gain an appreciation for how cryptography emerged, the role it played for most of human history, and the techniques that have been employed to guard and attack messages, this is an ideal place to turn.

Mycelium Running

Paul Stamets’ Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World is an informative text, written by a true believer. While it contains a lot of practical information, the author’s unbridled enthusiasm sometimes makes you doubt how valid the more fantastic claims are. That being said, it certainly provides some concrete and believable examples of situations where the strategic use of fungi can have beneficial health and environmental effects.

After providing some basic information about the biology of fungi, Stamets covers four different kinds of ‘mycorestoration.’ He shows how patches of mycelium (the tangled, stringy mass that makes up the bulk of fungi) can be used to filter water flowing through – an application that might have particular value downslope from farm animals. The section on mycoforestry shows how mushrooms can accelerate the breakdown of debris from logging, allowing nutrients to return to the soil. It also addresses the ways in which mycorrhizal fungi on the roots of plants can enhance their growth and health. In a section on mycoremediation, Stamets highlights the ability of different fungi to digest or absorb toxic materials ranging from crude oil to nerve gas to radioactive strontium. Finally, a section on mycopesticides describes ways in which insect-attacking fungi can be used to prevent and cure insect infestations.

In addition to the sections outlining the potential of fungi in general, the book includes a lot of practical information about different types of mushrooms, their uses, and how to grow them. It covers different ways of going from spores to a mushroom patch, at scales ranging from a small garden installation to the very large scale. The last hundred pages is a species-by-species catalogue of different mushrooms: how they look, how to grow them, nutritional information, etc. The assertions about mushrooms having intelligence (partly on the basis of mycelium looking like neurons in a brain), I definitely have my doubts about. The step-by-step instructions on producing mushroom patches, I have no doubt could be invaluable to someone wishing to put fungal theory into practice.

Fungi are probably the class of organisms least well understood by most people, and it is rewarding to gain a deeper understanding of the roles they play in ecosystems. More information can be found on Stamets’ website, which also sells various types of mushroom kit and spawn.

Gladwell on genius

Malcolm Gladwell has a new piece in The New Yorker, arguing that there are two kinds of artistic geniuses: those who do their best work as young prodigies and those that take decades to make their talent manifest.

He uses Picasso as an example of the former kind and Cézanne as an example of the latter. The piece may provide a bit of comfort to those young people who have not yet seen their achievements match their aspirations, though it also makes very clear that a lot of hard work and luck is required to foster a slow-developing genius.

Banned books week

The last week of September was Banned Books Week. This blog managed to miss it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some interesting news coverage to link. This blog has a piece on why the week matters. Philip Pullman also has an article on it in The Guardian.

Google also has a page listing books that have been banned at various places and times. To those with a bit of spare time, I recommend reading a couple. It is an excellent way to celebrate the fact of living in a society with a limited capacity to suppress thought.

Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World

Canadian climatologist Andrew Weaver’s Keeping Our Cool provides an excellent and accessible introduction to climatic science. It also provides a great deal of useful information specific to Canada. As a result, if I had to recommend a single book to non-scientist Canadians seeking to understand the science of climate change, it would be this one. On the matter of what is to be done, the book is useful in a numerical sense but not particularly so in a policy sense. The discussion of economic instruments is superficial and the author basically assumes that a price of carbon plus new technology will address the problem.

The book covers climatic science on two levels: in terms of the contents themselves, such as you would find in textbooks and scientific papers, and in terms of the position of science within a broader societal debate. He accurately highlights the degree to which entrenched interests have seriously muddled the public debate, creating deep confusion about how certain we are about key aspects of how the climate works. Topics well covered by the book include electromagnetic radiation, time lags associated with climate change, the nature of radiative forcing, the nature and role of the IPCC, ocean acidification, the history of human emissions, the general history of the climate, climate modeling, aerosols, hurricanes, climate change impacts in general, permafrost, and the need for humanity to eventually become carbon neutral. One quibble has to do with the sequencing: while the narrative always flows well, the progression through climate science looks a bit convoluted in retrospect. That makes it a bit hard to find your way back to this or that piece of useful information. The book features some good numbers, graphs, and analysis that I have not seen elsewhere – such as a calculation of how much more carbon dioxide humanity can emit in total, given the desire to keep temperature change to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and various plausible values for climatic sensitivity. A second quibble is that the graphics are all black and white and printed at a fairly low quality. Sometimes, that makes them hard to interpret.

On the matter of international and intergenerational equity, Weaver comes to appropriate conclusions (that we should be concerned about future generations and that the rich states that caused the problem need to act first in solving it), but he fails to examine the ethical and policy issues in great depth. That is a minor failing, given the major purpose of the book, but it would probably leave someone who read only this book with a somewhat mistaken impression about the scale of changes being advocated and the ease with which they might be achieved. The book exaggerates the difference between a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade system with 100% auctioning, and doesn’t pay sufficient attention to areas in which regulation have the potential to be more effective than taxes (building codes, transport standards, etc).

In general, Weaver’s book is a strong and useful introduction to climatic science. When it comes to the big questions about climate ethics, and the policy and technological measures that will permit the emergence of a low-carbon society, other authors have done better.

Trick or Treatment

Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine applies the methodology of double-blind, randomized clinical trials to a number of different forms of ‘alternative medicine.’ Written by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, the book describes the history of clinical trials and evidence based medicine: citing historical examples such as finding the cause of scurvy, evaluating bloodletting as a treatment, and the importance of hygiene in hospitals, as empirically and statistically demonstrated by Florence Nightingale.

The bulk of the book consists of an examination of four very common forms of alternative medicine: looking at the clinical trials that have been carried out on them, as well as meta-analyses and systemic reviews that evaluated the quality of those studies and their conclusions. In general, the determinations made about the treatments are not very positive:

Some evidence suggests that accupuncture can be effective for treating pain and nausea, though higher quality studies have generally found less evidence than more problematic ones. No evidence was found that accupuncture treated any other condition, despite how practitioners have advertised it as a cure for many maladies
Homeopathy was shown to be no better than a placebo at treating any illness. This is really no surprise, since the philosophy behind it is bunk and the ‘medicines’ are demonstrably just water.
Chiropractic therapy was shown to have comparable effectiveness to conventional physiotherapy in treating back pain, though with significant risks that do not exist for the latter treatment. Specifically, the ‘high velocity low amplitude’ manipulations used can tear blood vessels in the spine, causing strokes and infarctions.
Some herbal remedies were shown to be effective (such as Saint John’s wart for mild to moderate depression). That being said, much evidence was uncovered of ineffective treatments (including many of the most common), contaminated medications, lax oversight, and possible adverse interactions with pharmaceuticals, when people do not inform their doctors about herbal supplements they are taking.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is the evidence of very poor medical advice provided by alternative care practitioners. All homeopaths surveyed suggested (completely ineffective) homeopathic remedies to protect against malaria during an extended trip through Africa. Chiropracters were willing to perform adjustments on the delicate and developing spines of children and infants, as well as perform adjustments without warning or notice about the significant risk of damage to blood vessels in the spine. Alternative practitioners of all stripes advised parents to avoid using highly effective vaccines on their children, and sometimes told people to discontinue conventional therapies for diseases as serious as cancer and AIDS, leading to suffering or death.

The book also covers a number of critical related topics, including the placebo effect, regression to the mean, the reasons for which large numbers of people (and doctors) have faith in alternative therapies, and issues about medical ethics. In an annex, the authors provide more concise summaries of the research done on many other treatments: ranging from reiki to meditation to yoga. Some are deemed effective, others harmless placebos, while some are identified as dangerous.

I definitely hope this book gets a great deal of public attention. Many of the abuses described are very serious. Unfortunately, the people who would probably benefit most from the book are those who are least likely to accept its analysis and conclusions. The logic of the double-blind, controlled, randomized clinical trial is extremely powerful. Most impressively, it produces unbiased results, even when the thing being tested is not fully understood. For instance, fresh fruit was identified as a cure for scurvy long before the mechanism of action was known. If alternative therapies were as effective as claimed, that would show up readily in the thousands of high-quality trials that have been conducted. The patchy nature of positive results, and the slew of negative ones, thus speak volumes about the relative effectiveness of conventional and alternative therapies.

Fungi are surprisingly compelling

On the basis of a recommendation from a friend of mine who works on environmentally-friendly gardening and landscaping in North Vancouver, I am reading Paul Stamets’s Mycelium Running: a book that details ways in which human beings can achieve ecological outcomes through the intelligent use of fungus. They can be used to increase the rate of forest recovery after logging, clean up contaminated sites, and so forth. I will post a review of the whole book when I finish it.

One aspect of the book I found surprising and interesting are the ways in which the similarities of animals and fungi are emphasized. Both ecologically and genetically, the two are apparently more closely linked than any other two kingdoms. Both breathe oxygen (fungi can be suffocated), both sometimes attack and kill plants or animals. Representatives of both kingdoms sustain themselves on dead organic matter, while others live inside other live organisms and extract nutrition from them parasitically.

Some species of animals extrude their digestive organs when eating. Fungi might be considered an extreme elaboration of this. Instead of having a stomach inside the body, filled with digestive enzymes, the mycelium leaches them out into surrounding matter, then draws in the liberated and partially processed nutrients therein.

In any case, fungi are quite fascinating. For one final example, consider the genus Pleurotus. While their culinary properties are their major claim to fame, their ability to metabolize crude oil is also rather remarkable. You can start with a bucket of crude spilled on a beach somewhere, introduce some spores, and eventually wind up with material that is entirely safe for the natural environment in general.

Generation Kill

Written by a journalist embedded with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the Marine Corps, Evan Wright’s Generation Kill describes the experience of invading Iraq alongside them in 2003. The book provides a graphic account of what transpired among the men of the Battalion and its subsidiary units, as well as on battlefields between Kuwait City and Baghdad.

Some of the more notable elements of the first person account include the lack of coordination between different units, poor logistics and intelligence, near-total lack of translators, wide variations in competence and attitude between officers, and the force with which the sheer terror and agony of the experience is recounted. While large portions of the invading army may have had tents, cots, and warm meals, the recon Marines operate for the entire war on pre-packaged food and holes laboriously pick-axed into the ground. They spent much of the war in bulky chemical protection suits, fearing gas attacks that never came. The Marines are intentionally sent into ambush after ambush, receiving massive amounts of fire from within open-topped Humvies, as a feint to confuse Iraqi forces about the overall American strategy. The book certainly does a good job of conveying the brutality of it all: for the Marines, their Iraqi opponents, and for the civilians all around. The most interesting aspects of the narrative are definitely the characters of the individual Marines, as effectively illustrated through quoted statements.

The book does reinforce some broader conclusions that can be drawn about the war: particularly in terms of how the treatment of the civilian population has been mismanaged. What is less clear is whether the lesson to be drawn is that much more attention needs to be paid to post-occupation planning in future conflicts, or whether expectations of anything other than absolute carnage following a ‘regime change’ are misguided. Probably, the answer lies somewhere between.

The book has also formed the basis for an HBO mini-series of the same name. The series and the book parallel one another very closely. Indeed, given the arguably greater capacity of film to depict the majority of the events described, just watching the series may be a superior option to just reading the book.

Manifestos on the Future of Food & Seed

This collection of essays, edited by Vandana Shiva, varies considerably in tone and degree of novelty. The manifestos themselves seem ham-fisted and loaded with unsupported assertions. It is not that no convincing case can be made for many of the arguments raised; rather, the authors simply choose not to do so. It is an approach that will win them few converts. In general, the book contains a number of positions towards which I am sympathetic: that patents on living things are highly dubious, that the present food system is unsustainable, that the agricultural policies of most states are inappropriate and often immoral. It simply manages to convey most of these points in a shrill and off-putting manner: the kind of voice that makes you take an opposing stand almost by reflex.

Most of the authors seem to profoundly misunderstand the nature of the global trade system. As with so many other blanket anti-globalization activists, they seem to think the WTO is some kind of wicked and powerful entity, enforcing its will against states. It is more accurate to say that it is an imperfect vehicle for trying to create some trade rules formulated on something other than economic and geopolitical power. It is a goal rarely achieved – how could it be? – but a worthy one nonetheless. Similarly, the WTO does not impose outside restrictions on the kind of food safety laws states can adopt. It simply requires that the same standard be applied to domestic producers as importers. You cannot reject beef produced using recombinant bovine growth hormone abroad while allowing domestic industrial agribusinesses to use the same substance. Naturally, if you are big and economically powerful, you can more or less do as you like (witness WTO rulings against American maize subsidies, for instance).

The book also seems to be a bit short of real content where genetically modified organisms and antibiotic resistance are concerned. Both naturally raise important questions of health, safety, and ethics. The nuances of the discussion, however, are poorly served by a book that asserts that the Green Revolution was actually harmful to the world’s poor. Genetically modified organisms could certainly produce adverse outcomes. At the same time, they might be able to help us reduce our dependence on toxic pesticides, reduce the carbon emissions associated with shipping and refrigeration, and deal with the consequences of climate change. Similarly, while there is much to lament about current global trade practices, the kind of protectionism advocated by most of the authors is unlikely to help either the poor or the sustainability of agriculture. What is necessary is that the total social and environmental costs of economic activities be borne by the relevant parties: not that food is grown in a particular place, domestic producers receive preferential treatment, or that the world re-fragments into disparate economies.

While the book doesn’t really make it, there is an excellent case for a global transition to new forms of agriculture. Important elements include replacing vulnerable monocultures with resilient polycultures, sharply restricting the use of antibiotics, reducing the intensity of fossil fuel use, and otherwise taking into account the many social and environmental costs of agriculture that are ignored when it is undertaken in an industrial manner. There is likewise a very strong case to be made about reforming the global intellectual property regime. It is extremely dubious to be able to patent a gene that you have moved from one creature to another. It is similarly dubious to sell seeds on a ‘licensed’ basis, where they can only be legally used for one crop.

In the end, it is hard to see who this book is for. It doesn’t contain enough substantive argumentation to convert anyone – though there is one good essay written by a local foods grocer, railing against both Walmart and Whole Foods. It likewise does not contain a viable plan for changing the nature of the global food system. Here, Michael Pollan seems to adopt the most reasonable position: accepting the popularization of organic and local food as progress, while others angrily reject them as insufficient. A book that helped to enlarge that beachhead, while providing some strategic direction towards a genuinely sustainable global food system, would have a lot more value than this short, flawed text.