Darwin's Radio, by Greg Bear

I don't think I've read anything by Greg Bear before. I'm happy to say that, as he has written quite a lot, and I will be looking forward to reading more of his work.

Darwin's Radio is science-fiction set ca. 2000. Notably absent from its technology and current events are ubiquitous "smart"  phones, the overwhelming presence of the Internet (it's there, just not as "there" as it is now) and the security-hysteria of the post-11 September 2001 age. The book has its own security-hysteria, though, which comes from the general misunderstanding of a biological phenomenon that is observed as a 48-hour virus which affects heterosexual couples (there aren't any gay people in this book, either, come to think of it) and their subsequent pregnancies.

I'll admit to being more or less snowed by most of the biology in this book, but I found that I could just kind of plow through it and accept that I didn't really understand it, and still follow the story, which has more to do with the lives of its characters, and with the political mess that ensues as this phenomenon begins to proliferate.

Due to a virus, I had little ambition to do much of anything except read this weekend, so I completed this book between Friday night and Sunday morning. It's well worth reading, entertaining, and provocative.

I'm a little uncertain about Bear's politics. He seems more or less OK by my standards, but there is a mention of "Fox News" that gave me pause.

One thing I'd like to mention about this book: toward the end there is a description of childbirth that is graphic and moving. I don' t know that I've ever read a better one. While I, like Mr. Bear, have the handicap of being unable to have this experience, and so I'm not really qualified to judge its authenticity, it certainly had me convinced. 

An Interview with Greg Bear.

This site numbers Darwin's Radio among "The most ludicrous depictions of evolution in science fiction."

SFReviews.net review

Idiot America, by Charles Pierce

Doubleday 2009  ISBN# 978-0-7679-2614-0

"We've been attacked by the educated, intelligent segment of our culture."

The Three Great Premises 

1. Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units.
2. Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.
3. Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.

On Cranks

From p. 36

The barriers that once forced American cranks to adapt or withdraw--or even merely to defend--their ideas all have fallen. It is considered impolite to raise them again, almost un-American, since we are all entitled to our opinions. 

Conspiracy Theories 

From p. 80 - 83

[Daniel Patrick] Moynihan argued that the Warren Commission's capital mistake from the start was the failure to recognize that Americans were not predisposed to believe it.

...70 percent of the American people did not believe the conclusion of the Warren Commission...This percentage has not changed substantially since ... 1964...

...we have kept the Kennedy assassination as a conspiracy theory, rather than accepting it as an actual conspiracy. Once we believe in the latter, it becomes a deadening weight on the conscience. It loses its charm. Accepting it as a reality means we probably are obligated to do something about it, and that we have chosen, en masse, not to.

The revelation of an actual conspiracy--the Iran-Contra matter, say--has come to have a rather deadening effect on American politics and culture. It runs through stages. There is disbelief. Then the whole thing dies in banality. It's too hard to understand, and it's Just One More Damn Thing that proves not that something called "government" is controlled by a secret conspiracy, but that "government" itself is the conspiracy. This is commonplace and boring, and it leads to distrust and to apathy, and not, as it is supposed to do, to public outrage and reform. There is no "Us." There is only a "Them." There's no game if there's only the other team playing.

...the Iran-Contra affair had no ... effect. (Remarkably, several of its architects even returned ... in 2001, eager to reassert their fantastical visions.) ... It is little more than a footnote in history...  

...We entertain ourselves with skepticism or, at worst, cynicism. But we govern ourselves with apathy or, at worst, credulity. 

Some Reviews

• http://observer.com/2009/06/the-dunce-confederacy/

• http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/06/11/741342/-The-Three-Great-Premises-of-Idiot-America

• http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-Idiot-America-How-Stupidity-Became-887347.php   "Idiot America is very much biased from the left and I'm not impressed."