It seems my audiobook intake is slowing down. When driving I don't listen books anymore, because following a friend's advice, I started to listen some self-help sound bits that seem to be helping a little; and inspired by the example of all those Germans, denish and Swedish daily heroes I saw during the trip in May, I decided to bike to work during the summer! I do consider seriously get the audiobooks in my Blackberry and listen to them with headphones, but I really feel it further increases my chances of becoming roadkill any of these days!
12. Burst. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
I had been craving a book since the plane took off for Munich, my logic was that the trip was going to be so busy, and there were still so many things to investigate in the travel guides, that there would be no time for leisure reading. I was wrong, there were many hours were I could have really used a book, specially the long train ride between Copenhagen and Stockholm, and the flight from Stockholm to NY. Only there, with just a small connecting flight to Toronto left, I ventured to the bookstore and hastily favored this book, despite the uninspiring reviews on the back cover, the words "network science" got my eye.
Barabasi's uses one common technique in science popularization: telling the tale of how the discovery was made, getting you acquainted with the scientists as persons. And he unashamedly abuses another technique: telling story or an anecdote that is related to the scientific principle in question.
And he has several major problems with this second technique. First, the relation between the story he tells, and his theory of bursty behaviour is practically non-existing, you could random mention any other example, a soccer match, the hot dog industry, Caetano Veloso's last album, and chances are you'll be able to relate it to the Burst theory in a more smooth and natural way. Another problem is that he abuses the technique by filling at least half of the book with the story of Gyorgy Szekely. And the last problem is that it is only 3/4s into the book that he bothers to disclose what is his alleged connection between the history of Hungarian revolts and his theory.
But oh well, now the positives: It does help that he truly, genuinely cares about history. The scene where he goes to the archives of Nagyszeben in order to see with his own eyes one letter written in 1507 as part of his investigation really makes me empathize with him. I do too, feel the thrill and wonder of having in front of your eyes paper documents redacted at a time where the world as we know it today was beyond imaginable! Also, the history of Gyorgy Szekely, and impact on the outcome of eastern vs. western civilization's struggle is nothing less than fascinating, even if the description of his torture, gave me nightmares for days. Using internet I did look at Gyorgy's sculpture at Budapest's art gallery, and really wished I had known this history when I was in Budapest in 2005, barely 2 years before the visit to the archives Barabasi describes. And finally, it does help that Barabasi himself is a supposed direct descendant of one of the main protagonist of the historic drama.
One more positive thing, he does use this second technique effectively when dealing with Einstein's correspondence with a young scientist about multiple dimensions (Kalussa, who reportedly swam succesfully after simply reading a book oto teach himself), when talking about the artist who grew himself an ear in his arm, about the incorrect conviction of a man accused of rape and the related reliability of jurors, when talking about why kids don't get sick when reading Harry Potter. And Finally, I fell like a fool with his description of Lifelinear, I even told Theban at work, before doing further progress and having to come back with my tail between my legs to report back that it was a hoax.
Bottom line, I would have bought 2 different books: one with the history of the XVI century revolts and later demise of Bohemia, Hungary and Transylvania, and a very short one about his theory of burst. But there again, that's not the way you pitch your idea to a publisher.
Now, scientist usually complain when tabloids oversimplify and misinterpret their research with headlines such as "scientist find gene that makes you a cheater!", but Barabasi actually indulges heavily into doing that himself, whith statements such as "predicting the future", becoming his own PR pimp. I know selling science books to the wide audience requires compromises, but still it left me very uneasy, it felt a tad sleazy.
His theory of burst is worth a more detailed analysis with some rigor, I'll post it on my cognitive science site.
