Jasonic Rituals

Interesting new book: The Jasons, is reviewed in Wired. I'm gonna try to pick this one up for the plane ride to MMS tomorrow. Any club that included Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Edward Teller and Hans Bethe is one that interests me. The Amazon review gushes "In this spellbinding and meticulously researched history, science writer Ann Finkbeiner reveals the critical scientific advances-and the unintended consequences-of the Jasons’ shadowy work as well as the fascinating personalities of the Jasons themselves." Wow, can't wait for the movie.

It's this bit from the NY Times review that makes me want to read it:" Finkbeiner's book also carries a message for those who fear we are entering an anti-science age, in which right-wing politicians, religious fundamentalists, Luddites and postmodernists challenge science's authority. Some scientists are circling the wagons, depicting science as the embodiment of enlightenment and all its critics as knaves or buffoons. But science is and always has been as morally fallible as any other human activity. Indeed, because of its immense potential for altering our lives for good or ill, science needs critics like Finkbeiner now more than ever."