Jim Dunn

Melodramatic reading, but interesting

Revisado: 10-11-23

Like many works in this fringe corner of investigation, the content can be fascinating -- and also sometimes hard to believe. It took me awhile to get used to Mr. Coulthart's written voice as an investigative journalist, but in the end I felt he was doing a fair job of bringing the reader along with him by laying out his own experience as he tries to figure out what to believe. He isn't a bad perfomer for the most part, but unfortunately he chose to "act out" many of the quotes from people he interviewed. He doesn't always nail the accents, which I can forgive, but sometimes his performance comes across so over-the-top that it makes his sources sound caricatured or histrionic. Which is a shame, because they're often saying very intriguing things. All in all, I enjoyed the book -- he definitely took a deep tour of an evolving rabbit hole here.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Excellent teaching that confronts hard questions

Revisado: 06-13-23

I think only cosmology confronts the boundaries between religion and science as profoundly and provocatively as has Darwin's theory of natural selection. This course is an outstanding survey of how that borderland has been shaped and feuded over across the past few centuries.

The course as a whole is an in-depth exploration of the concept of evolution, which pre-dates Darwin, then the formation and impact of his theory of natural selection, and on through the legacy of his work, including its impact on modern genetic research and the arguments over teaching evolution in schools. All of this is presented clearly and thoroughly -- I can't imagine many people needing a more in-depth appreciation of this subject.

But intrinsic to the ongoing controversies surrounding Darwin's work are questions about the nature of science. At first, these debates emerge from people who assume a Creator and who willfully abuse the workings of science to try to preserve their perspective. Over time, those roles shift as scientists are forced to ask questions about whether their method is predicated on certain foundational assumptions just as much as religion can be. Some reviewers seem troubled by Dr. Gregory's choice to confront this topic head on. As someone who has studied the philosophy of science, I have to say I think he does a wonderful job of explicating how and why such question come to be raised -- and the ways in which they are, in fact, valid questions to be explored.

Like Dr. Gregory, I ultimately believe that Creationism or Intelligent Design can never truly be part of a scientific approach to understanding the world because they originate from irreconcilable premises. But the care and open-mindedness with which he explores these concepts and conflicts is EXACTLY what great teaching looks like, to me. He endeavors to fairly lay out the arguments and assess their implications, shares his takeaways, but leaves the student with basis of information from which to explore and shape their own perspective on the arguments.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Poorly written, but some interesting ideas

Revisado: 05-28-23

This book rests upon a simple premise: that the CIA's MK ULTRA; program was used to condition both Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan as part of assassination conspiracies that killed the Kennedy brothers.

Anyone who has spent any time getting familiar with these killings cannot avoid encountering the startling number of coincidences and errors of process that have made them so susceptible to conspiracy theories. There's plenty of smoke to lead people to look for fire, so to speak. This author lays the crimes at the feet of Richard Helms and James Jesus Angleton, both early and high-ranking officers of the CIA, for intriguing reasons that don't go unsupported. The "why" of it all comes down to the Kennedy's going against a vehemently anti-Communist, hard right element entrenched in the CIA and DOD, not to mention the patrician overclass that funds and influences so many key elements in the American political system. All fair enough as a thesis.

The problem comes with the "how." The MK ULTRA mind-control experiments were exposed by the Church committee hearings in the mid-70s. The various MK programs were revealed to be part of wide-ranging research into marginal scientific propositions conducted by the CIA and other Federal entities during the 50s to 70s in attempts to gain the upper hand in the Cold War (If you watch Netflix's "Stranger Things" series, you'll note that the telepathic Eleven's origin story ties to a Department of Energy facility, a premise straight out of the MK programs). The problem, for me, is that the author strives to make the case the how the two alleged assassins show all the hallmarks of having been "programmed" by MK ULTRA techniques without convincingly establishing exactly how he knows what those are and documenting those sources. Most of the actual relevant CIA files were destroyed in the early 70s. But this book, with exhausting repetition, asserts over and over that behavior X or symptom Y are hallmarks of MK ULTRA programming. Are they? How does he know? How do I double-check these assertions? The text is sorely lacking in evidence beyond the author's own assertions.

Which goes to my other complaint: the relentlessness of those assertions. Fully 10-15% of the text could be cut, in my opinion, if redundancies were removed. The same ideas are mentioned time and again, often with reference to the fact that they've been asserted before and sometimes with some language to the effect that the reader will see this borne out further into the book. It gets very old after a while. A good editor would have been a big help to this book.

All that said, the premise is interesting and the author makes a solid effort to authenticate his claims. It's just that the effort is overburdened with repetition, and falls short of providing a wholly convincing context for the assertions on which his case rests. It's hard to imagine that one could paint a conspiracy so full of intrigue in a way that makes it so dull so much of the time.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Vivid, intimate history

Revisado: 12-11-22

The writing is both detailed and sweeping, a web of character portraits and incisive descriptions of policies and events that is relentlessly compelling. The manages to feel comprehensive without becoming dull or ponderous, which is no mean feat. One of the best historical works I’ve ever come across.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Brilliant. Pure pleasure.

Revisado: 03-22-22

Rarely have I ever encountered such a thoroughly articulated sense of time and place. Speaking from life experience — and with a startling number of firsthand interactions with key figures — the author lays out a complex, convincing portrait of the world he was born into and how it has changed in his life. It reeks of truth. It conveys complex yet compelling insights any of us would long to convey about our own experience. The best history I’ve read in ages. And the performance is first rate — this was pure pleasure.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 12 personas