Skip to main content

How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying - Paul Knoepfler and Julie Knoepfler ***

Thanks to its subtitle of 'a satirical look at cutting-edge science', I totally misunderstood what this book was about at first glance. The most speculative aspects of science, notably cosmology and astrophysics, are replete with theories unsubstantiated by experiment or observation, highly reminiscent of the concept of 'the invisible dragon in my garage' which is a theory that can't be disproved, but certainly isn't science.

The title, however, is far more literal. This is a book on what would be faced if we were to attempt to construct a dragon given our best current biological science plus a touch of speculation. It's a fun idea, but the book is something of a curate's (or possibly dragon's) egg. 

Some of the chapters are excellent. I particularly enjoyed one on what would be necessary to have a fire-breathing dragon, which ranges from generating and safely storing the flammable substance to managing to ignite it, drawing on a whole range of existing biological capabilities and extending them. Others are less so - for example there's a lengthy chapter on what a dragon's brain would need to be like. While the basic criteria of intelligent enough to learn stuff while not so intelligent it's too independent is reasonable, it was quite dull - and the obvious solution that it would need a dog-style brain, which would cut the whole thing down to a paragraph, is totally ignored.

The worst aspect is the structure of the whole thing. There's a lot of repetition. For example, there's a three-page preface setting out what it's intended to do. Then a first chapter that does exactly the same thing but at greater length. Then more chapters on features of the dragon which repeat yet again what was said in the introductory chapter before getting onto options and solutions. It's supposed to be a light, fun book - and in places it is - but a lot of it doesn't read that way.

Later chapters take on building unicorns and other mythical creatures and the ethics of dragon engineering, which is fine, but overall it feels like a set of separate long articles strung together without a good structural edit. Another aspect that pulls it down for me is that the satirical aspect was supposed to be taking on the way that science press releases, proposals and such over-hype their subject. But this simply doesn't really come through enough. So, yes, the justification for the dragon, a painful part of any research proposal, is mildly amusing, because there really isn't one... but it's not enough to make the book a satirical device.

Paul and Julie Knopfler give us plenty of interesting factoids and little explorations of biological and physiological science, and, as mentioned, parts of the book are really good. But it would really have benefited from a better structure, more detailed content and a heavy edit.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Infinite Book – John D. Barrow ****

Authors are often asked to review books on a topic they’ve written on themselves. The reasoning is sensible – they ought to know something about the subject – but there’s always that uneasy suspicion that there’s going to be a bit of bias creeping in. So I think it’s only fair to admit up front that I have written a book on infinity (of which more later). Infinity is a wonderful subject, because it’s intimately mind-bending (if the combination sounds paradoxical, that’s what infinity is all about) and gives you the chance to pull in all sorts of different concepts and assocations along the way, something Barrow does with great gusto. There’s a surprisingly large amount of coverage here for God, and for the universe, and the book jumps around from Aristotle to Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel (explained at great length), from the paradoxes of infinite sets to the paradoxes of time travel. Overall it’s an enjoyable journey that gives plenty of opportunity to be amazed and surprised. The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...
Post a Comment
Read more