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  Medicine Expertise Unheeded [long_description] In responding to pandemics, members from the middle levels of the US government have tried, usually futilely, to get the political appointees above them to do the right thing, or merely to pay attention. In The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, Michael Lewis describes official responses to pandemic crises in the US from 1918 to the present, focusing on reactions within the Trump administration.

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  Philosophy The Restless Cosmopolitan [long_description] The Cynics argued that those fully in possession of their souls must remain morally unaffected by the bludgeonings of chance. It is a noble point of view, but also flawed. What cause for complaint might an unconquerable soul have given poverty, inequality, or slavery? It is this question that Martha Nussbaum raises in The Cosmopolitan Tradition. Her answer may prove not entirely satisfactory.

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  Anthropology Divine Medicine [long_description] What’s on tap today at Inference? A merry review of A Natural History of Beer, by Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall. George Scialabba summarizes their erudite telling of beer’s story, including its major historical moments and the science of its components: yeasts, hardness and softness, breeding and genetic modification. In closing, he touches on beer’s effect on the body and mind, and its future.

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  Anthropology Great Scott [long_description] George Scialabba reviews Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott, an exploration of the mixed blessings of agriculture and animal domestication.

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  Philosophy How Things Hang Together [long_description] George Scialabba reviews Convergence: The Idea at the Heart of Science by Peter Watson, considering its “master narrative” of the progressive unification of the sciences, from physics and chemistry to genetics and linguistics, and beyond.

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  Biology The Difference It Makes [long_description] Agency, autonomy, and artificial intelligence. George Scialabba reviews The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick by Jessica Riskin.

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  Biology Mindfulness [long_description] Consider the mind-body problem. Can a naturalistic account serve as a theory of everything? Can it explain consciousness? Thomas Nagel says no. George Scialabba reviews the short but ambitious Mind and Cosmos.

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  Biology Good for Nothing [long_description] George Scialabba reviews Faith Versus Fact by Jerry Coyne. A new contribution to the debates over Intelligent Design and Darwinism, science versus religion, rationality versus superstition. Perhaps Coyne is not the Fifth Horseman of the New Atheism, but he is persuasive.

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