Here at Download the Universe, we're pleased to see a venerable publication like the New Republic give some attention to science ebooks–in the August 23 print edition, no less. In "The Naked and the TED," Evgeny Morozov takes a look at three ebooks published by TED. His harsh verdict is a lot like our reviews of a couple TED titles (me on The Demise of Guys, David Dobbs on Smile). He even refers to my review in the piece–although he doesn't actually mention Download the Universe, a shout-out that would have been most appreciated.
Morozov's main object of scorn is a TED ebook called Hybrid Reality. I can see why. It's one of those utopian manifestos promising solutions to all our woes–political, social, medical, and so on–through advances in technology. Attacking a book like Hybrid Reality is not a big jump for Morozov–he writes frequently about the hidden threats to democracy posed by the Internet.
Morozov's writing has one main mode–the snarky attack. It works just fine when he's going after smiley-faced privacy-assassins like Facebook. But Hybrid Reality doesn't just invoke the Internet to promise us a better tomorrow. It also pledges that the Human Genome Project, neuroscience, and other branches of science will provide cures for what ails us. And since Morozov loathes the authors of Hybrid Reality, he stands ready to belittle whatever they like. If they like the Human Genome Project, for example, then it must be bogus. "The Human Genome Project," Morozov declares, "for all the hype it generated a decade ago, has not accomplished much."
What ruler is Morozov using to measure the project's accomplishments? He doesn't tell us, so we'll have to guess. If he relied solely on breathless news articles in the late 1990s and thought we'd have a cure for every disease known to man in under ten years, then I can see why he's disappointed.
But if Morozov had done the right thing and had looked at the actual scientific impacts of the Human Genome Project, he'd see that scientists have indeed accomplished much. Thanks to the Human Genome Project, scientists have discovered a previously unknown lineage of extinct humans in Siberia. As I wrote last month in the New York Times, scientists are gaining a new appreciation of the role that microbes play in our bodies–an appreciation only possible because scientists sequencing the human genome figured out how to assemble complete genomes from broken pieces. By sequencing the entire genomes of patients, scientists can pinpoint the mutations responsible for genetic diseases. That's just the start of a very long list. (And let's not forget the $141 in economic benefit for every $1 of government investment in the Human Genome Project.)
Morozov's dismissal of results like these is just as glib as the techno-utopianism that he attacks.
Because Morozov is perpetually on the attack, I have no idea if he really thinks that the Human Genome Project is yet another bogus technological fix. Does he think that genome research can't possibly solve any problems? More broadly, I wonder what Morozov thinks is the proper place of technology and science in society. If I've missed this in Morozov's writings, I'd be happy for someone to point it out to me.
Like the Human Genome Project, ebooks are guilty by association–or at least ones published by TED:
When they launched their publishing venture, the TED organizers dismissed any concern that their books’ slim size would be dumbing us down. “Actually, we suspect people reading TED Books will be trading up rather than down. They’ll be reading a short, compelling book instead of browsing a magazine or doing crossword puzzles. Our goal is to make ideas accessible in a way that matches modern attention spans.” But surely “modern attention spans” must be resisted, not celebrated. Brevity may be the soul of wit, or of lingerie, but it is not the soul of analysis. The TED ideal of thought is the ideal of the “takeaway”—the shrinkage of thought for people too busy to think. I don’t know if the crossword puzzles are rewiring our brains—I hope TED knows its neuroscience, with all the neuroscientists on its stage—but anyone who is seriously considering reading Hybrid Reality or Smile should also entertain the option of playing Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja.
This is fun to read, but it raises questions that it can't answer. Are ebooks by their nature corrupting? Or does Morozov only object to ebooks that are produced by one organization that he doesn't like? Here at Download the Universe, we don't flinch from calling garbage what it is. But we also find ebooks that delight us. Is such a thing even possible in Morozov's moral universe? I know for a fact that Morozov reads Download the Universe, and so let me end with four words: Our comment thread awaits.
–Carl Zimmer
Evgenymorozov says:
Well, if you think my dismissal of the HGP was glib, then your dismissal of my dismissal is even glibber. Why look at the breathless newspaper coverage of the 1990s if you can look at what the scientists running the HGP – Collins, for example – actually promised when it launched? Compared to that, it has not accomplished MUCH, whatever its actual accomplishments since then – and I did explicitly write “for all the hype it generated,” making it quite clear what my benchmark was. Where is the “complete transformation in therapeutic medicine” that Collins promised? And your post reads as if I’m the only person doubting the HGP’s accomplishments, which, as you know, is hardly the case.
And as for ebooks, what am I, some kind of Marshall McLuhan to have definitive opinions about ebooks as a medium? That way of talking is bunk. I’ve got over 400 of ebooks and read them every day. Where did I ever say or infer anything about the corrupting nature of ebooks? I didn’t raise questions I can’t answer – you did, by trying to pigeonhole me into some silly Nicholas Carr-Clay Shirky debate, which I hate with passion.
Other than that, a great site.
Evgeny
Evgenymorozov says:
p.s. and by the way I’m not sure why you read that line as an attack on HGP. I was simply pointing out that Khanna’s way of talking about technology and science is extremely limited in that it accepts press-releases at faith value. I’m not quite sure how to answer your question about “the proper place of technology and science in society.” I don’t want to go all Bruno Latour on you but this question seems to rely on a false dichotomy between science/technology and society. What kind of answer do you expect? “Science: 30%; Technology: 10%; Society: 60%?” I’ve written quite a bit about the limitations of technological fixes in The Net Delusion and other reviews but to assume that someone can articulate a philosophy about the “proper place of technology in society” – that only aggravates Khanna’s bullshitty “Technology with a big T” discourse.
And it’s a bit unfair to say that snark is my main mode of writing; look up my review on the history of facial recognition technology in the London Review or Google and Apple pieces in TNR or anything I’ve written for Boston Review. There’s hardly a trace of snark there.
Carl Zimmer says:
Dear Evgeny: Thanks for your comments. I will look up and read the facial recognition piece. I can only base my opinion on what I’ve read, but I can always change my opinion by reading more.
Your expanded comments on the Human Genome Project here are interesting, but I for one wasn’t able to infer them from your brief dismissal of it as not having accomplished much. It’s true that there have been others that have criticized HGP, but most of the pieces that I’ve read in the popular press have played a straw-man game, rather than engaging seriously with the science. (I explored this complicated situation at more length in 2009 in Newsweek here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/06/26/the-gene-puzzle.html )
As for my question about the proper place of technology and science, I could have been clearer. Let me try again–I may still not be clear enough, but it’s worth a shot.
When I read attacks on techno-utopias–not just yours–I always find myself asking, “If this is wrong when it comes to science, then what does the writer think is right?” If we should ignore the Singularity folks and their vision of science’s role in society (as a supply of bogus technological fixes), then what?
Maybe I’m missing something, but I dont’ see how asking this question only aggravates Khanna’s discourse. I for one think it’s an important question. If all techno-utopianism is bad, then is the HGP bad, because people made promises about what it would deliver in the future, because it diverted billions of dollars from public health measures do work, but don’t make for great TED talks? Like vaccines? Back when vaccines for polio and other diseases were not yet widely used, they were the subject of great enthusiasm and promises for the future. But obviously that didn’t mean that vaccines were a waste of resources. Science has always involved promises for the future since Bacon’s day. How do we balance the real value of science with a healthy suspicion of techno-utopia?
I can understand if you feel that addressing these questions would be a digression when you’re writing about Twitter or cloud computing; all I can say is that they take shape in my head, and I think they’re worth thinking about.
As for ebooks, I didn’t mean to pigeonhole you into a debate you don’t want to be in. But if you feel that we should be fighting the modern attention span by repudiating TED books, it does make me curious about your opinion about other ebooks–many of which are at the same length of TED books.
But since I now see that you obviously don’t have an aversion to ebooks per se, I hope you find some interesting leads here in the future.
Collin says:
Sigh….another couple of writers who can’t wait to distance themselves from TED. It’s so much easier to counterpuch, isn’t it? I have found the dozen or so TED lectures I have viewed to be, on the whole, informative on subject areas I previously had little knowledge. I find TED and your website have made a space in my viewing life. Although perhaps from your point of view, you can’t have a club unless there is someone or thing you can exclude.