I was very surprised that Richard Dawkins can be so passionate in evolution and courageous in taking on religions as entrenched as Christianity and Muslim. This is a very enlightening book. I can not think of more scientific ways of taking on religions as Dawkins did. He made his arguments clearly and based on scientific evidences, which is a quite a different approach than most religion’s leap-of-faith approach.

The author presents the “God Hypotheses” in great lengths from polytheism, monotheism, secularism, to agnosticism (1 to 7 scale). I never knew there were so many kinds of belief systems out there. This was educational. The author went on to poke holes/fun at each of arguments for God’s existence: 1) The unmoved mover, 2) the uncaused cause, and 3)Cosmological argument, 4) the argument from degree, 5) the Teleological Argument, Argument from Design, 6) the argument from beauty, 7) the argument from personal “experience”, 8 ) the argument from scripture, 9) the argument from admired religious scientists. 10) Pascal’s wager – nothing to lose, and 11) Bayesian arguments.

Next, the author made some strong points in arguing that why there almost is no God. The irreducible complexity was used to argue that God itself doesn’t pass the same test. He also advocated strongly that Darwinian evolution by natural selection – a slow and gradual process from the simple beginning – is the only thing, so far, that can explain things scientifically and logically.

Mr. Dawkins then speculated the roots of religion. Why something as “wasteful” as religion did not get eliminated by Darwin’s imperative? There must be direct advantages of religion: 1) group selection, 2) a by-product of something else, 3) psychologically primed, 4) cargo cults. But could we be moral/good without religion? Yes, because our moral standard (zeitgeist) is moving forward even when religion has not changed for over 2000 years.

Mr. Dawkins made a very convincing argument that we must raise the consciousness and do not allow our children to be locked into religion without understanding it or truly believing in it. On this, I strongly agree as I’m the “victim” of being born into a Christian without my own conviction. This is a form of child abuse, according to the author.

The contradiction of the bibles are new and very interesting to me. The brutality of God did not come across to me before especially the mentioning of the gang rape of women and poor treatment of women. The stories mentioned in the Old Testament was new to me; I guess my pastor was selective in teaching us about them. Mr. Dawkins did not advocate that we throw away the “Good” book but rather treating it as a literature reference.

As far of God’s role in “filling the gap.” The author argued that religion at “one time or another been thought to fill four main roles in human life;” explanation, exhortation (moral instruction), consolation and inspiration. None of which must be filled by “God” as argued by the author.

At the end, Mr. Dawkins urged the readers to open up our window of Burkas. There are more to meet the eyes than what the religion can tell us. Keeping an open mind to what science can offer will keep us from the trap of religion. Of course, there are still many things that can not be explained by science yet.

A good book to read that offers an opposing view is “Godless” by Ann Coutler. I wish I read this book immediately after reading “Godless” book. Like Mr. Dawkins, Ms. Coutler made good arguments against the evolutionist, most of which have been torn to pieces by Mr. Dawkins, thanks to being published later than “Godless.”

The book is a bit hard to read at times unless you’re familiar with the Bible and some background in science. The author made many references to many books, which were used to make his argument for or against. This may be reason why Evolution would have a hard time being sold to the general population – the science is too “thick.” On the other hand, Jesus may have a better, easier-to-understand stories to most people.

Nevertheless, this book opened my eyes to the possibility of seeing things as evidenced. I utterly enjoyed this book. I look forward to reading more about evolution and Mr. Dawkins’ publications.

Chris Anderson presents a compelling case of the “long tail” – the new economics of culture and commerce. He’s got the music CD, DVD and tons of data to back up his arguments that we’re entering the “long-tail” economy, brought about by the ubiquitous internet and cheap computer technology, enabling all of us to straddle between a “head” (mainstream taste) and “tail” – niche/custom taste. It’s a “culture unfiltered by economic scarcity.”

The three forces are 1) democratizing tools of production (PC), 2) cutting the costs of consumption by democratizing distribution (Internet), 3) connecting supply and demand (Google, Itunes).

The long-tail economy is of abundance, not scarcity that contributes to the demise of the 80/20 rule, which tends to correlate to a high-fixed-cost distribution/production model. As the traditional constraint of the fixed shelf space (tyranny of shelf and physical “atoms”), the pre-filter must be selective on what to offer and put on the shelf. This is no longer true if there is no shelves; all products are available – thanks to all the small merchants brought together by the power of Amazon and Google.

At the end, the author offers the “long-tail” rules: make everything available and help me find it. Specifically, 1) move inventory way in or way out, 2) let consumers do the work, 3) one distribution method doesn’t fit all, 4) One product doesn’t fit all, 5) One price doesn’t fit all, 6) Share information, 7) Think “and” not “or”, 8 ) Trust the market to do your job – Don’t predict; measure and respond. 9) Understand the power of free.

The impact of the Internet has transformed all of our lives. I didn’t think it would have this much impact on us so soon, turning several of the old industries (like newspaper, network TV) upside down. I’m now convinced this long-tail economy is for real. The opportunities are abundant but I wonder what this means to the future job skills our children must be trained for. Does it act as one giant roller that flatten/level the playing field and global economy so much that there is really no “high-paying” profession any more, as any of the premium will be squeezed out or arbitraged out? It’s a wonderful, scary time.

This book is a hilarious and yet sad account of one’s treacherous childhood by Augusten Burroughs. My first impression after listening to this audio book was that this whole thing was probably made up. What parents of a right mind would do such a thing to a child? But the author’s parents were not normal. The father is a alcoholic professor and the mother is just not well – a bit nutty that eventually became a lesbian and then turned against her own psychiatrist, accusing him of making sexual advance against her (probably true in my opinion). Growing up in a combative family (between the parents), the author described his childhood as a life of anarchy when he was abandoned to his mother’s psychiatrist. The life in this psychiatrist’s family was truly an adventure. He discovered his own homosexuality and encountered his first sexual experience with the guy, a patient of the psychiatric in the back house. His relationship with his “step” sister was very interesting – performing singing show in the prison, walking on the ledge under the waterfall, and etc. He was able to adjust quite well.

Once again I’m amazed by how resilient a child can be in reacting to upheavals in life. The author had to face the abandonment of his mother and his father and be left a in nut house – the psychiatrist’s family, consists of members of the oddest characters. At the same time, he was growing up discovering his own homosexuality and fending off advance from a sexual predictor in the back house.

After hearing this story, one cannot help to be cynical of the psychiatric profession. The practices sounds a bit like a snake medicine, if having the curing effect at all to be called medicine. The psychiatrist’s casual use of valium and other drug is rather unethical. I honestly don’t know how frequent this is happening or this is simply an isolated incidence.

The audio book has very graphic homosexual language/description but the narration overall was excellent. It’s like listening to a story being told by the author as if the events are taking place.

Of all the characters in the story, it’s very hard to tell who is really crazy. Is craziness a symptom of exhibiting an abnormal behavior or simply not appearing credible. Some of the most credible people (like the psychiatrist) may be crazy themselves. The gunman of the Virginia Tech massacre may have exhibited the “normal” behavior with a “craziness” hidden deep inside until it blows up.

I enjoyed this audio book. The title of the book says it all – running with scissors. Seeing others running with scissors is something to behold but not to experience yourself.