Levinebar posted the following comment on my report of the Ho book I am reading: "On your sister's recommendation, I read "The Rainbow and the Worm". I confess as a chemist, I found it a waste of time. The author uses the equations more to intimidate than to educate. Is your sister concerned with your atheism? The book seems to build a rejection of the Scientific Method on the chance observation of birefringence in maggots."
I should like to ask Levinebar for further enlightenment, if he or she is so inclined. It seems to me that the comment might mean one of two things [keep in mind that I am only in Chapter 5, and soldiering along with great difficulty.]
First of all, Levinebar, who is, remember, a chemist, might have thought while reading the book: "Yes, yes, this is all quite familiar, nothing new here, but why is she making such a big deal of it and expounding it in an unnecessarily obscure manner?" If that is the case, then I will continue plowing through the book, because this stuff, although perhaps old hat to a physicist or physical chemist, is totally new to me, and I am learning something.
Or: Levinebar might have thought while reading the book, "No,No No, this is all wrong, she is getting things muddled, this is terrible, someone like Wolff who doesn't know shit about thermodynamics is going to get entirely the wrong idea." If that is the case, then maybe I should stop reading, because I am really quite incompetent to distinguish correct exposition, however obscure, from sheer wrongheadedness, when it comes to thermodynamics [and a great deal else, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.]
So, Levinebar, would you take a moment to give me a little guidance? I would be very grateful.
