Coleman Books

Sinning in the Garden of Science

The Manhattan Project, designed for the creation of the atomic bomb in 1945, transformed J. Robert Oppenheimer into a socially-responsible scientist through his growing awareness of sin (p. 70). Conversely, his colleague Edward Teller became an advocate for the Cold War nuclear arsenal (p. 53). The author raises questions from historical examples. Can we "trust science to define what is good"? (p. 75) He reminds us of our modern peril, such as "What should disturb us is Teller's
reluctance to allow himself to be troubled" (p. 53).

Genetic engineering poses a new threat: "more and more science is in the
hands of private interests," hence "knowledge is not the problem, humans
are" (p. 120). What is the boundary between a birth control patch and
the rhythm method (p. 102), and is the natural method really ordained by God?

The author reflects on new technologies to reproduce without sex, "stand-alone procedures" that bypass biological parents. He accentuates the positive side: "due attention will be given to why a child is being conceived." He thus shifts this debate away from the artificial versus the natural to "whether the child to be born is wanted and loved" (p. 103).

Sin is woven into the fabric of how we live life. It is the "miracle of
redemption that exposes the true nature of sin" (p. 149). This book has
tremendous current relevance, since both sin and science confront us at
every turn. As a historian of science teaching in a psychology
department, I must admit that I was most eager to read about theology.
That is where Richard Coleman has the most to teach me. I did not know
that "love is the epitome of self-transcendence since it is the purest
act of self-giving and de-centering," and "unrestricted questioning is
our capacity for self-transcendence" (p. 199). I wish he would wax
bolder on the topic of Islam and other religions and their spiritual depth: "Certain elements of Islam do not see Western science as value free... There comes a point where science shapes and dominates the culture to such a degree that it becomes ideological" (p. 228). Some would argue that science has been co-opted by agri-business and the oil giants as well as military-industrial complex. The world is on the verge of cooking in sin like the proverbial frog. Perhaps in another book he will address other theologies and their relative capacities for sin and evil and even healing the planet.

The book can be seen as a case study in how theology and science can interface. Science is the new occasion for sin and evil, not the source. The case study required the author to redefine sin as overreaching and to embody sin in our evolutionary development, namely, our capacity for self-transcendence. In mundane example after example, Coleman points out subtle dilemmas raised by science that call for a humane response.

I enthusiastically recommend it as a textbook for courses in science and society, religious studies, history and philosophy of science.

Every scientist, theologian and the clergy should read and carefully ponder this insightful book.Knowledge has a power in our age which assumes there are no boundaries. Science's multitude of disciplines and it's technological framework-including the possibility of cloning our own
"preferred" bodies is more than speculation.Richard Coleman declares sin is component of self-awareness writen into our human condition.Science consistently presents us with the possibility of an expanded knwledge always open to moral purpose and to terrifying evil. Using his vast understanding of our contemporary situation in books, movies and media news, demonstrates we cannot trust ourselves. We are the boundaries for the better or for the worst. Chapter six "Science as the new occasion for Sin" is a must read ! Our hope is found in a transcending truth and power.

The Rev.William W.Tucker U.C.C.
Yarmouth Port, Ma.

Rare it is that a commentator on religion and science is competent in both and so can walk into the topic rather than limp. Richard Coleman did not limp in his COMPETING TRUTHS: Theology and Science as Sibling Rivals (Trinity Press International, 2001). Masterfully, he exploited the family metaphor of siblings to exhibit the common "Western" (Christian and Enlightenment) roots of science and theology, the essential context for understanding their mutual tensions and prospects. Now, in EDEN'S GARDEN: Rethinking Sin and Evil in an Era of Scientific Promise (Roman and Littlefield, 2007), Coleman exhibits how the two siblings can cooperate in understanding and confronting "Sin" and "Evil," the two giants blocking humanity's way to a more humane (intelligent and compassionate) future.
"Adam and Eve neglected to ask the question" of "overreaching"--now, "the unbridled optimism of an over-promising science." "The book is a theological gloss on the posthuman debate about the nature of being human." "A rethinking of sin and evil is required" if we are to "be wary of what we might do to our planet and ourselves." (p.x) ""If the values we hold most dear are worthy to guide our future, they should be able to withstand the scrutiny of science while remaining true to our most deeply held beliefs. The wisdom we require to guide us through this twenty-first century is both theological and scientific." (p.121)
Science and theology have different domains of truth and ways of wisdom, and humanity needs each to "counterbalance" the other.
Our century may be humanity's most dangerous, but this highly competent book evidences that it can prove to be humanity's most hopeful century.

This is a helpful reference for people who aren't familiar with magazine publishing and gives some useful advice on how to deal with common problems. However, the writing is sometimes convoluted and redundant and the authors' perspective can be narrow. I would expect better writing from people who choose to write for a publishing industry audience.

I have been in the magazine field for 5 years and then I found myself in a job where I was the only person with magazine experience, instead of being the youngest in the office. I wanted to be sure of everything I had learned in my other jobs and get tips about other things I had not dealt with. This was the perfect book--it had information about all aspects of magazine editing from management to layout to publication. This book is not only for the editor-in-chief (which I am), but it is also for anyone who works at a magazine and wants to have a better insight into the entire magazine process. I readily recommend this book to anyone interested in magazine writing and editing!

I work for printing/publishing clients as an advisor for IT strategy. I give this book to consultants new to the media industry, because it does such a good job of laying out basic information in a manner that's quick to read and easily understandable. Its focus is on the different kinds of magazines, the roles and responsibilies within a magazine, and the concerns of the Editor-in-chief. Informative and exactly as long as it needs to be.

This was a great book. It tells you everything from the history of teddy bears to little bear legends. I love teddy bears and found this book very interesting. My only complaint was that it was a tad short. If you love teddy bears then you'll love this book. It's great for any age to enjoy!

This book is a great read-aloud. My son was drawn to his "favorite" bears like Pooh and Paddington, then was happy to stick around and learn about actual, unusual teddy bears. We loved the story about the one on the Titanic.

This is a beautifully written and illustated book. Wonderful to read to toddlers and younger children and a treat for older children (of all ages). The Teddy Roosevelt story is worth the whole book.

fly high! is a story of a woman that name is Bessie Coleman who meets a guy that tells her to go to France to learn how to fly.She traveled all over the world , until one day she crashed in California.She was in the hospital for three long months,and was not able to fly for a year.She didn`t give up on flying again.one day she was ready to fly again.A texas mechanic,William Wills,joined her.Bessie didn`t put on her seatbelt,and the plane went out of control.Bessie fell from the plane.

A little light in the loafers is this story of Bessie Coleman. Though a worthy subject and a fascinating tale, this particular biography of the great Bessie C. is an awkwardly formal affair. Containing no source notes aside from a brief authorial thank you at the start of the book, most of the facts surrounding the life and times of Bessie Coleman are credited to Marion Coleman, Bessie's niece. Reading through this tale, I could only conclude that it was a pity that such a dry product could come from this powerful woman's life.

Bessie Coleman was a sharecropper's daughter in Waxahachie, Texas. Having grown up poor, Ms. Coleman moved to Chicago, Illinois to make a name for herself. After years of hard work, Bessie determined that the only job she wanted was to become an aviatrix. Scrimping and saving allowed Bessie to travel to France, where she was able to earn her pilot's license. Throughout the years Bessie would wow American audiences everywhere with her tricks and derring-do. In the end, Bessie died in a plane crash and was buried in Chicago once more. Her life allowed her to become the first African-American to earn a pilot's license. Not the first black woman but the first black person ever! Fairly impressive stuff.

There's a kind of disconnect between the words in this book and the images on its pages. Both the words and the illustrations are rather stiff and formal. Each illustration is contained neatly within its own little space and every narrative sequence is typed in nice little sections. It's funny that I felt the book to be so blah. There's no one moment in the story where I could say to myself, "Now THAT is why I find this telling so dull!". For the most part the story is factual (to the best of my knowledge), the only exception possibly being the moment when the text says the following about Bessie's license:

"It was the very best license to have:
With it, Bessie could fly anywhere in the world.
Nobody could say, `You're a Negro woman, you can't fly.'"

Well.... actually they probably could. That's a bit of a problem with this book. Racism is just sorta understood to have existed in some form. But it's never confronted directly. Most of the pictures in this book are of (sorry but it's true) smiling happy black people. No white person is ever singled out as racist or contributing to the system of racism. Bessie herself must have encountered several instances of it within her lifetime, but they are never mentioned. The fact that Bessie has to learn to fly in France is said matter of factly. Yet the comparative European openness towards African Americans is never mentioned. All in all, a kid's going to need a lot more explanation about WHY Bessie had problems during her life since this book's not about to clear up such questions. It's a worthy effort, but it falls well short of the mark.

Imagine walking four miles to school and four miles home from school. That's what Bessie Coleman did a hundred years ago. She wanted to be somebody-like Harriet Tubman and Bookier T. Washington. She knew that with schooling she could be. She worked hard, picking cotton, walking miles to collect laundry, and learning her numbers. When she was twenty-three, she moved to Chicago. There she became a manicurist. She read the newspaper, and listened when customers told tales about French lady pilots in World War I. She wanted to be a lady pilot. She boldly went to Publisher Robert Abbot who told her to earn some money and learn French. He would help her find a flying school. In 1920, she went to France,learned to fly, and became the first African American to fly. When she became a stunt pilot she spread her message, "You can be somebody. You can fly high, just like me." This colorful, beautiful, simply written book shows how Bessie Coleman was an inspiration. Her determination and hard work made her dreams come true! Read and find out the sad ending to this courageous woman's story!

Coleman's book is one of the most ambitious sustained attempts to theorize the social world from a single perspective -- and one which, unlike systems theories (e.g., Parsons, Luhmann) has clear predictive consequences. Of course, the book is just as interesting for where rational choice theory breaks down (e.g., with regard to obligations to family and extreme religious groups, and when it comes to preference formation) as for where it obviously applies (e.g. to corporate law). Even if you're a rational choice skeptic, there's plenty of value by way of concepts (e.g., disjoint vs. conjoint authority), though at almost 1,000 pages, this is by no means a quick read -- best surveyed under the guidance of someone who knows where the interesting bits are. (If I may, chs. 1-5.)

It was not easy to read through this. But, for those who wanna try something other than usual in sociology, I think this book will do. Don't you think the truth about our society is still out there? We have come here and it's too far away from the truth. ..and I think sociology is left land which will be fertile in some centuries. I think this book started first for searching another method to the gold, truth. Not just because it introduced mathematical view in sociology ,but because it showed us a new way of proceeding.

Coleman believed that sociological theory must justify itself. It must be testable and have implications for society. Coleman was also the biggest proponent of rational choice theory in sociology. This perspective has limitations (generally acknowledged by Coleman and exaggerated by most sociologists). This book is for serious students of any social science.

It's always a pleasure reading D's books! They are page turners that I can never put down. I read Get Low in a day. At age 15 Nia lived a very adult filled life without a dull moment of lies, murder, drugs, money and SEX. Nia & friends also went to the Chart House, Classics, 112.... some of the happening places from back in the day, in the DC & ATL area.

Darren has a raw talent to pull you into a book in the first couple pages !! Get Low is a must read !! I couldn't put it down !

At her 15th b-day party Nia Morgans life is turned upside down she loses her father and loses respect for her mother. Depressed and out of control she starts to use sex and drugs to get rid of the pain. But somewhere along the way she gets caught up in a murder/love triangle that forces her on the run.....to make ends meet she uses her body by stripping and she proves that she will do anything to survive the best way she knows how too, no matter what the cost. This shorty will get low for hers.

Jane Candia Coleman has become one of my favorite authors. She knows what she is writing about and she seems to understand the times so well. This is a wonderful book that describes Pearl's life and struggles. Her hopes for love and all of her disappointments. I could not put it down and recommend it to all.

If writing is story-telling this is a prime example. Detailed enough to set the scene but lean enough to make a swift exciting read. A terrific blend of feminine and masculine insights to be savored by both. This is my third Coleman and I've yet to be disappointed.

I have found that Jane Candia Coleman is one of my favorite authors. She has not disappointed me with "I, Pearl Hart." I have recently acquired more of her books, but as of yet, I have not had the time to read them. I am looking forward to them very much. I have just finished "Pearl Hart" and enjoyed it very much. However, my favorite book by Jane Candia Coleman is "Doc Holliday's Woman". She writes of times that I find very interesting and fascinating. I just wish I had more time to read.Hopefully, I will start "Stories from Mesa Country" next week or so.

John Coleman is an expert in his field, and he has produced the only introduction to this area for beginners. Aimed at linguists with no real expetise in computing, this is a must for anybody wanting to familiarise themselves with computational linguistics.

This is the best introduction into speech sciences for linguistic students, especially for phoneticians. I wish I had such a book when I first struggled with technical writings on speech processing. Material is organized perfectly, style is clear, easy read. after reading this book it is possible to take amore advanced and more technical ones, e.g. by Jurafsky and Martin. Students who feel overt to math enjoyed the curse based on this book and joyfully played with C programs to modify the results. No woner if the book becomes a compulsory textbook for an introductory course on computational linguistics or speech processing at linguistic departments. I feel obliged to the author for the book. It is not a 5-star rating, of course, it is definitely higher. Many thanks to the publisher for evaluation copy.

I've been using this as the textbook in my speech technology course at SJSU, with generally good results.

The book assumes that the reader is aquainted with basic acoustic and linguistic concepts such as glottal excitation, frequency spectra, fundamental frequency, and IPA transcription. The book is therefore not suitable on its own for a class of true beginners. For such an audience, instructors will want to supplement Coleman's book with a gentler introductory book such as Ladefoged (1996) or Johnson (2003).

By far the best feature of this book is its focus on concrete implementation, in source code, of the concepts discussed. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a working C program is worth a thousand more. Coleman deserves our thanks for including actual speech processing code with his textbook.

The focus on explicit source code is one of a number of features that differentiate Coleman's textbook from the Jurafsky & Martin textbook that I use in other courses. Coleman's book is slimmer and less ambitious in its coverage of topics compared with Jurafsky & Martin's massive tome. Coleman's textbook also contains far fewer typos and other errors.

On the other hand, some parts of Coleman's book are frustratingly brief, incomplete, or opaque. An example is Section 4.2 on spectral analysis. The mechanics of the Hanning window are introduced, but without motivation---we never learn what the window is for, or why we need it. The results of the Fourier transform are displayed but no hint is offered as to how it works. Overall this section compares quite unfavorably to the masterful presentation of Fourier analysis in Chapter 10 of Ladefoged (1996).

Finally, it is important to note that there is a simple bug that infects most of the C programs supplied with the book. The variable "length", used to store the size of an input file, is declared as type "(int *)". This should be changed to type "int", so that memory is allocated to store the input size. Consequently, subsequent references to "*length" should be changed to "length", and "length" to "&length". Once this bug is fixed, the code compiles fine on any platform, not just on the compiler supplied with the book.

I've read the book twice - so there's no doubt that I love it. I've read or heard some of the stories before reading them here (or a similar version - I think many of us may have.) But what makes this collection of stories special is the afterthoughts. The afterthoughts provide foundation for the stories, help us see the bits of wisdom in them and aid us in understanding why the stories have endured.

I thoroughly enjoyed this well written book of cultural pride and celebration, and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. Understanding different cultures is not only essential to breaking down barriers, but downright enyoyable. Having traveled in many different countries around the world, my capacity and desire for cultural enrichment and experience never ceases. I find it sad that a culture so young, yet so old surrounds us but is not nearly as well understood as those on other continents. The youth and confusion of this culture stems from a very embarassing moment in this countries history; the age of it harkens from mysterious Africa. This book delivers a profound message from a woman willing to share her experiences. I found it did me a tremendous amount of good and left me yearning for more in fully understanding the richness of the fabric from which it was woven. I look for more from this author!

I loved this book so much! It gave me such a warm and fuzzy feeling. The stories just took me back to my childhood and that's really funny because I am a middle aged white woman from irish-italian descent!!!! Where this book was written by a black woman.This book really shows that we are all connected inside our souls to some degree whether we are white,black,yellow or purple with pink polka dots!!!! I highly recommend this book if family connections are important to you.

Mr. de Varona's book is one of the best that I have read on the history of Latinos in United States and the people who helped shape this nation before the Mayflower arrived. Easy and intersting to read. It's time to reprint this book!

Mr. de Varona's book is one of the best that I have read on the history of Latinos in United States and the people who helped shape this nation before the Mayflower arrived. Easy and intersting to read. It's time to reprint this book!

Here's the true American History book you never read in school. De Varona tells it like it is and opens our eyes to what truly transpired after Columbus (Colon) bumped onto this landmass. If you want to learn more about how Hispanics have enriched the American way of life--and I'm not talking tortillas!--this is your book