The Log from the Sea of Cortez
Steinbeck and a marine biologist set out to collect specimens and came back with an argument about seeing, and why explaining a thing can explain it away.
Steinbeck and the marine biologist Ed Ricketts spent six weeks collecting specimens in the Gulf of California, and the log Steinbeck made of it becomes something larger: a running argument about how to see, why teleological thinking misleads, and what it means to describe a thing without explaining it away.
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Maria Popova
A mighty antidote to that very human and very life-limiting impulse comes from The Log from the Sea of Cortez (public library) by John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968).
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