Five-fiftysix meme

New: Solutions listed

Mike Dunford, who is still trying to get me to pay for that time he put me up in Hawaii when his wife was on active service in Iraq (if I knew what I'd have to pay, both in climbing horrific rainforested slopes to release wallabies, and this meme, I'd never have gone) has tagged me, the bastard. It's a meme created by Henry Gee (I'll get even with him later, too).

Find ten books, the first ones you see, go to page 56, sentence five and transcribe it. You readers are supposed to guess what they are. [I better keep a note or I'll be screwed later...] Below the fold:

1. Another odd property of significance tests concerns the way in which they are sensitive to sample size.

Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science, by Elliot Sober

2. Those favoring materialism continued to believe that perhaps the most basic form of life might be produced directly by nature, and by the end of the century the discovery of the electric current offered them a new force, which, it was hoped, might explain how dead matter could be brought to life.

Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine), by Peter Bowler

3. His other distributions too evened things out this way.

Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity (Sather Classical Lectures) by David Sedley

4. Annette bustles around busily, pointing out angles and timings to the forensics team her head office sent in answer to her call for backup.

Accelerando (Singularity) by Charles Stross

5. 'That's the sea!' she said, starting towards the crack.

Everville by Clive Barker

6. The belfry movement could play fixed tunes, for example to chime the hours.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

7. Darwin was suddenly very much on the defensive.

The Darwin Conspiracy by Roy Davies

8. It was connected to the Library by a covered marble colonnade; inside the Library were ten great halls, lined with shelves and cupboards, all numbered and titled, housing a vast collection of manuscripts.

The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants by Anna Pavord

9. Today it would be assumed that they were a lesbian couple, with Jane clearly the "husband" and sweet, retiring Betty the "wife".

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Schaeffer

10. Or, to express the point more precisely, ours is a world of space, whereas Aristotle's was a world of place.

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450

by David Lindberg

Mike gave hints. I won't. I'm a bastard too.

I tag

Larry Moran

Christopher Taylor

Jim Downey

Jim Lippard

Ian Musgrave

and anyone who actually wants to do this.