Rating: 
Summary: A great read for cynics
Review: After reading this book, it's hard not to see unintended consequences everywhere. A great insight into the fallability of man, and the need for an in-depth understanding of complex systems
Rating:
Summary: A good read for our times
Review: Boy, we humans make a mess of things, don't we? Our solutions to problems end up causing other problems. We can never get ahead of the curve. So, what's the point? Why do we bother inventing things? If we stopped right now, and lived like its 2002 forever, we will be in better shape, and live quieter, more stress-free, and even safer, lives. That is NOT what Tenner advocates in his book. But it is a conclusion one could reach when you read the litany of unintended consequences he provides.Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Tenner shows quite clearly how and why we have unintended consequences. Once you read this book, you will find yourself thinking about many of the technological fixes in your life and wondering what unintended consequences they begat. The next step - and maybe this can be Tenner's next book - is ask, what can we do about this situation? We cannot and should not stop innovation or problem-solving. But maybe we can do two things. One, explore how feedback loops can be enhanced, especially now that we are living in a digital world. It sounds silly when you read that someday, your refrigerator will order milk from a grocery store when it "senses" you are low on milk, but the faster and more efficient the feedback loops, the better we can be at forecasting danger ahead. Secondly, when a new solution or invention comes to fruition, look back for a moment, not ahead. Something is always lost when a new tool comes into human hands. Maybe the old tool had positive attributes we should try to keep. For a great example of this, read the little essay on railroads in George Kennan's Around the Cragged Hill. As he describes it, at the very point in history that the railroads had created a magnificent system, uniting the country while allowing it to spread, maximizing speed and safety, the car was invented. And the railroads withered. A sad story, the way he tells it. And while Kennan may be a little too romantic when it comes to 19th century rails, I am sure that there are many things about the rails that we have lost, now that we drive or fly. I always appreciate a book that makes me think. This one does and is recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Good Coverage of Difficult Subjects
Review: Edward Tenner has written an amazing book dealing with unintended consequences of technology. The book probably would have received five stars if it was available in a more up to date version and/or more individual technologies had been explored (hopefully 'Our Own Devices', his newest book will rectify both points). A revised edition would be most welcome. (For instance in the section on computers the Pentium chip had just been released.) Tenner's gift is in his ability to take very complex subjects with a myriad of unseen interactions and to explain the outcomes in a logical, readable and comprehensive manner. This would be an excellent book to use in a systems safety course, along with James Chiles' 'Inviting Disaster,' which is also an excellent read. The ability to explain revenge effects, reverse revenge effects and the like on a number of diverse subjects from sports medicine to forest fire prevention makes this a must read for safety professionals, as well as making it fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in the world as it interacts with technology.
Rating:
Summary: Kudos and two thumbs up ( this from a college senior )
Review: Edward Tenner, author of Why things bite back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences, weaves an interesting set of stories involving technology to show that because of its unintended consequences technology can "bite back." The subjects Tenner covers are based upon topics in medicine, the environment, animal and vegetable pests, the computerization of the workplace and the area of sports. Tenner uses these areas to point out that technology in many cases has led to unintended consequences. I think that Edward Tenner has the ability
to make strong connections in his examples. His topics, that range from medicine to sports, are not meant to frighten the average reader with jargon from those fields.
His ability to capture my attention early and his ease of reading, I believe, makes this the perfect gift for this season.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting information, writing style a bit dry.
Review: Having read this book, I now actively look for the unintended consequences of technology. Living near Tenner, I found his occasional references to happenings in his hometown to be amusing, but they might be lost on others. I found the writing style to be a bit dry, making the content a bit less engaging than it might have been. Still, overall, I enjoyed the book, and found it an eye-opener.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple Premise
Review: I already knew most of what Tenner's book contained and therefore, I was bored early on. Not as interesting as I had hoped
Rating:
Summary: Unusually Well-Balanced Discussion of Technological Advances
Review: I can't recall reading another book on technology that was as well-balanced as this is. For this reason alone, Why Things Bite Back is good reading. But Tenner achieves much more than balance. He identifies useful categories, like revenge effects and reverse revenge effects. Within the former, Tenner identifies repeating effects (e.g., doing the same thing more often rather than gaining free time, as happened with time-saving devices like home clothes washers and dryers when we quit taking as many clothes to the laundry), recomplicating effects (e.g., being expected to remember more numbers as we go from rotary to push button telephone "dialing"), regenerating effects (e.g., Patriot missles breaking up Scuds into multiple, smaller projectiles), and recongesting effects (e.g., the transformation of apparently limitless electromagnetic bandwidth to congested, largely filled bandwidth). Whew! When reading this, I wondered how Tenner would later use these categories, which he introduced at the beginning of the book. Well, he does return to them and, in doing so, seems to be taking a first pass at crafting a useful nomenclature. My main problem with the book is that Tenner presses some of the arguments too hard, such as the perceived link between defeating TB and facilitating AIDS. I was disappointed to see this argument pop up again 260 pages after its first mention--this time in the book's conclusion. Tenner concludes that we can best manage revenge effects by retreating from intensity through three means: diversification, dematerialization, and finesse. Tenner provides numerous examples of each strategy, such as fostering diversity in plant species, substituting brains for stuff, and allowing a fever to play its role in fighting infection. Despite the presence of a few weak arguments, Why Things Bite Back is really remarkable and goes a long way toward preparing us to meet the challenge of continued, fast-paced technological progress.
Rating: 
Summary: techno-revenge
Review: I discovered Tenner's ideas on how technology bites back when I read a magazine article on the history of the chair-- how it was first a throne, for royalty, and how gradually, wealthy people owned them-- that chairs led to tables, led to computer keyboards-- and backpain. I really liked how the history of so simple a device could be so fascinating. So I found the book. Being in health care, I was pleased to discover that so much of the book covers the way that medical technology has bitten boack, and how we have been, to some extent, misled on the "wonders" of modern drugs and therapies. For example, the dazzling emergency medical techniques developed in Korea and Viet Nam now allow meergency docs to save more crash victims lives, but that now allows more para and quadraplegics, more brain-damaged to live at huge expense. It's good that they can be saved, but expensive. I've used this book as a source of some great quotes and interesting facts in my lectures on alternative health care. It really opens your eyes to see that a gee whiz technology can also have "bite-back" effects you'd never think of.
Rating: 
Summary: No New Ground Broken
Review: I looked at this book in the hopes that it would offer insights into WHY "things bite back." But it seems not even to realize the fundamental reason: It's not that technology is too complex; it's that we place too much faith in systems in general. For one thing, we believe that systems can solve our problems, not realizing that new systems carry new problems. (This is the true source of "unintended consequences.") Then, once we have created these unpredictable new systems, we relax, trusting them to do our dirty work for us like perfectly-functioning and indestructable wind-up machines. Examples of the results of this lazy faith in systems abound, from the trivial ("quality" processes that reduce quality by making workers less productive) to the serious (multiple regulatory organizations whose only goal has become self-preservation at any cost). Tenner's book seems not to dig into the "why" of this. That's a shame... but it's also an opportunity for some other talented and energetic writer. Note: Those who liked Tenner's book, or who prefer one that recognizes "Systems Faith" as the primary problem, should definitely check out _Systemantics_ by John Gall. It's not only instructive, it's funny (albeit in a "whistling past the graveyard" kind of way). -- Bart
Rating:
Summary: Life is always two steps forward and one step back
Review: In medicine we conquered (to some extent) the catastrophic only to succumb to the chronic. This is an example of what Tenner means by things biting back. My house has very good water pressure. I can put a lot of water on the lawn in a hurry. Unfortunately, the pressure is so great that the water hose cannot be set down on the lawn with the water on since it will jump and squirm and shoot about until something anchors it. The other morning at five a.m. one of the hoses to the washer burst spraying gallons of hot water against the wall and onto the floor. I was experiencing "the revenge of unintended consequences." There's a certain "Peter Principle" logic to Tenner's thesis. It seems that we have the ability to devise technology wonders but the inability to completely account for everything they can and will do. The computer brought us not only incredibly rapid calculations and a greatly enhanced ability to write, as well as the Internet, but also carpal tunnel syndrome. Who could have predicted that? We thought we were heralding in the paperless society when in fact the use of paper increased. The expanding speed and availability of global transportation has lead to the rapid proliferation of disease and unwanted alien species. We could and probably did predict that. Tenner covers a lot of ground in this very interesting book, from medicine and natural disasters to plant and animal pests to machinery and software to how better running shoes lead to more injuries. In short what we have here is a warning: we are not as smart as we think we are. We are not as completely in control of our lives as we would like to believe. We are in danger of really screwing up the works at any time, so we ought to be modest and, as Tenner suggests, practice a constant vigilance because "reality is indeed gaining on us."
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