seeking1 Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 When I say "Science Books", I mean the books can be both popular accounts of scientific fields or books that teach the science to students. Here goes: The Grammar of Science by Karl Pearson On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin What is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton Epilepsy: A Comprehensive Textbook by Jerome Engel, Jr. and Timothy A. Pedley Feel free to contribute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charmer08 Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 LOL you might not be a science major but I bet most of us are... and we have plenty of science reading to do for school... so a good thread would be a "list of non-science books" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 No, I am, I just like history too, and knowing how publications by scientists have caused thinking shifts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnussey Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 My favourites (my babies...they live here next to the computer): Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan. (Spelling) The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking. On the Shoulders of Giants by Stephen Hawking. Transit of Venus by Peter Aughton. A Brief History of Time...Stephen Hawking. Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Can anyone guess my hobby? I have other favourites too--more about politics & social issues though: Race Against Time (Stephen Lewis), The Peculiar Institution, & Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caylynn Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution - Michael J. Behe (an interesting read, even if I don't agree with the author's conclusions) and less "sciency" but still good: Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond Collapse -Jared Diamond Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnussey Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution - Michael J. Behe (an interesting read, even if I don't agree with the author's conclusions) and less "sciency" but still good: Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond Collapse -Jared Diamond Jared Diamond....drool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Michael Behe is contentious as he thinks random mutations don't occur at all. But yeah, I guess he counts as a read, too Kenneth R. Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" is way better if you're looking for science and religion lit. Lets focus on the science here, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astrogirl Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 -The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind -The Roots of Things: Topics in Quantum Mechanics by Alan A. Grometstein -Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tango Charlie Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution - Michael J. Behe (an interesting read, even if I don't agree with the author's conclusions) Michael Behe is rather . edit: That is to say, Behe's notion of irreducible complexity has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Behe is an opponent of science and only wants to infiltrate god and Christianity into highschool curriculum. He says things that are flat-out lies, and the Dover, PA trial (elaborated on in the second video I linked to) demonstrated really well just how untenable his claims regarding intelligent design are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caylynn Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Michael Behe is rather . edit: That is to say, Behe's notion of irreducible complexity has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Behe is an opponent of science and only wants to infiltrate god and Christianity into highschool curriculum. He says things that are flat-out lies, and the Dover, PA trial (elaborated on in the second video I linked to) demonstrated really well just how untenable his claims regarding intelligent design are. I said I didn't agree with his conclusions! Of course it is bunk. But I did find the book an interesting read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tango Charlie Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 Yeah, I know, I just wouldn't want anyone to think Michael Behe's work is something other than a work of fiction concocted to attack evolution, which he views as dangerously immoral regardless of its scientific basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayward son Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 Sagan – Demon-Haunted World (my favourite. I have probably read it 10 times) For medicine Goldacre’s Bad Science and Singh’s Trick or Treatment are both essential in my opinion (but the former is difficult to obtain in North America for some reason unknown to me). For evolution: Coyne – Why Evolution is True. Dawkins – Everything. Prothero – Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters. Amazing. Lane – Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution (evolution from the perspective of a biochemist. Also “oxygen” and “power, sex, suicide”) Ridley – The Red Queen, Genome, Origins of virtue Spector – Denialism (about irrational thinking – Tavris’ Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me; Gardner’s The Science of Fear and Manjoo’s True Enough are also very good along the same lines.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosuperman Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution - Michael J. Behe (an interesting read, even if I don't agree with the author's conclusions) and less "sciency" but still good: Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond Collapse -Jared Diamond I recommend Brian Greene's books to everyone, science background or not, he has a way of conveying both the simple and the previously unimaginable, in a gripping way, to people with and without physics backgrounds. Awesome. I'd add: Most of Dawkin's writing, particularly his earlier stuff. (before he started explaining how a monkey didn't give birth to a human and why this fact doesn't invalidate evolution) I am a strange loop by Douglas Hofstadter, the follow up to Godel Escher and Bach. More when I can get home and peruse the ol' bookshelf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 Autism's False Prophets by Paul Offit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 More med related: Cambodia Calling by Richard Heinzl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamP Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 i am very surprised by the amount of physics nerds who find there way into meds. i second all the universe/string theory books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnussey Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 i am very surprised by the amount of physics nerds who find there way into meds. i second all the universe/string theory books. We don't make enough money in physics. Lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayward son Posted August 11, 2010 Report Share Posted August 11, 2010 Autism's False Prophets by Paul Offit Fantastic book. Unfortunately it will not reach the wide audience that it should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tango Charlie Posted August 11, 2010 Report Share Posted August 11, 2010 I'll contribute by pretending history is a science and recommending The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer. I read the entire thing back when the power went out however-many years ago and it was really eye-opening. Learning about the inner-workings of Nazi Germany before and during WW2 is fascinating, in particular when so many misapprehensions exist about the topic ("the Nazis wanted to rule the world", etc). Team of Rivals, by Dorris Kearns Goodwin is also really good. Everyone knows Abraham Lincoln, but how much do you really know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 11, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2010 I'll contribute by pretending history is a science Good book suggestions, but not what I was getting at. If its history of science or ethics of science, yeah, throw it in. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebekka Skloot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renoir Posted August 16, 2010 Report Share Posted August 16, 2010 [*]Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton Didn't he write this in the most complicated and convoluted possible manner to protect against intellectual "smatterers"? I've never thought it would make a good read... How is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 16, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2010 Didn't he write this in the most complicated and convoluted possible manner to protect against intellectual "smatterers"? I've never thought it would make a good read... How is it? Haven't read it yet, but I want to. If that is the case, then yay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tickytacky23 Posted August 16, 2010 Report Share Posted August 16, 2010 Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body - By Neil Shubin. Pretty interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeking1 Posted August 16, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2010 Less evolution, more other stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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