Nonsense on Stilts

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226667871
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Nonsense on Stilts by : Massimo Pigliucci

Download or read book Nonsense on Stilts written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent polls suggest that fewer than 40 percent of Americans believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, despite it being one of science’s best-established findings. More and more parents are refusing to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link can been consistently disproved. And about 40 percent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, despite near consensus in the scientific community that manmade climate change is real. Why do people believe bunk? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? Noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in this entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and—borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham—the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a “taxonomy of bunk” that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. No one—not the public intellectuals in the culture wars between defenders and detractors of science nor the believers of pseudoscience themselves—is spared Pigliucci’s incisive analysis. In the end, Nonsense on Stilts is a timely reminder of the need to maintain a line between expertise and assumption. Broad in scope and implication, it is also ultimately a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will affect the future of our planet.

Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense by : Michael Zimmerman

Download or read book Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense written by Michael Zimmerman and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the role of science and technology in everyday life grows both more pervasive and more complex, it has become ever more difficult for a scientifically "illiterate" public to make informed judgments. In Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense, Michael Zimmerman takes on a wide range of falsifiers, disinformation specialists, and charlatans to provide readers with the scientific background necessary to evaluate environmental and other current issues that increasingly may be a matter of life and death. Zimmerman begins by showing just what science is - and how the criteria of skepticism and falsifiability distinguish it from pseudoscience and mysticism. He offers intelligent, entertaining, and sometimes scathing analyses of bad science - from lottery "systems" and creationism to graphologists and homeopaths, from food and product safety scams to outright scientific fraud. In each case he shows exactly what to watch for - how the most outrageously false claims often contain a grain of truth, and how valid scientific findings may be distorted or selectively quoted to serve the ends of government, business, or special interest groups.

Nonsense on Stilts

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022649604X
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Nonsense on Stilts by : Massimo Pigliucci

Download or read book Nonsense on Stilts written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This crash course in critical thinking . . . includes handy rules for evaluating the confused public discourse on climate change, evolution, and even UFOs.” —Discover Recent polls suggest that fewer than forty percent of Americans believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, despite it being one of science’s best-established findings. Parents still refuse to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link has been consistently disproved. And about forty percent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, including many political leaders. In this era of fake news and alternative facts, there is more bunk than ever. But why do people believe in it? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? In this fully revised second edition, noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in an entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and—borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham—the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a “taxonomy of bunk” that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. Broad in scope and implication, Nonsense on Stilts is a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will shape the future of our planet. “Brilliant . . . required reading for, well, everyone.” —New Scientist

Nonsense on Stilts

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022649599X
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Nonsense on Stilts by : Massimo Pigliucci

Download or read book Nonsense on Stilts written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent polls suggest that fewer than 40 percent of Americans believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, despite it being one of science’s best-established findings. Parents still refuse to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link has been consistently disproved. And about 40 percent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, including many political leaders. In this era of fake news and alternative facts, there is more bunk than ever. But why do people believe in it? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? In this fully revised second edition, noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in an entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and—borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham—the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a “taxonomy of bunk” that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. No one—neither the public intellectuals in the culture wars between defenders and detractors of science nor the believers of pseudoscience themselves—is spared Pigliucci’s incisive analysis in this timely reminder of the need to maintain a line between expertise and assumption. Broad in scope and implication, Nonsense on Stilts is a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will shape the future of our planet.

Science: Sense and Nonsense

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Science: Sense and Nonsense by : John Lighton Synge

Download or read book Science: Sense and Nonsense written by John Lighton Synge and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Borderlands of Science

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0195157982
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

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Book Synopsis The Borderlands of Science by : Michael Shermer

Download or read book The Borderlands of Science written by Michael Shermer and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The editor-in-chief of "Skeptic" magazine and author of the bestselling "Why People Believe Weird Things" takes readers to the place where real science (such as the big bang theory), borderland science (superstring theory), and just plain nonsense (Big Foot) collide with one another. 20 halftones. 36 line illustrations.

Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351402498
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking by : Gershon Ben-Shakhar

Download or read book Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking written by Gershon Ben-Shakhar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking shines an unforgiving light on popular and lucrative ‘miraculous’ practices that promise to offer answers during times of trouble. Throughout the book, the authors unfold the fallacies underlying these practices, as well as consumers’ need and desire to believe in them. Adopting a scientific approach, the book critically evaluates research into cold-reading practices, such as those that claim to be able to communicate with the afterlife or posess supernatural powers, before considering a range of pseudo-sciences including graphology and polygraph interrogation, exposing the pretensions of these practices in a clear and logical fashion. The book seeks to encourage critical thinking throughout, asking whether there is any scientific evidence to support these practitioners’ abilities to supply us with reliable answers, and discussing the various factors that comprise the psychological mechanism of belief. Written in a fluent and accessible style, Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking is aimed at interested professionals and the public at large.

Fashionable Nonsense

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Author :
Publisher : Picador
ISBN 13 : 1466862408
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis Fashionable Nonsense by : Alan Sokal

Download or read book Fashionable Nonsense written by Alan Sokal and published by Picador. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in Social Text--an influential academic journal of cultural studies--touting the deep similarities between quantum gravitational theory and postmodern philosophy. Soon thereafter, the essay was revealed as a brilliant parody, a catalog of nonsense written in the cutting-edge but impenetrable lingo of postmodern theorists. The event sparked a furious debate in academic circles and made the headlines of newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, Sokal and his fellow physicist Jean Bricmont expand from where the hoax left off. In a delightfully witty and clear voice, the two thoughtfully and thoroughly dismantle the pseudo-scientific writings of some of the most fashionable French and American intellectuals. More generally, they challenge the widespread notion that scientific theories are mere "narrations" or social constructions.

Cultural Boundaries of Science

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226292618
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (926 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultural Boundaries of Science by : Thomas F. Gieryn

Download or read book Cultural Boundaries of Science written by Thomas F. Gieryn and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-01-15 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text argues that an explanation for the cultural authority of science lies where scientific claims leave laboratories and enter boardrooms and living rooms. Here, one uses "maps" to decide who to believe - cultural maps demarcating "science" from pseudoscience, ideology, faith, or nonsense.

Science, Non-science & Pseudo-science

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Author :
Publisher : UNSW Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 56 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (243 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Non-science & Pseudo-science by : Maxwell John Charlesworth

Download or read book Science, Non-science & Pseudo-science written by Maxwell John Charlesworth and published by UNSW Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Philosophy of Pseudoscience

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022605182X
Total Pages : 479 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophy of Pseudoscience by : Massimo Pigliucci

Download or read book Philosophy of Pseudoscience written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-08-16 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A remarkable contribution to one of the most vexing problems in science: the ‘demarcation’ problem, or how to distinguish science from nonscience.” —Francisco J. Ayala, author of Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion What sets the practice of rigorously tested, sound science apart from pseudoscience? In this volume, the contributors seek to answer this question, known to philosophers of science as “the demarcation problem.” This issue has a long history in philosophy, stretching as far back as the early twentieth century and the work of Karl Popper. But by the late 1980s, scholars in the field began to treat the demarcation problem as impossible to solve and futile to ponder. However, the essays that Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry have assembled in this volume make a rousing case for the unequivocal importance of reflecting on the separation between pseudoscience and sound science. Moreover, the demarcation problem is not a purely theoretical dilemma of mere academic interest: it affects parents’ decisions to vaccinate children and governments’ willingness to adopt policies that prevent climate change. Pseudoscience often mimics science, using the superficial language and trappings of actual scientific research to seem more respectable. Even a well-informed public can be taken in by such questionable theories dressed up as science. Pseudoscientific beliefs compete with sound science on the health pages of newspapers for media coverage and in laboratories for research funding. Now more than ever the ability to separate genuine scientific findings from spurious ones is vital, and The Philosophy of Pseudoscience provides ground for philosophers, sociologists, historians, and laypeople to make decisions about what science is or isn’t. “A manual to overcome our natural cognitive biases.” —Corriere della Sera (Italy)

General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues

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Publisher : Elsevier
ISBN 13 : 0080548547
Total Pages : 713 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (85 download)

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Book Synopsis General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues by :

Download or read book General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2007-07-18 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists use concepts and principles that are partly specific for their subject matter, but they also share part of them with colleagues working in different fields. Compare the biological notion of a 'natural kind' with the general notion of 'confirmation' of a hypothesis by certain evidence. Or compare the physical principle of the 'conservation of energy' and the general principle of 'the unity of science'. Scientists agree that all such notions and principles aren't as crystal clear as one might wish. An important task of the philosophy of the special sciences, such as philosophy of physics, of biology and of economics, to mention only a few of the many flourishing examples, is the clarification of such subject specific concepts and principles. Similarly, an important task of 'general' philosophy of science is the clarification of concepts like 'confirmation' and principles like 'the unity of science'. It is evident that clarfication of concepts and principles only makes sense if one tries to do justice, as much as possible, to the actual use of these notions by scientists, without however following this use slavishly. That is, occasionally a philosopher may have good reasons for suggesting to scientists that they should deviate from a standard use. Frequently, this amounts to a plea for differentiation in order to stop debates at cross-purposes due to the conflation of different meanings. While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals with focal issues of a general nature. After an editorial introduction about the dominant method of clarifying concepts and principles in philosophy of science, called explication, the first five chapters deal with the following subjects. Laws, theories, and research programs as units of empirical knowledge (Theo Kuipers), various past and contemporary perspectives on explanation (Stathis Psillos), the evaluation of theories in terms of their virtues (Ilkka Niiniluto), and the role of experiments in the natural sciences, notably physics and biology (Allan Franklin), and their role in the social sciences, notably economics (Wenceslao Gonzalez). In the subsequent three chapters there is even more attention to various positions and methods that philosophers of science and scientists may favor: ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions (James Ladyman), reduction, integration, and the unity of science as aims in the sciences and the humanities (William Bechtel and Andrew Hamilton), and logical, historical and computational approaches to the philosophy of science (Atocha Aliseda and Donald Gillies).The volume concludes with the much debated question of demarcating science from nonscience (Martin Mahner) and the rich European-American history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century (Friedrich Stadler). Comprehensive coverage of the philosophy of science written by leading philosophers in this field Clear style of writing for an interdisciplinary audience No specific pre-knowledge required

The Book of Things

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Author :
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
ISBN 13 : 1514496364
Total Pages : 99 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (144 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of Things by : Russell Sullivan

Download or read book The Book of Things written by Russell Sullivan and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2016-05-27 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever stood corrected? Was it difficult? Was it uncomfortable? The Book of Things was written to correct a mistake and then sets out to make mistakes about everything! Clear your head and open your mind. This book is a book of non science, making it nonsense. Can you make sense of that? The Book Of Things places matter at its center and using science taught to a minor attempts to illustrate a way that may matter to some, a way where simple science can be extrapolated into something larger than itself. The Book Of Things also considers success and failure, that needle in a haystack at its center, not posing the questions why or what if but applauding those who asked them. An addendum to an appendice that is potentially fatal for some and inescapable for the writer, The Book Of Things arrived not as planned but as a result of happenstance. It is hoped that others who may share in the books in jokes will find not a serendipitous belonging but an eventuality of happenstance allowing them to share in that which inspires books and readers. Creativity. It is our creativity that has enabled much, and provided the wild geese that tease and titillate us providing endeavor that a smith once considered vital to enriching our lives. The Book Of Things draws upon the legacy of those such as that smith and others in different fields whose creativity shaped the world we live in today. It is about giving back, returning that creative impetus and adding impetuous zest. This is the intrinsic nature of the writer a lover of the words of so many others and wanting to share at least some of the results of that passion with others.

Against Health

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Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814761100
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Against Health by : Jonathan M. Metzl

Download or read book Against Health written by Jonathan M. Metzl and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Navigates the divergent cultural meanings of health, and its entanglement with morality in current political discourse You see someone smoking a cigarette and say,“Smoking is bad for your health,” when what you mean is, “You are a bad person because you smoke.” You encounter someone whose body size you deem excessive, and say, “Obesity is bad for your health,” when what you mean is, “You are lazy, unsightly, or weak of will.” You see a woman bottle-feeding an infant and say,“Breastfeeding is better for that child’s health,” when what you mean is that the woman must be a bad parent. You see the smokers, the overeaters, the bottle-feeders, and affirm your own health in the process. In these and countless other instances, the perception of your own health depends in part on your value judgments about others, and appealing to health allows for a set of moral assumptions to fly stealthily under the radar. Against Health argues that health is a concept, a norm, and a set of bodily practices whose ideological work is often rendered invisible by the assumption that it is a monolithic, universal good. And, that disparities in the incidence and prevalence of disease are closely linked to disparities in income and social support. To be clear, the book's stand against health is not a stand against the authenticity of people's attempts to ward off suffering. Against Health instead claims that individual strivings for health are, in some instances, rendered more difficult by the ways in which health is culturally configured and socially sustained. The book intervenes into current political debates about health in two ways. First, Against Health compellingly unpacks the divergent cultural meanings of health and explores the ideologies involved in its construction. Second, the authors present strategies for moving forward. They ask, what new possibilities and alliances arise? What new forms of activism or coalition can we create? What are our prospects for well-being? In short, what have we got if we ain't got health? Against Health ultimately argues that the conversations doctors, patients, politicians, activists, consumers, and policymakers have about health are enriched by recognizing that, when talking about health, they are not all talking about the same thing. And, that articulating the disparate valences of “health” can lead to deeper, more productive, and indeed more healthy interactions about our bodies.

Medical Misinformation and Social Harm in Non-Science Based Health Practices

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429754981
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (297 download)

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Book Synopsis Medical Misinformation and Social Harm in Non-Science Based Health Practices by : Anita Lavorgna

Download or read book Medical Misinformation and Social Harm in Non-Science Based Health Practices written by Anita Lavorgna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-18 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fraudulent, harmful, or at best useless pharmaceutical and therapeutic approaches developed outside science-based medicine have boomed in recent years, especially due to the commercialisation of cyberspace. The latter has played a fundamental role in the rise of false ‘health experts’, and in the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers that have contributed to the formation of highly polarised debates on non-science-based health practices—online as well as offline. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this edited book brings together contributions of international academics and practitioners from criminology, digital sociology, health psychology, medicine, law, physics, and journalism, where they critically analyse different types of non-science-based health approaches. With this volume, we aim to reconcile different scientific understandings of these practices, synthesising a variety of empirical, theoretical and interpretative approaches, and exploring the challenges, implications and potential remedies to the spread of dangerous and misleading health information. This edited book will offer some food for thought not only to students and academics in the social sciences, health psychology and medicine among other disciplines, but also to medical practitioners, science journalists, debunkers, policy makers and the general public, as they might all benefit from a greater awareness and critical knowledge of the harms caused by non-scientific health practices.

The Unnatural Nature of Science

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674929814
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (298 download)

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Book Synopsis The Unnatural Nature of Science by : Lewis Wolpert

Download or read book The Unnatural Nature of Science written by Lewis Wolpert and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wolpert draws on the entire history of science, from Thales of Miletus to Watson and Crick, from the study of eugenics to the discovery of the double helix. The result is a scientist's view of the culture of science, authoritative, informed, and mercifully accessible to those who find cohabiting with this culture a puzzling experience.

Reading Science

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780930390938
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Reading Science by : Ben Agger

Download or read book Reading Science written by Ben Agger and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1989 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To find more information about Rowman and Littlefield titles, please visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com.