Everything You Know About Science Is Wrong

Author : Matt Brown
Publisher : Batsford Books
ISBN 13 : 184994461X
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Everything You Know About Science is Wrong written by Matt Brown and published by Batsford Books. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly entertaining, myth-busting read for anyone with even a passing interest in science. Hot on the heels of the fascinating compendium Everything You Know About London Is Wrong, this next book in the series, written by author Matt Brown in his trademark humourous style, debunks the scientific myths we all take for granted. Does nothing travel faster than the speed of light? Well, in certain circumstances, a winded tortoise can go faster. Are there actually seven colours in a rainbow? Think again. And our author merrily explains why our hair and nails don't keep growing after we die and why chemicals in our diet might not be the toxic threats we are led to believe. Covering everything from pseudoscience to phenomena of physics, scandals of space and scientific misquotes, Everything You Know About Science is Wrong shatters a range of illusions we have accepted unquestioningly since childhood and demystifies this most puzzling of subjects.

Author : Graeme Donald
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1621450244
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book They Got It Wrong: Science written by Graeme Donald and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the perfect gift for anyone with an interest in our scientific history. It exposes the theories that were once widely regarded as facts but have since been proven to be complete science fiction. From such seemingly crazy ideas as the body being composed of only four things—black and yellow bile, blood, and phlegm—to the discovery of dinosaur bones being accepted as the bones of giants killed in the great flood from Biblical times. They Got It Wrong: Science tells the fascinating story behind 50 erroneous scientific theories and gives incredible perspective on how the way we view the workings of the world has evolved throughout history.

Author : Alex Tsakiris
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781938398506
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Science Is Wrong...about Almost Everything written by Alex Tsakiris and published by . This book was released on 2015-06 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Rollicking Assault on Science's Inability to Answer Life's Most Important Questions Alex Tsakiris has interviewed many bestselling authors and dozens of world-class academics on his popular science podcastSkeptiko.com. In this book he shares with us what he's learned through his 200-plus interviews with some of the world's leading consciousness researchers and thinkers. In doing so, he reveals what the best research is saying about 'big picture' science questions and the limits of science in general. What's he's learned, in short, is that science-as-we-know-it is an emperor-with-no-clothes-on proposition. It mesmerizes us with flashy trinkets, while failing at its core mission of leading us toward self-discovery. Science is wrong about almost everything because science depends on our consciousness being an illusion-and it's not! ALEX TSAKIRIS is a successful entrepreneur turned science podcaster. In 2007 he founded Skeptiko.com, which has become the #1 podcast covering the science of human consciousness. Alex has appeared on syndicated radio talk shows both in the US and the UK. He lives in Del Mar, California."

Author : Simon LeVay
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1440639388
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book When Science Goes Wrong written by Simon LeVay and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-03-25 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant scientific successes have helped shape our world, and are always celebrated. However, for every victory, there are no doubt numerous little-known blunders. Neuroscientist Simon LeVay brings together a collection of fascinating, yet shocking, stories of failure from recent scientific history in When Science Goes Wrong. From the fields of forensics and microbiology to nuclear physics and meteorology, in When Science Goes Wrong LeVay shares twelve true essays illustrating a variety of ways in which the scientific process can go awry. Failures, disasters and other negative outcomes of science can result not only from bad luck, but from causes including failure to follow appropriate procedures and heed warnings, ethical breaches, quick pressure to obtain results, and even fraud. Often, as LeVay notes, the greatest opportunity for notable mishaps occurs when science serves human ends. LeVay shares these examples: To counteract the onslaught of Parkinson’s disease, a patient undergoes cutting-edge brain surgery using fetal transplants, and is later found to have hair and cartilage growing inside his brain. In 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft is lost due to an error in calculation, only months after the agency adopts a policy of “Faster, Better, Cheaper.” Britain’s Bracknell weather forecasting team predicts two possible outcomes for a potentially violent system, but is pressured into releasing a ‘milder’ forecast. The BBC’s top weatherman reports there is “no hurricane”, while later the storm hits, devastating southeast England. Ignoring signals of an imminent eruption, scientists decide to lead a party to hike into the crater of a dormant volcano in Columbia, causing injury and death. When Science Goes Wrong provides a compelling glimpse into human ambition in scientific pursuit.

Author : Michael Strevens
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631491385
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science written by Michael Strevens and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.

Author : Matt Brown
Publisher : Batsford Books
ISBN 13 : 1849945063
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Everything You Know About Space is Wrong written by Matt Brown and published by Batsford Books. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indulge your curiosity with this humorous and fascinating book that demystifies the surprising myths about space. In the latest book from the Everything You Know is Wrong series, Matt Brown brings you a compendium of amazing facts about our planet, the universe, and everything in between! Thanks to popular sci-fi films and TV shows, there have been many misconceptions about the cosmos – from travelling through worm-holes to blowing up asteroids. In Everything You Know About Space is Wrong, you'll find a plethora of myths, legends and misquotes that have shaped the way you view the universe today. Think that the vacuum of space would make your blood boil and your head explode? It won't, and there have been people who have survived without wearing a suit in space. Think that astronauts float in space because there is zero-gravity? They're actually constantly falling towards the Earth. Think that the colour of space is black? It's actually predominantly green. Chock-full of facts about the cosmos, how it works (and how it doesn't!), this illuminating book will guide you through the mine of misinformation to answer such questions as whether we will meet aliens in our lifetime (SETI predicts we'll find evidence of ET by 2040!), what happens in the centre of the black hole, and why Mercury is not the hottest planet in the solar system. Discovering untruths about popular science, Everthing You Know About Space is Wrong provides a hugely entertaining insight into our universe.

Author : Mark Humphries
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691241481
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Spike written by Mark Humphries and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-24 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of a neural impulse and what it reveals about how our brains work We see the last cookie in the box and think, can I take that? We reach a hand out. In the 2.1 seconds that this impulse travels through our brain, billions of neurons communicate with one another, sending blips of voltage through our sensory and motor regions. Neuroscientists call these blips “spikes.” Spikes enable us to do everything: talk, eat, run, see, plan, and decide. In The Spike, Mark Humphries takes readers on the epic journey of a spike through a single, brief reaction. In vivid language, Humphries tells the story of what happens in our brain, what we know about spikes, and what we still have left to understand about them. Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience, Humphries explores how spikes are born, how they are transmitted, and how they lead us to action. He dives into previously unanswered mysteries: Why are most neurons silent? What causes neurons to fire spikes spontaneously, without input from other neurons or the outside world? Why do most spikes fail to reach any destination? Humphries presents a new vision of the brain, one where fundamental computations are carried out by spontaneous spikes that predict what will happen in the world, helping us to perceive, decide, and react quickly enough for our survival. Traversing neuroscience’s expansive terrain, The Spike follows a single electrical response to illuminate how our extraordinary brains work.

Author : Andy Weir
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0593135229
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Project Hail Mary written by Andy Weir and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Author : Naomi Oreskes
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691212260
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Trust Science? written by Naomi Oreskes and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don't? Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength—and the greatest reason we can trust it. Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late nineteenth century to today, this timely and provocative book features a new preface by Oreskes and critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo.

Author : Paul Dicken
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350007293
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Getting Science Wrong written by Paul Dicken and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Galileo dropped cannon-balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he did more than overturn centuries of scientific orthodoxy. At a stroke, he established a new conception of the scientific method based upon careful experimentation and rigorous observation - and also laid the groundwork for an ongoing conflict between the critical open-mindedness of science and the recalcitrant dogmatism of religion that would continue to the modern day. The problem is that Galileo never performed his most celebrated experiment in Pisa. In fact, he rarely conducted any experiments at all. The Church publicly celebrated his work, and Galileo enjoyed patronage from the great and the powerful; his ecclesiastical difficulties only began when disgruntled colleagues launched a campaign to discredit their academic rival. But what does this tell us about modern science if its own foundation myth turns out to be nothing more than political propaganda? Getting Science Wrong discusses some of the most popular misconceptions about science, and their continuing role in the public imagination. Drawing upon the history and philosophy of science it challenges wide-spread assumptions and misunderstandings, from creationism and climate change to the use of statistics and computer modelling. The result is an engaging introduction to contentious issues in the philosophy of science and a new way of looking at the role of science in society.