Download or read book The Undergrowth of Science written by Walter Bruno Gratzer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The themes are scientific mistakes and foibles. Gratzer describes for a general readership a number of episodes in science and medicine where an erroneous research finding was adhered to and given credence by its originators and others, far beyond the point where it had been effectively discredited. Each of these episodes is dealt with in detail, with special attention given to the individuals involved, their careers and personalities, their relations with others, and so on.
Download or read book The Undergrowth of Science Delusion Self Deception and Human Frailty written by Walter Gratzer and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-09-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walter Gratzer's themes in the stories he relates in this book are collective delusion and human folly. Science is generally seen as a process bound by rigorous rules, which its practitioners must not transgress. Deliberate fraud occasionally intrudes, but it is soon detected, the perpetrators cast out and the course of discovery barely disturbed. Far more interesting are the outbreaks of self-delusion that from time to time afflict upright and competent researchers, and then spread like an epidemic or mass-hysteria through a sober and respectable scientific community. When this happens the rules by which scientists normally govern their working lives are suddenly suspended. Sometimes these episodes are provoked by personal vanity, an unwillingness to acknowledge error or even contemplate the possibility that a hard-won success is a will o' the wisp; at other times they stem from loyalty to a respected and trusted guru, or even from patriotic pride; and, worst of all, they may be a consequence of a political ideology which imposes its own interpretation on scientists' observations of the natural world. Unreason and credulity supervene, illusory phenomena are described and measured, and theories are developed to explain them - until suddenly, often for no single reason, the bubble bursts, leaving behind it a residue of acrimony, recrimination, embarrassment, and ruined reputations. Here, then, are radiations, measured with high precision yet existing only in the minds of those who observed them; the Russian water, which some thought might congeal the oceans; phantom diseases that called for heroic surgery; monkey testis implants that restored the sexual powers of ageing roues and of tired sheep; truths about genetics and about the nature of matter, perceptible only to Aryan scientists in the Third Reich or Marxist ideologues in the Soviet Union; and much more. The Undergrowth of Science explores, in terms accessible to the lay reader, the history of such episodes, up to our own time, in all their absurdity, tragedy, and pathos.
Download or read book Science Fiction in Argentina written by Joanna Page and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has become something of a critical commonplace to claim that science fiction does not actually exist in Argentina. This book puts that claim to rest by identifying and analyzing a rich body of work that fits squarely in the genre. Joanna Page explores a range of texts stretching from 1875 to the present day and across a variety of media-literature, cinema, theatre, and comics-and studies the particular inflection many common discourses of science fiction (e.g., abuse of technology by authoritarian regimes, apocalyptic visions of environmental catastrophe) receive in the Argentine context. A central aim is to historicize these texts, showing how they register and rework the contexts of their production, particularly the hallmarks of modernity as a social and cultural force in Argentina. Another aim, held in tension with the first, is to respond to an important critique of historicism that unfolds in these texts. They frequently unpick the chronology of modernity, challenging the linear, universalizing models of development that underpin historicist accounts. They therefore demand a more nuanced set of readings that work to supplement, revise, and enrich the historicist perspective.
Download or read book Eurekas and Euphorias written by Walter Gratzer and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of fascinating stories, entertainingly told, revealing the human face of science. Eurekas and Euphorias encompasses some 200 anecdotes brilliantly illustrating scientists in all their shapes: the obsessive and the dilettantish, the genial, the envious, the preternaturally brilliant and the slow-witted who sometimes see further in the end, the open-minded and the intolerant, recluses and arrivistes. Told with wit and relish by Walter Gratzer, here are stories to delight, astonish, instruct, and most especially, entertain the general reader, scientist and non-scientist alike.
Download or read book Science and Sensibility written by Keith J. Laidler and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2011-12-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume reviews the major contributions of the different branches of science and shows how they all lead to a unified conception of humans' place in the universe.
Download or read book Stalin and the Scientists written by Simon Ings and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the finest, most gripping surveys of the history of Russian science in the twentieth century.” —Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy Stalin and the Scientists tells the story of the many gifted scientists who worked in Russia from the years leading up to the revolution through the death of the “Great Scientist” himself, Joseph Stalin. It weaves together the stories of scientists, politicians, and ideologues into an intimate and sometimes horrifying portrait of a state determined to remake the world. They often wreaked great harm. Stalin was himself an amateur botanist, and by falling under the sway of dangerous charlatans like Trofim Lysenko (who denied the existence of genes), and by relying on antiquated ideas of biology, he not only destroyed the lives of hundreds of brilliant scientists, he caused the death of millions through famine. But from atomic physics to management theory, and from radiation biology to neuroscience and psychology, these Soviet experts also made breakthroughs that forever changed agriculture, education, and medicine. A masterful book that deepens our understanding of Russian history, Stalin and the Scientists is a great achievement of research and storytelling, and a gripping look at what happens when science falls prey to politics. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in 2016 A New York Times Book Review “Paperback Row” selection “Ings’s research is impressive and his exposition of the science is lucid . . . Filled with priceless nuggets and a cast of frauds, crackpots and tyrants, this is a lively and interesting book, and utterly relevant today.” —The New York Times Book Review “A must read for understanding how the ideas of scientific knowledge and technology were distorted and subverted for decades across the Soviet Union.” —The Washington Post
Download or read book Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not written by Robert N. McCauley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.
Download or read book What Science Is and How It Really Works written by James C. Zimring and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely and accessible synthesis of the strengths, weaknesses and reality of science through the eyes of a practicing scientist.
Download or read book Religion and Science as Forms of Life written by Carles Salazar and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationships between science and religion are about to enter a new phase in our contemporary world, as scientific knowledge has become increasingly relevant in ordinary life, beyond the institutional public spaces where it traditionally developed. The purpose of this volume is to analyze the relationships, possible articulations and contradictions between religion and science as forms of life: ways of engaging human experience that originate in particular social and cultural formations. Contributions use this theoretical and ethnographic research to explore different scientific and religious cultures in the contemporary world.
Download or read book Soap Science and Flat Screen TVs written by David Dunmur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The terms 'liquid crystal' or 'liquid crystal display' (LCD) are recognized in the context of flat-screen televisions, but the properties and history of liquid crystals are little known. This book tells the story of liquid crystals, from their controversial discovery at the end of the nineteenth century, to their eventual acceptance as another state of matter to rank alongside gases, liquids, and solids. As their story unfolds, the scientists involved and their works are put into illuminating broader socio-political contexts. In recent years, liquid crystals have had a major impact on the display industry, culminating in the now widely available flat-screen televisions. This development is described in detail over three chapters, and the basic science behind it is explained in simple terms accessible to a general reader. New applications of liquid crystals in materials, biosystems, medicine, and technology are also explained. The authors' approach to the subject defines a new genre of popular science books. The historical background to the scientific discoveries is given in detail, and the personal communications between the scientists involved are explored. The book tells the story of liquid crystals, but it also shows that scientific discovery and exploitation relies on human interactions, and the social and political environments in which they operate.
Download or read book Re envisioning Theoretical Psychology written by Thomas Teo and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-29 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a re-envisioning of the field of theoretical psychology and offers unique visions for its present and future from leaders of North American philosophical psychology. It contends that theoretical psychology has reached ‘middle-age’ and must consider new directions to renew its growth. Rooted in a range of research traditions and the intellectual biographies of its authors, it paves the way toward this necessary revitalization of the content, activities, responsibilities, and hopes of theoretical psychology. The authors situate their analyses in the context of the increasing gap between alternative and mainstream and between the discipline and the profession of psychology. They demonstrate that changes in society, culture and technology, the internationalization of the psychological humanities, and the cross-fertilization of intellectual innovations from other disciplines now afford possibilities for new orientations in theoretical psychology. The volume aims to do justice to psychological topics, human beings, and the intellectual problems that psychologists encounter, while also providing space for (meta)theoretical engagement, often neglected in the discipline. Together, the chapters in this collection make the case that a renewal of the discipline and practice of psychology is a task that is best accomplished collectively, and, despite significant disagreements, in solidarity.
Download or read book Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism written by John van Wyhe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a reassessment of phrenology, Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism sheds light on all kinds of works in Victorian Britain and America which have previously been unnoticed or were simply referred to with a vague 'naturalism of the times' explanation. It is often assumed that the scientific naturalism familiar in late nineteenth century writers such as T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall are the effects of a 'Darwinian revolution' unleashed in 1859 on an unsuspecting world following the publication of The Origin of Species. Yet it can be misleading to view Darwin's work in isolation, without locating it in the context of a well established and vigorous debate concerning scientific naturalism. Throughout the nineteenth century intellectuals and societies had been discussing the relationship between nature and man, and the scientific and religious implications thereof. At the forefront of these debates were the advocates of phrenology, who sought to apply their theories to a wide range of subjects, from medicine and the treatment of the insane, to education, theology and even economic theories. Showing how ideas about naturalism and the doctrine of natural laws were born in the early phrenology controversies in the 1820s, this book charts the spread of such views. It argues that one book in particular, The Constitution of Man in Relation to External Objects (1828) by George Combe, had an enormous influence on scientific thinking and the popularity of the 'naturalistic movement'. The Constitution was one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, being published continuously from 1828 to 1899, and selling more than 350,000 copies throughout the world, many times more than Dawin's The Origin of Species. By restoring Combe and his work to centre stage it provides modern scholars with a more accurate picture of the Victorians' view of their place in Nature.
Download or read book The Scientific Origins of National Socialism written by Daniel Gasman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many studies of the origins of National Socialism claim that the vo;lkisch and proto-Nazi movement arose largely as a reaction to the materialistic ideas of nineteenth-century science and especially to the naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. Using hitherto unexplored material, Daniel Gasman calls this generalization into question. Arguing that the importance of science has been relatively neglected in accounts of the intellectual origins of Nazism, he attempts to show that Haeckel's "scientific" Darwinism, and his movement, the German Monist League, were proto-Nazi in character. Contrary to popular belief, Haeckel's type of social Darwinism actually played a critical role in the formation of National Socialist ideology. In his new introduction, Gasman notes that recent research goes far to confirm Haeckel's role as an ideological progenitor of fascist ideology. This is true not only for Germany, but also for the birth of fascist thought in Italy and France. In general, Gasman claims, the history of science plainly reveals how Haeckel's social Darwinism nourished the roots of fascism no less than avant-garde modernism. When The Scientific Origins of National Socialism initially appeared, the Times Literary Supplement called it a "very well-argued thesis... that is completely successful... and leaves the reader to extract his own moral lessons." Medical History, in its review of The Scientific Origins of National Socialism, said, "His book is essential for understanding modern Germany. It has a general message derived from the events in Germany, where scientific data were permitted to take on a mystical signficiance... with ghastly consequences." Bruce Chatwin, in the New York Review of Books, called the book "brilliant." Now available in paperback, with a new introduction by the author, this seminal work will be of interest to intellectual historians, as well as th
Download or read book Scientific Freedom written by Simona Giordano and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the first comprehensive anthology of papers designed to explore both the state of scientific progress and the ethics, law and history of scientific research. It will appeal to a very wide international audience, offering a truly multidisciplinary analysis of many facets of scientific research.
Download or read book Thinking about Biology written by Stephen Webster and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-04-03 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thinking about Biology is intended for biology students who are interested in reflecting on the wider contexts of their studies. This 2003 book encourages students to see that biology does not deliver certainties; it discusses how biological ideas become established facts; it uses history to examine how ideas change, and to show that the biological facts that form the basis of a biology course are likely to change too. Each chapter is based on biological topics, and examines them for their philosophical, social and political implications. Topics covered include the role of natural selection in evolution, the history of ideas about fertilisation and inheritance, vivisection, and reductionism. Genetically modified foods, xenotransplantation, eugenics, and genetic testing are some of the controversial subjects discussed. Thinking About Biology should be essential reading for all college students already taking a biology course, and for those contemplating such a course in the future.
Download or read book There Are No Such Things As Theories written by Steven French and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There Are No Such Things as Theories considers the fundamental question: what is a scientific theory? It presents a range of options - from theories are sets of propositions, to theories are families of models, abstract artefacts, or fictions - and highlights the various problems they all face. In so doing it draws multiple comparisons between theories and artworks: on the one hand, theories are like certain kinds of paintings with regard to their representational capacity; on the other, they are like musical works in that they can be multiply presented. An alternative answer to the question is then offered, drawing on the metaphysics of musical works: there are no such things as theories. Nevertheless, we can still talk about them, since that talk is made true by the various practices that scientists engage in. The implications of this form of eliminativism for the realism debate is then discussed and it is concluded that this may offer a more flexible framework in which we can understand both the history and the philosophy of science in general.
Download or read book Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science written by Illinois State Academy of Science and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 1066 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vol. 1 covers the organizational meeting, Springfield, Dec. 7, 1907, and the first regular meeting, Decatur, Feb. 22, 1908.
