Download or read book Scienceblind written by Andrew Shtulman and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans are born to create theories about the world--unfortunately, they're usually wrong, and keep us from understanding the world as it really is Why do we catch colds? What causes seasons to change? And if you fire a bullet from a gun and drop one from your hand, which bullet hits the ground first? In a pinch we almost always get these questions wrong. Worse, we regularly misconstrue fundamental qualities of the world around us. In Scienceblind, cognitive and developmental psychologist Andrew Shtulman shows that the root of our misconceptions lies in the theories about the world we develop as children. They're not only wrong, they close our minds to ideas inconsistent with them, making us unable to learn science later in life. So how do we get the world right? We must dismantle our intuitive theories and rebuild our knowledge from its foundations. The reward won't just be a truer picture of the world, but clearer solutions to many controversies-around vaccines, climate change, or evolution-that plague our politics today.

Download or read book Science s Blind Spot written by Cornelius Hunter and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Had evolutionists been in charge, they wouldn't have made the mosquito, planetary orbits would align perfectly, and the human eye would be better designed. But they tend to gloss over their own failed predictions and faulty premises. Naturalists see Darwin's theories as "logical" and that's enough. To think otherwise brands you a heretic to all things wise and rational. Science's Blind Spot takes the reader on an enlightening journey through the ever-evolving theory of evolution. Cornelius G. Hunter goes head-to-head with those who twist textbooks, confuse our children, and reject all challengers before they can even speak. This fascinating, fact-filled resource opens minds to nature in a way that both seeks and sees the intelligent design behind creation's masterpieces.

Download or read book Science Denial written by Gale M. Sinatra and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Science doubt, resistance, and denial are not new. Galileo challenged the prevailing geocentric view of our solar system and was dismissed as a heretic. What is the history of science denial, what's different now, and why does it seem worse? In this opening chapter, What is the Problem and Why Does it Matter? Sinatra and Hofer chart the development of this problem, examine how doubt has also been manufactured, and explain how media attempts at "balance" can become a form of bias. While acknowledging the limits and fallibility of science, they argue that if the US is to be a leader in sustainable economic and social progress, a greater percentage of Americans need to value, understand, and accept scientific methods and findings. When so many US citizens deny science, the health and wellbeing of Americans and our hopes for a sustainable future are put in peril."--

Download or read book Science and the Production of Ignorance written by Janet Kourany and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the new area of ignorance studies that examines how science produces ignorance—both actively and passively, intentionally and unintentionally. We may think of science as our foremost producer of knowledge, but for the past decade, science has also been studied as an important source of ignorance. The historian of science Robert Proctor has coined the term agnotology to refer to the study of ignorance, and much of the ignorance studied in this new area is produced by science. Whether an active or passive construct, intended or unintended, this ignorance is, in Proctor's words, “made, maintained, and manipulated” by science. This volume examines forms of scientific ignorance and their consequences. A dialogue between Proctor and Peter Galison offers historical context, presenting the concerns and motivations of pioneers in the field. Essays by leading historians and philosophers of science examine the active construction of ignorance by biased design and interpretation of experiments and empirical studies, as seen in the “false advertising” by climate change deniers; the “virtuous” construction of ignorance—for example, by curtailing research on race- and gender-related cognitive differences; and ignorance as the unintended by-product of choices made in the research process, when rules, incentives, and methods encourage an emphasis on the beneficial and commercial effects of industrial chemicals, and when certain concepts and even certain groups' interests are inaccessible in a given conceptual framework. Contributors Martin Carrier, Carl F. Cranor, Peter Galison, Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Philip Kitcher, Janet Kourany, Hugh Lacey, Robert Proctor, Londa Schiebinger, Miriam Solomon, Torsten Wilholt

Download or read book Wonder written by Frank C. Keil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we can all be lifelong wonderers: restoring the sense of joy in discovery we felt as children. From an early age, children pepper adults with questions that ask why and how: Why do balloons float? How do plants grow from seeds? Why do birds have feathers? Young children have a powerful drive to learn about their world, wanting to know not just what something is but also how it got to be that way and how it works. Most adults, on the other hand, have little curiosity about whys and hows; we might unlock a door, for example, or boil an egg, with no idea of what happens to make such a thing possible. How can grown-ups recapture a child’s sense of wonder at the world? In this book, Frank Keil describes the cognitive dispositions that set children on their paths of discovery and explains how we can all become lifelong wonderers. Keil describes recent research on children’s minds that reveals an extraordinary set of emerging abilities that underpin their joy of discovery—their need to learn not just the facts but the underlying causal patterns at the very heart of science. This glorious sense of wonder, however, is stifled, beginning in elementary school. Later, with little interest in causal mechanisms, and motivated by intellectual blind spots, as adults we become vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation—ready to believe things that aren’t true. Of course, the polymaths among us have retained their sense of wonder, and Keil explains the habits of mind and ways of wondering that allow them—and can enable us—to experience the joy of asking why and how.

Download or read book Radiation and Reason written by Wade Allison and published by YPD-BOOKS. This book was released on 2009 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a positive and accessible account of the effect of radiation on life that brings good news for the future of mankind. For more than half a century the view that radiation represents an extreme hazard has been accepted. This book challenges that view by facing the question "How dangerous is ionising radiation?" Briefly the answer is that radiation is about a thousand times less hazardous than suggested by current safety standards. For many this will come as a surprise and then quickly raise a second question "Why are people so worried about radiation?" This is the out-of-date result of Cold War politics combined with a concern about radiation that was appropriate in an earlier age when the scientific understanding was limited. In the book these answers are explained in accessible language and related directly to modern scientific evidence and understanding, for instance the high levels of radiation used to the benefit of health in every major hospital. Four facts illustrate the need for a new understanding. 1. The radiation levels in the nuclear waste storage hall at Sellafield, UK are so low (1 micro-sievert per hour) that anyone would have to stay there for a million hours to receive the same dose that any patient on a course of radiotherapy treatment receives to their healthy tissue in a single day (1 sievert or gray). 2. The radiation dose experienced by the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs caused 0.6% to die of radiation-induced cancer between 1950 and 2000, that is about 1/20 of the chance of dying of cancer anyway and less than the chance of being killed on US highways in that period. 3. The wildlife at Chernobyl today is reported to be thriving, despite being radioactive. 4. The mortality of UK radiation workers before age 85 from all cancers is 15-20% lower than comparable groups. The case for a complete change in attitude towards radiation safety is unrelated to the effects of climate change. But the realisation that radiation and nuclear energy are much safer than is usually supposed is of extreme importance to the current discussion of alternatives to fossil fuels and their relative costs.

Download or read book The Influential Mind written by Tali Sharot and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cutting-edge, research-based inquiry into how we influence those around us and how understanding the brain can help us change minds for the better. In The Influential Mind, neuroscientist Tali Sharot takes us on a thrilling exploration of the nature of influence. We all have a duty to affect others—from the classroom to the boardroom to social media. But how skilled are we at this role, and can we become better? It turns out that many of our instincts—from relying on facts and figures to shape opinions, to insisting others are wrong or attempting to exert control—are ineffective, because they are incompatible with how people’s minds operate. Sharot shows us how to avoid these pitfalls, and how an attempt to change beliefs and actions is successful when it is well-matched with the core elements that govern the human brain. Sharot reveals the critical role of emotion in influence, the weakness of data and the power of curiosity. Relying on the latest research in neuroscience, behavioral economics and psychology, the book provides fascinating insight into the complex power of influence, good and bad.

Download or read book The Edge of Evolution written by Michael J. Behe and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-17 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Darwin's Black Box draws on new findings in genetics to pose an argument for intelligent design that refutes Darwinian beliefs about evolution while offering alternative analyses of such factors as disease, random mutations, and the human struggle for survival. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

Download or read book Why We Teach Science and Why We Should written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few people question the importance of science education in American schooling. The public readily accepts that it is the key to economic growth through innovation, develops the ability to reason more effectively, and enables us to solve the everyday problems we encounter through knowing how the world works. Good science teaching results in all these benefits and more -- or so we think. But what if all this is simply wrong? What if the benefits we assume science education produces turn out to be an illusion, nothing more than wishful thinking? In Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should), former high school teacher and historian of science education John L. Rudolph examines the reasons we've long given for teaching science and assesses how they hold up to what we know about what students really learn (or don't learn) in science classrooms and what research tells us about how people actually interact with science in their daily lives. The results will surprise you. Instead of more and more rigorous traditional science education to fill the STEM pipeline, Rudolph challenges us to think outside the box and makes the case for an expansive science education aimed instead at rebuilding trust between science and the public -- something we desperately need in our current era of impending natural challenges and science denial.

Download or read book Sins against Science written by Lynda Walsh and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2016-09-14 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the fake news stories, written from 1830 to 1880, about scientific and technological discoveries, and the effect these hoaxes had on readers and their trust in science. Lynda Walsh explores a provocative era in American history—the proliferation of fake news stories about scientific and technological discoveries from 1830 to 1880. These hoaxes, which fooled thousands of readers, offer a first-hand look at an intriguing guerilla tactic in the historical struggle between arts and sciences in America. Focusing on the hoaxes of Richard Adams Locke, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and Dan De Quille, the author combines rhetorical hermeneutics, linguistic pragmatics, and reader-response theory to answer three primary questions: How did the hoaxes work? What were the hoaxers trying to accomplish? And—what is a hoax? “Its careful examination of contemporary reader reactions to the hoaxes provides concrete evidence for what people actually believed—thus attesting very specifically to the nineteenth-century ‘assumptions about the real world’ that were being ‘called into question’ by the hoaxes impressively wide range of historical and theoretical resources are brought to bear on these ‘acts of reading.’ All of this is woven into a rich and nuanced account of what we stand to gain—in terms of understanding the past—by taking seriously a handful of little known jests.” — The Edgar Allen Poe Review “I found the book to be quite informative, not only as a technical exploration concerned with how readers interact with texts that promulgate hoaxes, but also as a work providing helpful glimpses of the emerging roles of science and media in this period.” — Thomas M. Lessl, The University of Georgia “As Walsh points out, there is no extended analysis of hoaxes in the rhetoric of science, and her book shows how important hoaxes are in understanding the history of professionalized science as it emerged in the United States. The relationship of science and the the public is of utmost importance in science studies, and the author has identified a key source of historical information about this relationship.” — Ellen Barton, coeditor of Discourse Studies in Composition

Download or read book Science Communication written by Annette Leßmöllmann and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents Annette Leßmöllmann and Thomas Gloning Preface – V Annette Leßmöllmann and Thomas Gloning Introduction to the volume – XI I Perspectives of research on scholarly and science communication Gregor Betz and David Lanius 1 Philosophy of science for science communication in twenty-two questions – 3 Friederike Hendriks and Dorothe Kienhues 2 Science understanding between scientific literacy and trust: contributions from psychological and educational research – 29 Hans-Jürgen Bucher 3 The contribution of media studies to the understanding of science communication – 51 Mike S. Schäfer, Sabrina H. Kessler and Birte Fähnrich 4 Analyzing science communication through the lens of communication science: Reviewing the empirical evidence – 77 Hannah Schmid-Petri and Moritz Bürger 5 Modeling science communication: from linear to more complex models – 105 Gábor Á. Zemplén 6 The contribution of laboratory studies, science studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) to the understanding of scientific communication – 123 Nina Janich 7 The contribution of linguistics and semiotics to the understanding of science communication – 143 Britt-Marie Schuster 8 The contribution of terminology research to the understanding of science communication – 167 Thorsten Pohl 9 The study of student academic writing – 187 II Text types, media, and practices of science communication Thomas Gloning 10 Epistemic genres – 209 Luc Pauwels 11 On the nature and role of visual representations in knowledge production and science communication – 235 Henning Lobin 12 The lecture and the presentation – rhetorics and technology – 257 Sylvia Jaworska 13 Spoken language in science and the humanities – 271 Gerd Fritz 14 Scholarly reviewing – 289 Gerd Fritz 15 Scientific controversies – 311 Thomas Gloning 16 Symbolic notation in scientific communication: a panorama – 335 Michel Serfati † 17 The rise of symbolic notation in scientific communication: the case of mathematics – 357 Benedetto Lepori and Sara Greco 18 Grant proposal writing as a dialogic process – 377 III Science, scientists, and the public Wolf-Andreas Liebert 19 Communicative strategies of popularization of science (including science exhibitions, museums, magazines) – 399 Sharon Dunwoody 20 Science journalism – 417 Holger Wormer 21 Teaching science journalism as a blueprint for future journalism education – 439 Charlotte Autzen and Emma Weitkamp 22 Science communication and public relations: beyond borders – 465 Philipp Schrögel and Christian Humm 23 Science communication, advising, and advocacy in public debates – 485 Philipp Niemann, Laura Bittner, Christiane Hauser and Philipp Schrögel 24 Forms of science presentations in public settings – 515 IV Historical perspectives on science communication Thomas Gloning 25 Historical perspectives on internal scientific communication – 547 Michael Prinz 26 Academic teaching: the lecture and the disputation in the history of erudition and science – 569 Monika Hanauska 27 Historical aspects of external science communication – 585 V Science communication: present and future Martina Franzen 28 Reconfigurations of science communication research in the digital age – 603 Peter Reuter and Andreas Brandtner 29 The library in a changing world of scientific communication – 625 Mareike König 30 Scholarly communication in social media – 639 Annette Leßmöllmann 31 Current trends and future visions of (research on) science communication – 657

Download or read book The Emergence and Development of Scientific Thinking during the Early Years Basic Processes and Supportive Contexts written by Ageliki Nicolopoulou and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Perspectives on Science and Culture written by Kris Rutten and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert, Perspectives on Science and Culture explores the intersection between scientific understanding and cultural representation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributors to the volume analyze representations of science and scientific discourse from the perspectives of rhetorical criticism, comparative cultural studies, narratology, educational studies, discourse analysis, naturalized epistemology, and the cognitive sciences. The main objective of the volume is to explore how particular cognitive predispositions and cultural representations both shape and distort the public debate about scientific controversies, the teaching and learning of science, and the development of science itself. The theoretical background of the articles in the volume integrates C. P. Snow's concept of the two cultures (science and the humanities) and Jerome Bruner's confrontation between narrative and logico-scientific modes of thinking (i.e., the cognitive and the evolutionary approaches to human cognition).

Download or read book Science and Health written by Mary Baker Eddy and published by . This book was released on 1881 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Science Denial written by Gale M. Sinatra and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do individuals decide whether to accept human causes of climate change, vaccinate their children against childhood diseases, or practice social distancing during a pandemic? Democracies depend on educated citizens who can make informed decisions for the benefit of their health and well-being, as well as their communities, nations, and planet. Understanding key psychological explanations for science denial and doubt can help provide a means for improving scientific literacy and understandingcritically important at a time when denial has become deadly. In Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do About It, the authors identify the problem and why it matters and offer tools for addressing it. This book explains both the importance of science education and its limitations, shows how science communicators may inadvertently contribute to the problem, and explains how the internet and social media foster misinformation and disinformation. The authors focus on key psychological constructs such as reasoning biases, social identity, epistemic cognition, and emotions and attitudes that limit or facilitate public understanding of science, and describe solutions for individuals, educators, science communicators, and policy makers. If you have ever wondered why science denial exists, want to know how to understand your own biases and those of others, and would like to address the problem, this book will provide the insights you are seeking.

Download or read book Studies in the Islam and Science Nexus written by Muzaffar Iqbal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together thematically arranged articles on the relationship between Islam and science and how it has been shaped over the last century. The articles represent a broad variety of approaches and perspectives as well as reflective and analytic views and include some of the most important voices in the Islam and science discourse. This collection, which includes a special section devoted to studies that explore various aspects of the relationship between the Qur'an and science, is a valuable resource for researchers interested in gaining a greater understanding of the broader relationship between religion and science.

Download or read book Mathilde Blind written by James Diedrick and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-01-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Mathilde Blind: Late-Victorian Culture and the Woman of Letters, James Diedrick offers a groundbreaking critical biography of the German-born British poet Mathilde Blind (1841–1896), a freethinking radical feminist. Born to politically radical parents, Blind had, by the time she was thirty, become a pioneering female aesthete in a mostly male community of writers, painters, and critics, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, William Michael Rossetti, and Richard Garnett. By the 1880s she had become widely recognized for a body of writing that engaged contemporary issues such as the Woman Question, the forced eviction of Scottish tenant farmers in the Highland Clearances, and Darwin’s evolutionary theory. She subsequently emerged as a prominent voice and leader among New Woman writers at the end of the century, including Mona Caird, Rosamund Marriott Watson, and Katharine Tynan. She also developed important associations with leading male decadent writers of the fin de siècle, most notably, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Symons. Despite her extensive contributions to Victorian debates on aesthetics, religion, nationhood, imperialism, gender, and sexuality, however, Blind has yet to receive the prominence she deserves in studies of the period. As the first full-length biography of this trailblazing woman of letters, Mathilde Blind underscores the importance of her poetry and her critical writings (her work on Shelley, biographies of George Eliot and Madame Roland, and her translations of Strauss and Bashkirtseff) for the literature and culture of the fin de siècle.