In praise of science
Subtitle: curiosity, understanding, and progress
By: Sander Bais
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9780262014359
Description: In this book, author and physicist Sander Bais shows how science can liberate us from our cultural straitjacket of prejudice and intolerance. We're living in a time in which technology is taken for granted, yet belief in such standard scientific facts as evolution is actually decreasing. How is it possible for cell phones and Creationism to coexist? Science--fundamental, fact-based knowledge, not the latest technological gadget--can give us the global and local perspectives we need to make the world a better place. The author argues that turning points in the history of science have been accompanied by similar milestones in social change, deeply affecting our view of nature, our perception of the human condition, and our understanding of the universe and our place in it.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 185) and index.
Table of contents: title: Curiosity beats prejudice. Frames of reference ; Coding and decoding ; Curiosity and the pleasure of finding things out ; According to reliable sources; title: ; Crossing borders ; The persistence of prejudice ; Unveiling Mother Earth ; Thunder, lightning and black holes ; From evolution to HIV ; Fighting fear; title: The double helix of science and technology. Basic questions ; Supply and demand ; Empirical science ; The knowledge machine ; What science cannot do; title: Turning points. The Ouroboros of science ; The scientific enterprise ; Structures ; Outward bound : the macrocosm ; Inward bound : the microcosm ; Scales ; Four fundamental forces ; The circle of sciences ; Technologies ; Cosmic evolution ; One nature, one science ; Ultimate questions : The quest for the origin ; The challenge of complexity; title: The pursuit of truth. Facts speak for themselves ; Discourse on the method ; A stringy intermezzo ; Leaving Popper behind? ; A sociology of science ; Science going Google? ; Science at the heart of culture; title: On scientific modesty.