Help create a JREF recommended science books list?

Hokulele said:
The Song of the Dodo - David Quammen

Chaos - James Gleick

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife

Measuring America - Andro Linklater
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I haven't read the first, but I second the other three. Especially Zero, since it addresses the way people and societies can react irrationally to what are purely rational concepts - and so is highly relevant to JREF.
 
I'd reccomend pretty much anything written by John Gribbin especially:

Deep Simplicity (Chaos, complexity etc)
In Search of Schrodingers Cat (Quantum Physics)
The Birth of Time (Cosmology and age of universe)
The Fellowship (History of science in the Royal society)
And many others.

I'd also add:

- Feynman's 6 Easy Pieces
- Hawking's A brief history of time
- Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow

And a random one which is great for the lay person:

Coincidences, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz by Edward Burger & Michael Starbird.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
Seconded and I'd like to add Connections in the general science category because it's a great example of how one discovery leads to another.
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Remember his SciAm columns? Always the first page I flicked to. (Nowadays it's Shermer's Skeptic page, no surprises there :) . Always followed by 50/100/150 Years Ago.) My two great loves are History and Science, in that order but only if I'm forced to choose. So as far as I'm concerned, James Burke is The Man.

He also covered the Moon landings for the BBC. An iconic figure.

Along that line, while I haven't read them, I recommend The Naked Ape and The Human Animal by Desmond Morris.
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They certainly opened my eyes to a lot of what goes on around me. As did his Manwatching.
 
CapelDodger said:
I haven't read the first, but I second the other three. Especially Zero, since it addresses the way people and societies can react irrationally to what are purely rational concepts - and so is highly relevant to JREF.
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David Quammen is sort of like Bill Bryson, in that he was a writer before he started focusing on science writing. He has put out several collections of essays, as well as another excellent science book, Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind.

I am interested in reading the statistics book you listed. Do you know the original publication date? I am hoping my local library has it.
 
Hokulele said:
David Quammen is sort of like Bill Bryson, in that he was a writer before he started focusing on science writing. He has put out several collections of essays, as well as another excellent science book, Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind.
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That sounds good, I'll look out for it.

I am interested in reading the statistics book you listed. Do you know the original publication date? I am hoping my local library has it.
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I'm sure I've got a copy somewhere, but damned if I can put my hand on it. (My library sorely needs re-indexing.) Chocolate Devourer is quite right; I read it in the 60's, and it wasn't new then, but it's timeless. Pie-chart or bar-chart in your PowerPoint presentation? How To Lie has the answer.
 
Chocolate Devourer said:
How to lie with statistics? 1955 or thereabouts... But it reads as it had been written just yesterday!
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CapelDodger said:
I'm sure I've got a copy somewhere, but damned if I can put my hand on it. (My library sorely needs re-indexing.) Chocolate Devourer is quite right; I read it in the 60's, and it wasn't new then, but it's timeless. Pie-chart or bar-chart in your PowerPoint presentation? How To Lie has the answer.
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Thanks to both of you. I will be passing by our local branch of the library tomorrow on the way to work, and will put in a request for it.
 
Appreciate all the input, I think I'll order them all on amazon and have me a nice book binge. :D
 
cool - lot's of good suggestions!

Now, to start grouping the list together,

perhaps, 1-3 key recommended books for each subject - the best possible introduction(s) to a given topic, given with a list of follow up reading....

and to petition Darat for a sticky :)
 
Not sure how to categorize it, but Goedel, Escher and Bach by Hofstadter is a beautiful book just about thinking and draws together mathematics, art and music...and humor. It should be on every skeptics bookshelf.
 
Ginarley said:
And a random one which is great for the lay person:

Coincidences, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz by Edward Burger & Michael Starbird.
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On that note....

I have an extra copy of that book which I'd be happy to send to a good home in the US. PM me if you're interested.

Linda
 
andyandy said:
cool - lot's of good suggestions!

Now, to start grouping the list together,

perhaps, 1-3 key recommended books for each subject - the best possible introduction(s) to a given topic, given with a list of follow up reading....

and to petition Darat for a sticky :)
Click to expand...


How fine a granulation do you want for the groupings? For example, lump all of the biology together, or split out the human biology?
 
Hokulele said:
How fine a granulation do you want for the groupings? For example, lump all of the biology together, or split out the human biology?
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I think there's got to be scope to split the sciences to some degree

eg. ecology, zoology, human biology, genetics -

and maybe have recommended books in each area, but equally some topics like evolutionary biology do take in strands from each area - so perhaps a book on evolutionary biology would serve as a good first recommendation....which could then be backed up with further more specific reading....

whatever people think really :)
 
Perhaps Carol Ann Rinzler's Dictionary of Medical Folklore? It's been some time since I browsed through it the last time, but if I recall correctly, it's a quite decent and above all brief and witty book on what "old wives' tales" and folk remedies are useful, and which are not. I should perhaps read it through again before fully endorsing it, though.

EDIT:

And perhaps Brusca and Brusca's Invertebrates, to get a good and solid understanding that animals, in general, do not have spines. I don't really know how accessible this book is to people who aren't interested in zoology, though.
 
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ok....a start;

Astromony/cosmology

Cosmos by Sagan

fabric of the Cosmos/Elegant Universe by Greene

Parrellel worlds by Kaku

The Birth of Time Gribbins

Physics

Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott

Feynman's 6 Easy Pieces

Atom by Issac Asimov.

David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Deep Simplicity Gribbins
In Search of Schrodingers Cat Gribbins

Evolutionary biology

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sagan
Selfish Gene, River Out of Eden, Ancestor's Tale, Blind watchmaker by Dawkins

What does it mean to be 98% Chimpanzee by Jonathan Marks.

The Naked Ape and The Human Animal by Desmond Morris.

Stephen Jay Gould

Biology

Steve Jones: The Language of the Genes and Almost Like a Whale.

Brusca and Brusca's Invertebrates

The Song of the Dodo - David Quammen

The mismeasure of man Gould

Neuroscience
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Sacks

Phantoms in the Brain VS Ramachandran

General medical

Awakenings - Sacks

The Boy who could not stop Washing - Rapopart

Flu - Kolata

Carol Ann Rinzler's Dictionary of Medical Folklore

Maths

The Lady Tasting Tea - Salsburg (Statistics)

Stewart Shapiro's Thinking About Mathematics

Chaos - James Gleick

Goedel, Escher and Bach by Hofstadter

Coincidences, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz by Edward Burger & Michael Starbird.

How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff.

General Science/history of science

David C. Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science

Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everthing

Grant & Olson's Science & Religion (Johns Hopkins UP 2004) in two volumes (From Aristotle to Copernicus and From Copernicus to Darwin)

The Day The Universe Changed by the incomparable James Burke.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife

Steven Shapin's The Scientific Revolution (U of Chicago P 1996)

Measuring America - Andro Linklater

Salt by Mark Kurlansky

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

The Fellowship (History of science in the Royal society) Gribbins

David Quammen Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind.

Connections ??

Scepticism and science

Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology - Feder

Broca's Brain Sagan

anthroplogy/archeology
Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond

The prehistory of the mind S Mithen

Psychology

The Happiness Hypothesis Haidt


Leftovers as i've had enough of categorising.....will do later :)

Demon Haunted World - Sagan

Dead Men do tell Tales - Maples

Nibbling on Einstein's Brain (Childrens) Sawnson

Pale Blue Dot - Sagan

Mauve - Garfield

Longitude - Sobel

Billions and Billions - Sagan

Sputnik - Dickson

Now this is only a rough draft - i've only read a fraction of these books, so please let me know if they need recategorising....the history of science/general science needs splitting - and we need some chemisty/geology/geography/computing!
 
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Astromony/cosmology

Cosmos by Sagan
Pale Blue Dot - Sagan

fabric of the Cosmos/Elegant Universe by Greene

Parrellel worlds by Kaku

The Birth of Time Gribbins

Physics

Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott

Feynman's 6 Easy Pieces

Atom by Issac Asimov.

David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Deep Simplicity Gribbins

In Search of Schrodingers Cat Gribbins

Evolutionary biology

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sagan

Selfish Gene, River Out of Eden, Ancestor's Tale, Blind watchmaker by Dawkins

Stephen Jay Gould

Biology

The Naked Ape and The Human Animal by Desmond Morris.

Steve Jones: The Language of the Genes and Almost Like a Whale.

Brusca and Brusca's Invertebrates

The Song of the Dodo - David Quammen

The mismeasure of man Gould

Neuroscience
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Sacks

Phantoms in the Brain VS Ramachandran

General medical

Awakenings - Sacks

The Boy who could not stop Washing - Rapopart

Flu - Kolata

Carol Ann Rinzler's Dictionary of Medical Folklore

Maths

The Lady Tasting Tea - Salsburg (Statistics)

Stewart Shapiro's Thinking About Mathematics

Chaos - James Gleick

Goedel, Escher and Bach by Hofstadter

Coincidences, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz by Edward Burger & Michael Starbird.

How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff.

General Science history

David C. Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science

Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everthing

Steven Shapin's The Scientific Revolution

Grant & Olson's Science & Religion (Johns Hopkins UP 2004) in two volumes (From Aristotle to Copernicus and From Copernicus to Darwin)

Specific science histories

The Day The Universe Changed James Burke.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife

Longitude - Sobel

Measuring America - Andro Linklater

Mauve - Garfield

Salt by Mark Kurlansky

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

The Fellowship (History of science in the Royal society) Gribbins

David Quammen Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind.

Billions and Billions - Sagan

Connections ??

Sputnik - Dickson


Scepticism and science

Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology - Feder

Demon Haunted World - Sagan

Tricks of the Mind Derren Brown

Broca's Brain Sagan

anthroplogy/archeology
Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond

Dead Men do tell Tales - Maples

The prehistory of the mind S Mithen

Psychology

The Happiness Hypothesis Haidt

with some links to Amazon added....if anyone wishes to add some more links i would be mucho grateful :)
 
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