What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty

The Best American Science Writing 2011

Jesse Cohen, Floyd Skloot · 327 pages

This book collects into one volume the most crucial, thought-provoking, and engaging science writing of the year. Culled from a wide variety of publications, these selections cover the full spectrum of scientific inquiry. Provocative and engaging, The Best American Science Writing 2011 reveals just how far science has brought us — and where it is headed next.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Oliver Sacks · 243 pages

In his most extraordinary book, “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who

This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works

Susan Blackmore, Rebecca Goldstein, James J. O'Donnell, Paul J. Steinhardt, Shing-Tung Yau, Frank Wilczek, Thomas Metzinger, Sean Carroll, Steven Pinker, Jonathan Gottschall, David G. Myers, Matt Ridley, Armand Marie Leroi, Gerd Gigerenzer, Martin J. Rees, Richard Dawkins, Scott Atran, Carlo Rovelli · 432 pages

Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most deep, surprising, and brilliant explanations of how the world works, with contributions by Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, Nassim Taleb, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more”— Provided by publisher

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

Richard Feynman · 133 pages

In April 1963, Richard P. Feynman gave a series of remarkable lectures at the University of Washington in Seattle. These three consecutive talks were classic Feynman - full of wit and wisdom - but their subject matter was wholly unexpected: Feynman spoke not as a physicist but as a concerned fellow citizen, revealing his uncommon insights into the religious, political, and social issues of the day

Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

Carl Sagan · 398 pages

Explorers various aspects of several fields of science and examines the role of the intellect in scientific achievement.

Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern

Douglas R. Hofstadter · 852 pages

Toen 'Godel, Escher, Bach' verscheen in 1979 was Hofstadter in een klap wereldberoemd. Het is maar weinigen gegeven zo met taal en kennis te spelen: briljant, erudiet, creatief, humoristisch, en didaktisch van zeer hoog niveau. Dezelfde kwaliteiten bepalen het gezicht van 'Metamagische thema's'. Het is een bundeling van artikelen die in de jaren 1981-1983 in de Scientific American verschenen en di

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan · 457 pages

A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace “A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don

A Devil's Chaplain

Richard Dawkins · 272 pages

'Moet u zich eens voorstellen wat voor boek een kapelaan van de duivel zou kunnen schrijven over de onhandige, verspillende, blunderende en gruwelijk gemene werken van de natuur.' Dit schreef Darwin in 1856 aan een vriend. Maar, hoe gruwelijk en onhandig ook, willekeurig zijn de evolutionaire processen allerminst, zo laat Richard Dawkins zien in zijn even nuchtere als helder onderbouwde werk. Ka

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011

Mary Roach · 384 pages

The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy & Mathematics from Albert Einstein to Stephen W. Hawking & from Annie Dillard to John Updike

Timothy Ferris · 880 pages

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

Kathryn Schulz · 405 pages

Being wrong is an inescapable part of being alive. And yet we go through life tacitly assuming (or loudly insisting) that we are right about nearly everything - from our political beliefs to our private memories, from our grasp of scientific fact to the merits of our favourite team. Being Wrong looks at why this conviction has such a powerful grip on us, what happens when this conviction is shaken

Nothing: From Absolute Zero to Cosmic Oblivion - Amazing Insights into Nothingness

Jeremy Webb · 266 pages

"Nothing needs a rethink: all too easily, we ignore or dismiss the faxcinating possibilities of emptiness and non-existence. For centuries, scientist have known that nothing may in fact be the key to understanding everything, from the true nature of consciousness to the expansion of the cosmos. Because without nothing -- or rather, what we've long taken to be nothing -- we'd be literally nowhere.

The Hedgehog, the Fox & the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science & the Humanities

Stephen Jay Gould · 274 pages

Stephen Jay Gould offers a surprising and nuanced study of the complex relationship between our two great ways of knowing: science and the humanities, twin realms of knowledge that have been divided against each other for far too long. To establish his two protagonists, Gould draws from a seventh century b.c. proverb attributed to the Greek soldier-poet Archilochus that said roughly, "The fox devi

Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

Albert Einstein · 282 pages

The Two Cultures & A Second Look: An Expanded Version of The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution

C.P. Snow · 98 pages

Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society

Bill Bryson · 503 pages

As editor of "Seeing Further," Bryson has rounded up an extraordinary roster of scientists who write and writers who know science in order to celebrate 350 years of the Royal Society, Britain's scientific national academy. The contributors include Margaret Atwood, Steve Jones, Richard Dawkins, James Gleick, Richard Holmes, and Neal Stephenson, among many others, on subjects ranging from metaphysic

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

Neil deGrasse Tyson · 384 pages

"La NASA está en un punto crítico; después de décadas de supremacíamundial, canceló su programa de transbordadores cerrando su acceso al espacio. Hasta 2020, ningún astronauta será lanzado fuera de la órbita terrestre desde suelo estadounidense, y pronto su programa espacial podría ser eclipsado por el de otros países. Con su característico humor y sus provocadoras ideas, Neil deGrasse Tyson, el c

Adventures in Human Being

Gavin Francis · 252 pages

"We assume we know our bodies intimately, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory. How many of us understand the way seizures affect the brain, how the heart is connected to wellbeing, or the why the foot carries the key to our humanity? In Adventures in Human Being, award-winning author Gavin Francis leads readers on a journey into the hidden pathways of the human body, offering a guid

Tomorrowland: Our Staggering Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact

Steven Kotler · 284 pages

Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology

Paul Broks · 246 pages

Why is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human

Jesse Bering · 352 pages

"Titillating and provocative essays from one of the freshest voices in science today -- Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does "free will" really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway? In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Je

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

Christopher Hitchens · 499 pages

Presents excerpts on the subject of religion from the writings of such notable non-believers as John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, and Salman Rushdie.

Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul

Mark D. White, Robert Arp · 294 pages

Batman is one of the most complex characters ever to appear in comic books, graphic novels, and on the big screen. What philosophical trials does this superhero confront in order to keep Gotham safe? Combing through seventy years of comic books, television shows, and movies, Batman and Philosophy explores how the Dark Knight grapples with ethical conundrums, moral responsibility, his identity cris

Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals

Robert M. Sapolsky · 216 pages

A collection of original essays by a leading neurobiologist and primatologist share the author's insights into behavioral biology, including discussion of the physiology of genes and the factors that shape human social interaction.