What Is Science? A Guide For Those Who Love It, Hate It, Or Fear It
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What is Science? A Guide for Those Who Love It, Hate It, or Fear It, provides the reader with ways science has been done through discovery, exploration, experimentation and other reason-based approaches. It discusses the basic and applied sciences, the reasons why some people hate science, especially its rejection of the supernatural, and others who fear it for human applications leading to environmental degradation, climate change, nuclear war, and other outcomes of sciences applied to society.The author uses anecdotes from interviews and associations with many scientists he has encountered in his career to illustrate these features of science and their personalities and habits of thinking or work. He also explores the culture wars of science and the humanities, values involved in doing science and applying science, the need for preventing unexpected outcomes of applied science, and the ways our world view changes through the insights of science. This book will provide teachers lots of material for discussion about science and its significance in our lives. It will also be helpful for those starting out their interest in science to know the worst and best features of science as they develop their careers.
Elof Axel Carlson is a geneticist, historian of science, and writer. He is the author of 15 books and has written a newspaper column, Life Lines, on science since 1997. He taught at Queen's University in Canada, at UCLA, and at Stony Brook University where he is emeritus Distinguished Teaching Professor, retiring in 2001. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a recipient of the Harbison Award for Gifted Teaching from the Danforth Association. His most noteworthy books are Genes, Radiation and Society, the Life and Work of H J Muller, The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea, and How Scientific Progress Occurs: Incrementalism and the Life Sciences.