![]() | The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense by Michael Shermer
Buy new: $38.00 / Used from: $1.99 Shermer's treatment of the notion of "paradigm shifts" is particularly good
|
![]() | It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality by David Murray
Buy used from: $0.87 Excellent discussion of how science is altered from 'research' to 'news.' Also touches usefully on the vexed topic of studies that contradict each other.
|
![]() | The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul by Sifu Richard Morris
Buy used from: $0.42 Great case study for how science grows through technical controversy
|
![]() | What Remains to Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race by John Maddox
Buy new: $28.95 / Used from: $0.01 The remaining mysteries of science
|
![]() | The View from Within: First-person Approaches to the Study of Consciousness (Consciousness Studies) by Franciso J. Varela
Buy new: $26.91 / Used from: $13.34 An eloquent appeal for studying subjective experience as well as cognition and neuroscience.
|
![]() | The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology by Victor J. Stenger
Buy new: $26.39 / Used from: $15.75 A reasonable critique of some of the odd metaphysical interpretations explaining consciousness through quantum physics.
|
![]() | The Race for Consciousness (Bradford Books) by John G. Taylor
Buy new: $75.00 / Used from: $3.99 Among the toughest questions in science is addressed admirably with great scientific depth.
|
![]() | Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction? by Michael Ruse
Buy new: $18.95 / Used from: $4.99 Deep insights into ideology and epistemology in science, viewed using evolution as a case study
|
![]() | How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick
Buy used from: $0.97 Imperfect but better-than-average practical guide to the principles of evidence and reasoning in evaluating claims.
|
![]() | Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: A Critical Examination of the Evidence by Terence Hines
Buy used from: $1.88 Both deep and broad, a good overall skeptical treatment of fringe topics
|
![]() | An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi
Buy used from: $35.42 Broad but shallow coverage of debunked topics, focusing on humor and opinion but with enough of a smattering of factual data to make it a useful reference.
|
![]() | Encounters With the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief
Buy new: $28.98 / Used from: $1.49 Some of the best from the CSICOP in their neverending search for fringe topics to debunk.
|
![]() | Critical Thinking, Consider the Verdict by Bruce N. Waller
Buy used from: $0.01 Applying critical reasoning to real social and political questions. Based on the courtroom model, but more widely applicable. The treatment of authority appeals is particularly good.
|
![]() | The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications by David Deutsch
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $4.85 An intriguing critique of inductivism and the interesting implications of the multiple worlds view of quantum physics. Maybe too ambitious, but at least far better than most of the New Age-ish folks
|
![]() | Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits by John D. Barrow
Buy new: $33.54 / Used from: $6.02 Difficult reading and could have been much better edited, but full of profound insights into the nature and limits of science. Interest contrast with Deutsch above.
|
![]() | PI in the Sky: Counting, Thinking, and Being by John D. Barrow
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $1.96 Barrow's lucid and entertaining quest for the ultimate origins of mathematics.
|
![]() | Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series) by David L. Hull
Buy new: $31.50 / Used from: $16.97 A sophisticated and useful account of how selection operates on scientific knowledge
|
![]() | The Visible and the Invisible (SPEP) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $19.49 Merleau-Ponty was among the few who philosophers who grasped the essential relationship of meaning and biological goal-seeking, and that awareness follows rather than precedes action.
|
![]() | Models of the Self by Jonathan Shear
Buy new: $42.26 / Used from: $35.96 Our concept of "self" is unavoidable in any study of human awareness.
|
![]() | The Volitional Brain by Anthony Freeman Benjamin Libet
Buy used from: $32.90 Libet's work reveals profound insights into the nature of volition.
|
![]() | Reclaiming Cognition: The Primacy of Action, Intention and Emotion (Journal of Consciousness Studies)
Buy new: $29.90 / Used from: $23.07 Challenging essays about the role of the physical body in the structure and function of the mind.
|
![]() | The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates
Buy new: $42.93 / Used from: $15.75 Both comprehensive and technically detailed: one of the best single volumes on the subject.
|
![]() | Whispering Pond: A Personal Guide to the Emerging Vision of Science by Ervin Laszlo
Buy used from: $0.77 Bold thinking from a brilliant mind. In places, Laszlo's later work runs precariously toward the "New Physics" sort of stuff that skeptics love to ridicule, but he covers it a lot better than most.
|
![]() | The Universe, the Eleventh Dimension, and Everything: What We Know and How We Know It by Richard Morris
Buy new: $14.95 / Used from: $0.27 Outstanding non-technical overview of modern cosmology, subatomic physics, and the playful side of how science works.
|
![]() | Moral Imagination: Confronting the Ethical Issues of Our Day by Edward Tivnan
Buy new: $22.95 / Used from: $0.74 Exemplary intellectual treatment of several crucial social issues. Shows how providing detailed background and really listening to an opponent's side can usefully inform an issue.
|
![]() | Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) by John R. Searle
Buy new: $17.40 / Used from: $9.00 Searle is probably best known for his "Chinese Room" argument and his arguments against strong AI computer functionalism regarding the mind. I think this is the clearest non-technical statement of his ideas, but it is also a very good general introduction to modern naturalistic philosophy of mind.
|
Listmania!




























