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Science Friction : Where The Known Meets The Unknown

  • Science Friction : Where The Known Meets The Unknown
  • Attribution

    Michael Shermer
  • Publication Details

    Book, 1st ed, Times Books, 2005
  • Availability

    LOCATIONCALL #STATUS
     (UPPER LEVEL)  Q175 .S53437 2005  AVAILABLE

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  • Description

    Bestselling author Michael Shermer delves into the unknown, from heretical ideas about the boundaries of the universe to Star Trek’s lessons about chance and time A scientist pretends to be a psychic for a day-and fools everyone. In each of the fourteen essays in Science Friction, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores the very personal barriers and biases that plague and propel science, especially when scientists push against the unknown. (automatically summarized from Amazon.com)
  • Author

  • Subject

  • Notes

    • Includes index
    • "In each of the essays in Science Friction, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores the barriers and biases that plague and propel science, especially when scientists push against the boundaries of the unknown. As Shermer puts it, the challenge we all face in distinguishing facts from fiction can be summed up with a twist on a well-worn bromide: "I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it." What do we know and what do we not know? How does science respond to controversy, attack, and uncertainty? Together, these fourteen essays probe the omnipresent clash between the known and the unknown, always employing Shermer’s trademark wit and intelligence."–BOOK JACKET
  • Contents

    • Introduction : why not knowing
    • 1. Psychic for a day
    • 2. The big "bright" brouhaha
    • 3. Heresies of science
    • 4. The virtues of skepticism
    • 5. Spin-doctoring science
    • 6. Psyched up, psyched out
    • 7. Shadowlands
    • 8. Darwin on the Bounty
    • 9. Exorcising Laplace’s demon
    • 10. What if?
    • 11. The new new creationism
    • 12. History’s heretics
    • 13. The hero on the edge of forever
    • 14. This view of science
  • ISBN

    • 0805077081
  • LCCN

  • Open Library ID

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