Showing titles in History & Philosophy

Every so often, a new idea comes along that changes everything. Vaccinations. Relativity. Fascism. Can we imagine a world before the invention of writing? hat would Christianity have looked like without with a concept of hell? This fascinating little audiobook tells the stories behind 150 revolutionary concepts and explains why they are important. Taken from the realms of science, politics, society, religion and technology, these are the big ideas that have changed the world - in a nutshell.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Bully for Brontosaurus and learn about natural history.

Before the early 20th century, scientists and theologians knew almost nothing about time’s enormity and the corresponding immensity of space. But after Einstein, cosmology offers theology a whole new way of looking at the ageless questions about matter, time, God, cosmic purpose, and the significance of our lives. The universe need no longer be thought of simply as an endless reshuffling of lifeless and mindless atoms in a pointless series of moments.

In this perceptive and provocative look at everything from computer software that requires faster processors and more support staff to antibiotics that breed resistant strains of bacteria, Edward Tenner offers a virtual encyclopedia of what he calls "revenge effects" - the unintended consequences of the mechanical, chemical, biological, and medical forms of ingenuity that have been hallmarks of the progressive, improvement-obsessed modern age.

Ernest Rutherford, who grew up in colonial New Zealand and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, made numerous revolutionary discoveries, among them the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the “half-life” of radioactive materials, which led to a massive re-evaluation of the age of the Earth―previously judged just 100 million years old. Above all, perhaps, Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom, unlocking tremendous forces―forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, that would bring us the atomic bomb.

In Origin Story, medical historian Howard Markel recounts the two-year period (1858 to 1860) of Darwin's writing of On the Origin of Species through its spectacular success and controversy. Simultaneously, Markel delves into the mysterious health symptoms Darwin developed, combing the literature to emerge with a cogent diagnosis of a case that has long fascinated medical historians.

In Native American DNA, Kim TallBear shows how DNA testing is a powerful - and problematic - scientific process that is useful in determining close biological relatives. But tribal membership is a legal category that has developed in dependence on certain social understandings and historical contexts, a set of concepts that entangles genetic information in a web of family relations, reservation histories, tribal rules, and government regulations.

The question of how falling cats land on their feet has intrigued humans since at least the middle of the 19th century. In this playful and eye-opening history, physicist, and cat parent Gregory Gbur explores how attempts to understand the cat-righting reflex have provided crucial insights into puzzles in mathematics, geophysics, neuroscience, and human space exploration....

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and author of the classic The First Three Minutes, Weinberg shares his views on some of the most fundamental and fascinating aspects of physics and the universe. But he does not seclude science behind disciplinary walls or shy away from politics, taking on what he sees as the folly of manned spaceflight, the harms of inequality, and the importance of public goods. His point of view is rationalist, realist, reductionist, and devoutly secularist.

In The Allure of the Multiverse, physicist Paul Halpern tells the epic story of how science became besotted with the multiverse, and the controversies that ensued. The questions that brought scientists to this point are big and deep: Is reality such that anything can happen, must happen? How does quantum mechanics "choose" the outcomes of its apparently random processes? And why is the universe habitable? Each question quickly leads to the multiverse.

Why did once-stone-faced animals evolve to be so emotionally expressive—to be us? The answer, as evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi and mathematician Tim Barber reveal, is that emotional expressions are our first and most important language—one that allows us, as social animals, to engage in highly sophisticated communications and negotiations.

René Descartes was a central figure in the scientific revolution of the 17th century. In his Discourse on Method he outlined the contrast between mathematics and experimental sciences, and the extent to which each one can achieve certainty. Drawing on his own work in geometry, optics, astronomy and physiology, Descartes developed the hypothetical method that characterizes modern science, and this soon came to replace the traditional techniques derived from Aristotle.

¿Estamos al borde de una nueva edad oscura de irracionalismo y superstición? En este libro conmovedor, el incomparable Carl Sagan demuestra con brillantez que el pensamiento científico es necesario para salvaguardar nuestras instituciones democráticas y nuestra civilización técnica. El mundo y sus demonios es el libro más personal de Sagan, y está lleno de historias humanas entrañables y reveladoras.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 25 scientific pioneers who have shaped the development of science over 500 years.

The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies.

Alzheimer’s disease, a haunting and harrowing ailment, is one of the world’s most common causes of death. Alzheimer’s lingers for years, with patients’ outward appearance unaffected while their cognitive functions fade away. Patients lose the ability to work and live independently, to remember and recognize. There is still no proven way to treat Alzheimer’s because its causes remain unknown. Mind Thief is a comprehensive and engaging history of Alzheimer’s that demystifies efforts to understand the disease.

At the heart of the extraordinary ferment of the High Renaissance stood a distinctive, strange and beguiling figure: the magus. An unstable mix of scientist, bibliophile, engineer, fabulist and fraud, the magus ushered in modern physics and chemistry while also working on everything from secret codes to siege engines to magic tricks. Anthony Grafton's wonderfully original book discusses the careers of men who somehow managed to be both figures of startling genius and - by some measures - credulous or worse.

Among the estimated 100 billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere.

Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science.

When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of paleoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were, and are, a part of it.