Help create a JREF recommended science books list?

[illogical]

I agree with Capel, in that a statistics/probability book should be included.

Brief History of Time (Hawking)
Road to Reality (Penrose), difficult
Riemann Hypothesis book (perhaps Karl Sabbagh's)
a survey of physics e.g. Fraser's
concepts of physics book, non-calculus
Chaos (Gleik)
Fermat's Enigma (Simon Singh)
Beyond Einstein (Michio Kaku)
Unknown Quantity (Derbyshire)
Godel, Escher, Bach; difficult read
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers or My Brain Is Open

my list is biased towards physics and math.

[cyborg]

Quote:

Godel, Escher, Bach; difficult read

Really? I flicked through it on our bookshelf and I thought it was highly accessible. Yes, it had some advanced concepts but it walked you through them very well. It's on my to-read list now.

[Schneibster]

I'm in, but since we're only discussing putting together a list, as opposed to actually doing so, I'll merely state that I have a most extensive and eclectic library from which I would be happy to contribute titles.

[andyandy]

thanks for the new suggestions....

Now that there's a fair few books on the list the problem (a good problem!) is to ensure quality over quantity and that the list doesn't become too unwieldly to be really useful,

suggestions on how to maintain quality control welcomed - my own opinions;

1) Each sub section should have 1 (or 2 max) "must read" first books - ideally ones which span the whole area, are exceptionally well written and can spark an interest in the rest of the section. Further books in the category could be slightly more area specific, more suitable to read with some knowledge of the subject etc etc.

2) An easy rating system to use as a base line is Amazon - of all the links I put in, every book was 4star or 5star rated. If there have been a fair number of reviews and it scores less than 4star i suggest we don't include it (unless a case can be made )

If people could include the Amazon links with all their recommendations that would be really helpful - it helps in categorising and in giving an idea of feedback.

cheers

[illogical]

Originally Posted by andyandy

2) An easy rating system to use as a base line is Amazon - of all the links I put in, every book was 4star or 5star rated.

Amazon isn't perfect. Some people gave relatively low ratings to Devlin's The Millenium Problems. Yet it clearly has more substance than many pop math books. Substance, lucidity of exposition, credentials of author, etc, should be factored in.

There are also sockpuppet accounts on Amazon. I found several game books given 5 star ratings by suspicious reviewers.

[andyandy]

Originally Posted by illogical

Amazon isn't perfect. Some people gave relatively low ratings to Devlin's The Millenium Problems. Yet it clearly has more substance than many pop math books. Substance, lucidity of exposition, credentials of author, etc, should be factored in.

There are also sockpuppet accounts on Amazon. I found several game books given 5 star ratings by suspicious reviewers.

Sure, Amazon isn't perfect and an Amazon rating is not the absolute arbitor of what is and what is not a good book, nevertheless it's a hugely valuable resource to make use of when trying to decide whether an individual's subjective assessment is matched more generally. There will always be a problem with maths books insofar as they are greatly dependent upon a reader's background - and as such popular-maths often falls between two stools and thus you would expect them to suffer in any Amazon style ratings. But as I already mentioned Amazon is not a be all or end all - simply a good rough guide. I've had a look at the Devlin book - and it does sound pretty interesting to me.... I could do with a $million ...I've some ideas about the Poincare Conjecture

ETA

Damn Perelman's beaten me to it

[Georg]

What about"why people believe weird things" by Michael Shermer?

[Georg]

Or the meme machine by Susan Blackmore? Acceptable? Too speculative?

ETA: O.K., both books only got three and a half stars on amazon. But when you look at the rating of books of "the claws", the system doesn´t seem to be absolutely reliable.........

[Meadmaker]

Here's a personal favorite, not nearly as widely read or recognized as many other titles suggested.

"The Recursive Universe" William Poundstone. (I think).

The book is a very readable discussion of various topics related to the second law of thermodynamics. It was reading that book that made me "get" the statistical interpretation of the second law.

[Kahalachan]

Originally Posted by Georg

What about"why people believe weird things" by Michael Shermer?

This is excellent for general skepticism. It lists and explains many biases.

Good to see Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat on the list for neurology.

http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...F170E763532316

It's good to see the list by AndyAndy mirrors a post I made in myspace awhile ago recommending good books on neurology.

[ConspiRaider]

From Gould:
The Panda's Thumb
Dinosaur in a Haystack

For Science History:
Six Great Scientists, by J. G. Crowther
Einstein, Copernicus, Darwin, Galileo, Newton and Marie Curie are discussed.

[Darat]

Just to let you all know I am working on a book-list section so if you all want to get you reviews ready it should be in place by the end of next week. (Thanks to andyandy for starting this thread.)

[Hokulele]

Here are my suggestions with links:

The Song of the Dodo - David Quammen (Note, I would categorize this as a second tier book in the Ev. Bio. section, as it focuses primarily on diversity and the rapid rate of extinction in "island" populations.)

Chaos - James Gleick

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife

Measuring America - Andro Linklater

BTW, these links are all to the U.S. version of Amazon. Does this matter?

[Piscivore]

Originally Posted by Loss Leader

Salt by Mark Kurlansky - Imagine if everything you think you know about history is just a thin film over the real forces that drive mankind. One of those forces might just be something you would never expect.

It's cheese, isn't it?

[illogical]

Hokulele, Amazon (US/CA) has more reviews to my knowledge. Their UK site usually has a different set of reviews.

The sites I use are Amazon, Google Books, Google Scholar, Campus Books and Froogle price engine, and Worldcat library catalog.

[Tsukasa Buddha]

How To Think Straight About Psychology by Keith Stanovich.

[andyandy]

revised.....

Astromony/cosmology

Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein´s Outreageous Legacy - Kip S. Thorne

Cosmos by Sagan
Pale Blue Dot - Sagan

fabric of the Cosmos/Elegant Universe by Greene

Parrellel worlds by Kaku

The Birth of Time Gribbins

Physics

Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott

Feynman's 6 Easy Pieces

Atom by Issac Asimov.

David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order

"The Recursive Universe" William Poundstone.

Brief History of Time (Hawking)

Deep Simplicity Gribbins

In Search of Schrodingers Cat Gribbins

Evolutionary biology

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sagan

Selfish Gene, River Out of Eden, Ancestor's Tale, Blind watchmaker by Dawkins

Stephen Jay Gould The Panda's Thumb/ Dinosaur in a Haystack

Biology

The Naked Ape and The Human Animal by Desmond Morris.

Steve Jones: The Language of the Genes and Almost Like a Whale.

Brusca and Brusca's Invertebrates

The Song of the Dodo - David Quammen

The mismeasure of man Gould

Neuroscience
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Sacks

Phantoms in the Brain VS Ramachandran

General medical

Awakenings - Sacks

The Boy who could not stop Washing - Rapopart

Carol Ann Rinzler's Dictionary of Medical Folklore

Maths

A History of Mathematics - Carl Boyer

The Lady Tasting Tea - Salsburg (Statistics)

Stewart Shapiro's Thinking About Mathematics

Chaos - James Gleick

Goedel, Escher and Bach by Hofstadter

Coincidences, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz by Edward Burger & Michael Starbird.

How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff.

General Science history

David C. Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science

Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everthing

Steven Shapin's The Scientific Revolution

Grant & Olson's Science & Religion (Johns Hopkins UP 2004) in two volumes (From Aristotle to Copernicus and From Copernicus to Darwin)

Specific science histories

Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein - Abraham Pais

Fermat's Enigma (Simon Singh)

Beyond Einstein (Michio Kaku)

The Day The Universe Changed James Burke.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife

Longitude - Sobel

Measuring America - Andro Linklater

Six Great Scientists, by J. G. Crowther

Mauve - Garfield

Salt by Mark Kurlansky

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

The Fellowship (History of science in the Royal society) Gribbins

David Quammen Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind.

Billions and Billions - Sagan

Connections ??

Sputnik - Dickson


Scepticism and science

Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology - Feder

Demon Haunted World - Sagan

Tricks of the Mind Derren Brown

Broca's Brain Sagan

"why people believe weird things" by Michael Shermer?[/quote]

anthroplogy/archeology
Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond

Dead Men do tell Tales - Maples

The prehistory of the mind S Mithen

Psychology

The Happiness Hypothesis Haidt

How To Think Straight About Psychology by Keith Stanovich.

[Caius Textor]

Short suggestion for 1): Boyer´s math book. Ask any historian of mathematics.

Long explanation: Boyer was the very first actual Historian of Mathematics, and founded the first (and only, I think) undergrad course on it in the world. The book covers mostly everything known to History regarding numbers, from Babilonia to Bourbaki, it´s superbly well-written, has a huge list of references (for those interested), and has exercises (not only maths, but history ones too!)
It does require something more than plain curiosity to follow the difficult parts, but those can be skiped without loss of continuity.

OH, and I forgot another one, on electromagnetism:

A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity - E.T. Whittaker

Part I = To this day the must-read guide for anyone interested (and getting a PhD) in the history of electricity, up to Einstein. (Read excerpts, not the whole book.)

Part II = After Einstein. Appearently, not so good. A little controversial, but still...(never read it)

[Yuri Nalyssus]

Originally Posted by andyandy

Tricks of the Mind Derren Brown

Tee hee, I see one reviewer has said "Derren Brown i solute you" - so much for improving scientific understanding. Or it could be a deranged homoeopath I 'spose.

While I'm on - what about 'Flim flam! psychics, esp, unicorns and other delusions' by James randi; 'How we know what isn't so' by Thomas Gilovich and the excellent, post-modernist puncturing 'How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world' by Francis Wheen.

I also have great affection for "James Randi - psychic investigator" as an introduction to how very simple, common sense methods of investigation can be applied to any and all claims. This was the first, true 'sceptical' book I ever owned and to this day I can remember my feeling of amazement when I discovered that all these paranormal phenomena could actually be investigated by very basic methods.

Previous to that I had had a vague, half belief that these things, whether or not they were true, were not subject to mundane, natural laws and therefore must be beyond investigation. My feelings of revalation and relief was closely followed by one of horror as I realised how the wool had insiduously been pulled over my eyes without my even realising it.

Yuri

[Chocolate Devourer]

How about including Darwin's The Origin of Species to the Evolutionary biology list?

[joobz]

how about an engineering section to your shelf

This should include 1 book on Thermo,
Understanding Thermodynamics by Van Ness

Also a book on Engineering history and mistakes would be a welcome plus, but none come to mind right now.

[andyandy]

For engineering and mathsAdvanced Engineering Mathematics by Erwin Kreyszig is a superb book...
basically a 1200page overview of a variety of 1st-2nd year undergraduate study topics...

[Schneibster]

The proper title of Hofstadter's book is Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. It belongs in Philosophy of Science, along with Edmund O. Wilson's Consilience. He coined the word.

I too would vote for The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore. Cognitive Science, I think.

Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by M. Mitchell Waldrop for the Math section.
And I'd concur that Gleick's Chaos goes on the list.

For the Biology section, At Home In the Universe by Stuart Kauffman
The Lives of a Cell, by Lewis Thomas

For the History of Science section,
The Dream Machine, another good Waldrop book (and how I came upon his Complexity).
The History of Physics, by Isaac Asimov. The Good Doctor leads us from the Greeks to the neutrino. This comprises the original three-volume set, Understanding Physics, comprised of Motion, Sound, and Heat, Light, Magnetism, and Electricity, and The Electron, Proton, and Neutron, as well as including additional material abstracted and rewritten from The Neutrino. You'll know your way around the major branches of physics fairly well, and also around the history of the title.

For the Physics section,
The Force of Symmetry, the best relatively non-technical treatment of the current physical understanding of force and matter that I have seen. Absolutely the best explanation of the Laws of Spin and Statistics for bosons and fermions I have ever seen. A watershed book for me.
I too liked Six Easy Pieces, but I think that
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is more than worthwhile.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, known to a couple generations of physics majors as "The Red Books," probably should go on the list, but with a note that they are not for beginners. This is the real deal, and you'll know a fair bit about how physicists use calculus when you're done. You should have been exposed to calculus enough that you won't get lost, though it's probably not necessary to have taken a class in the immediate past.
I concur with the recommendation of both of Brian Greene's books. I also like Penrose's The Road to Reality, but agree that it is a very tough read.
I very much liked Heinz Pagels' Perfect Symmetry. It is an excellent lead-in to The Elegant Universe; gives you an idea of the intellectual climate into which string theory dropped.
No physics bookshelf could possibly be complete without The Black Book: Gravitation. The definitive tome, by three of the masters of the field: Kip Thorne (he of the infamous bet with Hawking), John Archibald Wheeler, and Charles Misner. EXTREMELY difficult. You will not get through this book without a good understanding of calculus. This is college curriculum, and not for freshmen.
And an oldie but a goodie: Relativity, by the master himself: Albert explains his theory for the sophisticated intellectual (though not necessarily the physics major). Highly accessible, and the best possible introduction to the theory, by the man who invented it.

That'll do to go on with. Having just moved, and facing the prospect of another move in the not-too-distant future, though not nearly so far, I have absolutely no intention of unpacking about 40 boxes of books until the situation clarifies itself, or we are done moving.

[Kotatsu]

Originally Posted by andyandy

Now that there's a fair few books on the list the problem (a good problem!) is to ensure quality over quantity and that the list doesn't become too unwieldly to be really useful, suggestions on how to maintain quality control welcomed - my own opinions;

1) Each sub section should have 1 (or 2 max) "must read" first books - ideally ones which span the whole area, are exceptionally well written and can spark an interest in the rest of the section. Further books in the category could be slightly more area specific, more suitable to read with some knowledge of the subject etc etc.

I don't know how much of a "must read" Brusca and Brusca's Invertebrates would be, but as I work with invertebrates, I tend to get a bit annoyed that people, when discussing zoology, seem to use only vertebrates as examples for this or that phenomena, when more or less all animals are invertebrates. So this book could easily be placed towards the end of any "must read" list. It's essentially a listing of all invertebrate groups and their characteristics, with some anecdotes thrown in.

Here's the amazon entry for the edition of Medical Folklore I have. Again, it's not really a "must read", but more of a nice addition to an already extensive library.

[Chocolate Devourer]

For the History section:

Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary, by William Playfair

It's a modern reprint of two works by Playfair, written at the end of the 18th Century (I can't add links yet...). Very early (and interesting) use of visualisation techniques (charts, line graphs, etc.) to represent financial/economic figures. The intro is quite interesting as well.

[grunion]

Science books, eh?

I liked Oliver Sacks' A Philosopher On Mars even better that the other Sacks books listed above - there's an especially great story about a hari krishna who was assumed by the acolytes to have reached some higher plane of consciousness when he was actually under the ravages of a brain tumor, but also the usual fascinating tales of perception and the functioning of the brain.

I liked Stephen J Gould's Full House as much as any of his other collections.

Isaac Asimov has written some great books explaining science to the layman and undoubtedly several belong on this list. A collection of his called Marvels Of Science is among my favorite.

And Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman is the most approachable book on Physics that I have ever read.

I recall this book from my teen years but can't remember the title. It was the true stories of various medical detective cases, where a French doctor figures out what is behind mysterious deaths using great investigative techniques and deductive reasoning. Absolutely fascinating and perfect for budding skeptics.

[Germaine]

Hi there everyone-this is my first post!

I recommend :

Big Bang by Simon Singh

Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh

[andyandy]

hiya germaine -

A couple of good suggestions...

welcome to the forum

[Georg]

Originally Posted by Schneibster

I too would vote for The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore. Cognitive Science, I think.

Nice to see I´m not alone . andyandy?

[andyandy]

Originally Posted by Georg

Nice to see I´m not alone . andyandy?

fair enough

[qayak]

Originally Posted by grunion

I liked Oliver Sacks' A Philosopher On Mars

That should read "An Anthropologist on Mars."

[qayak]

My recommendations apart from those already on the list:

The Mind's I - Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett

This book is somewhat easier that Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. I know several people who could not make it through the latter but really enjoyed the former.

The Burning House: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain - Jay Ingram
The Barmaid's Brain and Other Strange Tales from Science- Jay Ingram
The Velocity of Honey - Jay Ingram

I like Ingram's books simply because he addresses fun things that most people overlook as too common to be science. Why do barmaids at Oktoberfest spill so little beer? Does toast really land butter side down more often? Easy to read, well explained and documented and yet often an admission that there is no clear answer. Fundamental science at its very best.

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud - Robert Park

Parks is one of the few scientist who is not afraid to drag the foolishness of his fellow scientists out into the public view and point out exactly where they screwed up. This book is an expansion on some of the many themes discussed on his weekly "What's New" site. A great book for explaining how science can be bastardized for personal gain and how one can recognize when it is happening.

[Dr Adequate]

Robyn M. Dawes: House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth

William Broad & Nicholas Wade: Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science

---

If anyone would like to do some reviews, I could stick them on the SkepticWiki, there's a section for book reviews which really ought to be longer.

[andyandy]

thanks for all the suggestions/recommendations so far....just an update, darat is working on some forum modifications to create a book review area - you can see the rough outline here

once that's up and running, then the choice is either to have a free for all with anyone able to post any book review, a controlled area to ensure quality rather than quantity or maybe a mix of both....

I like the idea of a mix - with control to ensure that there remains a "top few" must reads in each topic area, but with a free for all review posting to give breadth of interest....

[Georg]

Originally Posted by andyandy

thanks for all the suggestions/recommendations so far....just an update, darat is working on some forum modifications to create a book review area - you can see the rough outline here

once that's up and running, then the choice is either to have a free for all with anyone able to post any book review, a controlled area to ensure quality rather than quantity or maybe a mix of both....

I like the idea of a mix - with control to ensure that there remains a "top few" must reads in each topic area, but with a free for all review posting to give breadth of interest....

I was trying out your link, but access was denied (yes, I was logged in).

And I like the idea of a mix as well. The question is, who will decide what books belong to the "top few"? A rating system like on amazon?

[andyandy]

Originally Posted by Georg

I was trying out your link, but access was denied (yes, I was logged in).

And I like the idea of a mix as well. The question is, who will decide what books belong to the "top few"? A rating system like on amazon?

the link works for me....maybe i have been endowed with special forum powers

If a rating system can be introduced that would be great, if not, some form of editorial control should be easy enough to set up....i'm sure there'll be plenty of willing volunteers if necessary

[grunion]

The link doesn't work for me either - "insufficient priviledges..."

I also like the idea of a mix - perhaps moderators can assign a lead review for each book and then the review can be open for critique/comment.

Thanks for the correction on the book title, it indeed is "Anthropologist."

[tkingdoll]

Happy to note today that Richard Wiseman's book Quirkology is the UK's #3 bestselling science title (and in the year of The God Delusion, that's some going).

There's some great stuff in there about astrology, I recommend it for the list.

Amazon UK Link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quirkology-C...3481378&sr=8-1

Amazon USA link:

http://www.amazon.com/Quirkology-Dis...3481419&sr=8-1

[Darat]

Originally Posted by andyandy

the link works for me....maybe i have been endowed with special forum powers

If a rating system can be introduced that would be great, if not, some form of editorial control should be easy enough to set up....i'm sure there'll be plenty of willing volunteers if necessary

andyandy - you do indeed have special powers which enable you to see things which aren't there for other mere Members!

For everyone else this I've included some attachments so you can see what it will look like. As you'll see I'm having some problems with the formatting (but only on IE! ), the first attachment is the summary view and the second the full review.

My thoughts are to start with some "Highly recommended" books culled from the great suggestions in this thread and invite Members to provide the first reviews, that way we can sort out any teething problems such as ratings, final format and the like. Once all that is up and running it would be opened up for anyone to provide a book review.

[andyandy]

Originally Posted by Darat

andyandy - you do indeed have special powers which enable you to see things which aren't there for other mere Members!

For everyone else this I've included some attachments so you can see what it will look like. As you'll see I'm having some problems with the formatting (but only on IE! ), the first attachment is the summary view and the second the full review.

My thoughts are to start with some "Highly recommended" books culled from the great suggestions in this thread and invite Members to provide the first reviews, that way we can sort out any teething problems such as ratings, final format and the like. Once all that is up and running it would be opened up for anyone to provide a book review.

looks good...

Are you going to link to Amazon? Will that need separate links to the uk, us, nz, au etc. sites to cater for all members?

Will the book recommendation bit have a main landing page? Perhaps the top recommendations could be displayed on that....