# kb

id: the-ambidextrous-universe-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambidextrous_Universe-0.md
category: reference
title: The Ambidextrous Universe
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambidextrous_Universe
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:04.904731+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-ambidextrous-universe-20260505-0
summary:
The Ambidextrous Universe is a popular science book by Martin Gardner, covering aspects of symmetry and asymmetry in human culture, science and the wider universe. It culminates in a discussion of whether nature's conservation of parity (the symmetry of mirrored quantum systems) is ever violated, which had been proven experimentally in 1956. The book was originally published in 1964 with the subtitle Left, Right, and the Fall of Parity, with a revised version following in 1969. A second edition was released in 1979 with the new subtitle Mirror Asymmetry and Time-Reversed Worlds. The third edition was released in 1990 under the title The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings; this was re-released with minor revisions in 2005. == Content == The book begins with the subject of mirror reflection, and from there passes through symmetry in geometry, poetry, art, music, galaxies, stars, planets and living organisms. It then moves down into the molecular scale and looks at how symmetry and asymmetry have evolved from the beginning of life on Earth. There is a chapter on carbon and its versatility and on chirality in biochemistry. The last several chapters deal with a conundrum called the Ozma


id: the-ancient-engineers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Engineers-0.md
category: reference
title: The Ancient Engineers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Engineers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:06.107193+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-ancient-engineers-20260505-0
summary:
The Ancient Engineers is a 1963 science book by L. Sprague de Camp, one of his most popular works. It was first published by Doubleday and has been reprinted numerous times by other publishers. Translations into German and Polish have also been published. Portions of the work had previously appeared as articles in the magazines Fate, Isis and Science Digest. == Contents == The work is an examination of engineering through the ages from 3000 BC to 1519 AD, from the monumental works of the Egyptians through the speculative inventions of Leonardo da Vinci. The technological legacies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, the medieval Arabs and Europeans, and Renaissance Europe, are all covered in separate sections, focusing particularly on architectural, military and civil engineering. == Review == The following review is often quoted in reference to this book: Mr. de Camp has the trick of being able to show technology engaging in feats as full of derring-do as those of Hannibal's army. History as it should be told. —Isaac Asimov, The New York Times Book Review, 15 May 1963 == See also == Lest Darkness Fall == Notes == == External links == The Ancient Engineers title listing at


id: antarctic-conquest-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Conquest-0.md
category: reference
title: Antarctic Conquest
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Conquest
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:07.356907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antarctic-conquest-20260505-0
summary:
Antarctic Conquest: the Story of the Ronne Expedition 1946-1948 is a 1949 science book by Norwegian-American Antarctic explorer Finn Ronne and science fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp, published in hardcover by G. P. Putnam's Sons. The role of de Camp, who was commissioned as a ghost writer to recast Ronne's manuscript into publishable form, is uncredited. Ronne's working title was reportedly "Conquering the Antarctic". == Summary == The book relates the story of the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica from 1947–1948. == Relationship to other works == De Camp's work with Ronne is reflected in two of his contemporary Viagens Interplanetarias science fiction stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. One, the short story "Calories," adopts an Antarctic setting not utilized in any of the series's other stories; in the other, the novel The Hand of Zei, the protagonist adopts the alias of an inhabitant of the planet's Antarctic and is, like de Camp, employed as a ghostwriter for his explorer boss. == Notes == == External links == Book review in the Geographical Review, v. 40, no. 1 (Jan. 1950), pp. 154-155


id: antiquarian-science-books-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquarian_science_books-0.md
category: reference
title: Antiquarian science books
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquarian_science_books
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:08.591517+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiquarian-science-books-20260505-0
summary:
Antiquarian science books are original historical works (e.g., books or technical papers) concerning science, mathematics and sometimes engineering. These books are important primary references for the study of the history of science and technology, they can provide valuable insights into the historical development of the various fields of scientific inquiry (History of science, History of mathematics, etc.) The landmark are significant first (or early) editions typically worth hundreds or thousands of dollars (prices may vary widely based on condition, etc.). Reprints of these books are often available, for example from Great Books of the Western World, Dover Publications or Google Books. Incunabula are extremely rare and valuable, but as the Scientific Revolution is only taken to have started around the 1540s, such works of Renaissance literature (including alchemy, Renaissance magic, etc.) are not usually included under the notion of "scientific" literature. Printed originals of the beginning Scientific Revolution thus date to the 1540s or later, notably beginning with the original publication of Copernican heliocentrism. Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium of 1543 sold for more than US$2 million at auctions. == List of notable books == === 16th century === Tartaglia, Niccolò. Nova Scientia (A New Science). Venice, 1537. Ballistics.


id: antiquarian-science-books-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquarian_science_books-1.md
category: reference
title: Antiquarian science books
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquarian_science_books
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:08.591517+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiquarian-science-books-20260505-0
summary:
=== 19th century === Gauss, Carl Friedrich (Germany). Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. Leipzig, 1801. Number theory Young, Thomas (England). Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics, 1803. Light Argand, Jean-Robert (Switzerland). Essai sur une maniere de representer les quantities imaginaries dans les constructions geometriques, 1806. Imaginary numbers. Dalton, John (England). A New System of Chemical Philosophy. London, 1808. Atomic theory Berzelius, Jöns Jacob (Sweden). Läroboken i kemien, 1808. Chemistry Cayley, George (England). On Aerial Navigation. Brompton, 3 Vol, 1809. Aeronautics. Ørsted, Hans Christian (Denmark). Experimenta circa effectum conflictus electrici in acum magneticam. Copenhagen, 1820. Electromagnetism. Fourier, Joseph (France). Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur. Paris, 1822. Fourier series. Fresnel, Augustin-Jean (France). Mémoire Sur Un Nouveau Système D'Éclairage Des Phares Lu À L'Académie Des Sciences. Paris, 1822. Wave optics Babbage, Charles (England). Mr. Babbage's invention: Application of machinery to the purpose of calculating and printing mathematical tables. London, 1823. Computing Lobachevsky, Nikolai (Russia). Geometriya. 1823. Non-Euclidean geometry Cauchy, Augustin-Louis (France). Le calcul infinitesimal. Paris, 1823. Mathematical analysis Carnot, Sadi (France). Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu et sur les machines propres à déveloper cette puissance. Paris, 1824. Thermodynamics Ampère, André-Marie (France). Mémoire sur la théorie mathématique des phénomènes électrodynamiques, 1827. Electromagnetism Laplace, Pierre-Simon


id: antiquarian-science-books-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquarian_science_books-2.md
category: reference
title: Antiquarian science books
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquarian_science_books
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:08.591517+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiquarian-science-books-20260505-0
summary:
=== 20th century (pre-Cold War) === Planck, Max (Germany). Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum. Leipzig, 1900. Quantum mechanics Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin Eduardovich (Russia). The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices. Kaluga, 1903. Rockets Rutherford, Ernest (New Zealand). Radio-activity. Cambridge, 1904. Nuclear physics Lorentz, Hendrik (Netherlands). Electromagnetic phenomena in a system moving with any velocity smaller than that of light. Amsterdam, 1904. Special relativity Einstein, Albert (Germany). Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") Leipzig, 1905. Special relativity Einstein, Albert (Germany). Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? Leipzig, 1905. Physics Richardson, Lewis (England). The Approximate Arithmetical Solution by Finite Differences of Physical Problems Involving Differential Equations, with an Application to the Stresses in a Masonry Dam. London, 1910. Computational mechanics Boas, Franz (Germany/America). The Mind of Primitive Man. New York, 1911. Anthropology Bohr, Niels (Denmark). On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules. London, 1913. Quantum mechanics Einstein, Albert (Germany). Die Grundlage Der Allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie (Foundations of the General Theory of Relativity). Leipzig, 1916. Physics. Goddard, Robert Hutchings (America). A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. Washington, D.C, 1919. Rockets de Broglie, Louis (France). Recherches sur la théorie des quanta


id: the-ape-man-within-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ape-Man_Within-0.md
category: reference
title: The Ape-Man Within
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ape-Man_Within
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:09.754305+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-ape-man-within-20260505-0
summary:
The Ape-Man Within is a 1995 science book by L. Sprague de Camp, published in hardcover by Prometheus Books. == Summary == The book undertakes to demonstrate how humankind's self-inflicted problems are rooted in its evolutionary past, with primitive survival traits appropriate to ancestral primates who were organized in small, foraging bands still manifesting in modern societies as competitive, adversarial behavior. == Contents == 1. Darwinian Man 2. Our Handy Kin 3. The Noble Savage 4. The Breeds of Man 5. The Phantom Aryans 6. Race and Power 7. Goat Island 8. What Makes Us Tick? 9. "And Hate Alone Is True" 10. Conclusions Notes Bibliography == Reception == De Camp's approach to his subject has been criticized for oversimplification and inaccuracy in matters of detail. == Notes == == External links == "The Ape-Man Within by L. Sprague de Camp – Book Review" - a positive book review by Tudor Vieru "Darwinism made too simple" - a negative book review by Jeffrey McKee


id: apollo-s-arrow-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo's_Arrow-0.md
category: reference
title: Apollo's Arrow
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo's_Arrow
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:10.939266+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: apollo-s-arrow-20260505-0
summary:
Apollo’s Arrow: The Science of Prediction and the Future of Everything is a non-fiction book about prediction written by Canadian author and mathematician David Orrell. The book was initially published in Canada by HarperCollins in 2007, and was a national bestseller. It was published in the United States as The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction, and translated versions were also published in Japan, South Korea and China. The book was taught as part of a university course in “Forecasting via Mathematical Modeling” at Gustavus Adolphus College in 2009. == Summary == In this book, Orrell explains the science of prediction to a general audience. The book begins with a general history of prediction from the Delphic oracle to the present day. The next part considers three different areas of prediction in detail: weather, health and economics. It argues that these are all examples of complex systems that cannot be reduced to equations. As mathematical models become more refined, the number of unknown parameters tends to explode. At the same time, networks of interlocking feedback loops make the models unstable. According to Orrell, the resulting model error (rather than e.g. the butterfly effect) is the main reason why forecasts


id: bad-pharma-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma-0.md
category: reference
title: Bad Pharma
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:12.142240+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bad-pharma-20260505-0
summary:
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients is a book by the British physician and academic Ben Goldacre about the pharmaceutical industry, its relationship with the medical profession, and the extent to which it controls academic research into its own products. It was published in the UK in September 2012 by the Fourth Estate imprint of HarperCollins, and in the United States in February 2013 by Faber and Faber. Goldacre argues in the book that "the whole edifice of medicine is broken", because the evidence on which it is based is systematically distorted by the pharmaceutical industry. He writes that the industry finances most of the clinical trials into its own products and much of doctors' continuing education, that clinical trials are often conducted on small groups of unrepresentative subjects and negative data is routinely withheld, and that apparently independent academic papers may be planned and even ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies or their contractors, without disclosure. Describing the situation as a "murderous disaster", he makes suggestions for action by patients' groups, physicians, academics and the industry itself. Responding to the book's publication, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry issued a statement in 2012 arguing that the


id: bad-pharma-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma-1.md
category: reference
title: Bad Pharma
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:12.142240+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bad-pharma-20260505-0
summary:
=== Chapter 2: "Where Do New Drugs Come From?" === In the second chapter, the book describes the process as new drugs move from animal testing through phase 1 (first-in-man study), phase 2, and phase 3 clinical trials. Phase 1 participants are referred to as volunteers, but in the US are paid $200–$400 per day, and because studies can last several weeks and subjects may volunteer several times a year, earning potential becomes the main reason for participation. Participants are usually taken from the poorest groups in society, and outsourcing increasingly means that trials may be conducted in countries with low wages by contract research organizations (CROs). The rate of growth for clinical trials in India is 20 percent a year, in Argentina 27 percent, and in China 47 percent, while trials in the UK have fallen by 10 percent a year and in the US by six percent. The shift to outsourcing raises issues about data integrity, regulatory oversight, language difficulties, the meaning of informed consent among a much poorer population, the standards of clinical care, the extent to which corruption may be regarded as routine in certain countries, and the ethical problem of raising a population's expectations for


id: bad-pharma-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma-2.md
category: reference
title: Bad Pharma
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:12.142240+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bad-pharma-20260505-0
summary:
=== Chapter 6: "Marketing" === In the final chapter, Goldacre looks at how doctors are persuaded to prescribe "me-too drugs," brand-name drugs that are no more effective than significantly cheaper off-patent ones. He cites as examples the statins atorvastatin (Lipitor, made by Pfizer) and simvastatin (Zocor), which he writes seem to be equally effective, or at least there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. Simvastatin came off patent several years ago, yet there are still three million prescriptions a year in the UK for atorvastatin, costing the National Health Service (NHS) an annual £165 million extra. He addresses the issue of medicalization of certain conditions (or, as he argues, of personhood), whereby pharmaceutical companies "widen the boundaries of diagnosis" before offering solutions. Female sexual dysfunction was highlighted in 1999 by a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which alleged that 43 percent of women were suffering from it. After the article appeared, the New York Times wrote that two of its three authors had worked as consultants for Pfizer, which at the time was preparing to launch UK-414,495, known as female Viagra. The journal's editor said that the failure to disclose the relationship with Pfizer was


id: bad-pharma-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma-3.md
category: reference
title: Bad Pharma
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:12.142240+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bad-pharma-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception == The book was generally well received. The Economist described it as "slightly technical, eminently readable, consistently shocking, occasionally hectoring and unapologetically polemical". Helen Lewis in the New Statesman called it an important book, while Luisa Dillner, writing in the Guardian, described it as a "thorough piece of investigative medical journalism". Andrew Jack wrote in the Financial Times that Goldacre is "at his best in methodically dissecting poor clinical trials. ... He is less strong in explaining the complex background reality, such as the general constraints and individual slips of regulators and pharma companies' employees." Jack also argued that the book failed to reflect how many lives have been improved by the current system, for example with new treatments for HIV, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Max Pemberton, a psychiatrist, wrote in the Daily Telegraph that "this is a book to make you enraged ... because it's about how big business puts profits over patient welfare, allows people to die because they don't want to disclose damning research evidence, and the tricks they play to make sure doctors do not have all the evidence when it comes to appraising whether a drug really works or not." The Association of


id: the-beauty-of-fractals-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beauty_of_Fractals-0.md
category: reference
title: The Beauty of Fractals
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beauty_of_Fractals
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:13.365504+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-beauty-of-fractals-20260505-0
summary:
The Beauty of Fractals is a 1986 book by Heinz-Otto Peitgen and Peter Richter which publicises the fields of complex dynamics, chaos theory and the concept of fractals. It is lavishly illustrated and as a mathematics book became an unusual success. The book includes a total of 184 illustrations, including 88 full-colour pictures of Julia sets. Although the format suggests a coffee table book, the discussion of the background of the presented images addresses some sophisticated mathematics which would not be found in popular science books. In 1987 the book won an Award for distinguished technical communication. == Summary == The book starts with a general introduction to Complex Dynamics, Chaos and fractals. In particular the Feigenbaum scenario and the relation to Julia sets and the Mandelbrot set is discussed. The following special sections provide in depth detail for the shown images: Verhulst Dynamics, Julia Sets and Their Computergraphical Generation, Sullivan's Classification of Critical Points, The Mandelbrot Set, External Angles and Hubbard Trees, Newton's Method for Complex Polynomials: Cayley's Problem, Newtons's Method for Real Equations, A Discrete Volterra-Lotka System, Yang-Lee Zeros, Renormalization (Magnetism and Complex Boundaries). The book also includes invited Contributions by Benoît Mandelbrot, Adrien Douady, Gert Eilenberger and


id: bending-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Bending Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:14.514474+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bending-science-20260505-0
summary:
Bending Science: How special interests corrupt public health research is a 2008 book by Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner, published by Harvard University Press. Bending Science explores the ways that science is manipulated in the process of making public policy and the law. It has been called a "fascinating and troubling investigation." The authors present a collection of case studies, undertaken largely by industry and designed to distort the scientific process. Thomas McGarity and Wendy Wagner are both University of Texas law professors. == See also == List of books about the politics of science == References ==


id: beyond-bias-and-barriers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Bias_and_Barriers-0.md
category: reference
title: Beyond Bias and Barriers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Bias_and_Barriers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:18.489740+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: beyond-bias-and-barriers-20260505-0
summary:
Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering (ISBN 0309100429) is a major report about the status of women in science from the United States National Academy of Sciences. Published in 2006, the report closely examines the data, proposed explanations, and possible responses to the relative dearth of women in science and engineering higher education in the United States. == History == The report was written by the "Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering", a panel at the National Academy of Sciences. The committee was chaired by Donna Shalala, and included college presidents, provosts, professors, scientists, and policy analysts. Committee members included: Alice M. Agogino, Lotte Bailyn, Robert J. Birgeneau, Ana Mari Cauce, Catherine D. DeAngelis, Denice Denton (who committed suicide before the release of the report), Barbara Grosz, Jo Handeslman, Nan Keohane, Shirley Malcom, Geraldine Richmond, Alice M. Rivlin, Ruth Simmons, Elizabeth Spelke, Joan Steitz, Elaine Weyuker, and Maria T. Zuber. As is typical with NAS reports, after the Committee drafted the report, it underwent a peer review process within the NAS, in this case reviewed by another Committee of nineteen members. == Conclusions == The report


id: the-big-splash-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Splash_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: The Big Splash (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Splash_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:19.604305+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-big-splash-book-20260505-0
summary:
The Big Splash: A Scientific Discovery That Revolutionizes the Way We View the Origin of Life, the Water We Drink, the Death of the Dinosaurs, the Creation of the Oceans, the Nature of the Cosmos, and the Very Future of the Earth Itself is a 1990 book written by Louis A. Frank with Patrick Huyghe. In the book, Frank claims to have found scientific evidence that every year, millions of small comets (made of ice and water) strike the Earth's atmosphere, and that these comets created Earth's lakes, rivers and oceans. While many scientists disputed Frank's hypothesis, he continued to argue that there are tests which can be performed which would either rule it out or confirm it. == Authors == Louis A. Frank was a Carver/James A. Van Allen Professor of Physics at the University of Iowa, and principal investigator for the auroral imaging instruments for NASA's Dynamics Explorer mission. Patrick Huyghe is a science writer. == References == == External links == Book Review: Overbye, Dennis (November 11, 1990). "IN SHORT: NONFICTION - THE BIG SPLASH: ..." The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-28. Excerpt: "The Original Discovery". Small Comets. University of Iowa. Retrieved 2007-07-28.


id: the-billion-dollar-molecule-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billion-Dollar_Molecule-0.md
category: reference
title: The Billion-Dollar Molecule
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billion-Dollar_Molecule
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:20.809877+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-billion-dollar-molecule-20260505-0
summary:
The Billion-Dollar Molecule is a book by journalist Barry Werth about the founding and early research efforts of the American biotechnology company Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which was founded in 1989 by Joshua Boger and was among the first biotechnology companies to adopt an explicit strategy of rational drug design as opposed to techniques based on combinatorial chemistry. This book is notable as an inside look at a biotechnology company, and the stresses and marketing pressures on funding research into drug design. This book is a mixture of finance and technology. In February, 2014, Barry Werth published a follow-on book, The Antidote, that looks at Vertex 20 years later after his original effort. == References ==


id: binas-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binas_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Binas (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binas_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:21.945407+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: binas-book-20260505-0
summary:
The Binas (Often written as BiNaS or BINAS) is a Dutch science reference work (a handbook) for the higher levels of secondary school, consisting largely of tables and formulas. The name stands for biologie, natuurkunde, scheikunde (biology, physics, chemistry). It is compiled by NVON (Dutch Association for Education in the Natural Sciences) and has been published by Noordhoff Uitgevers since it became the standard reference work allowed at the central examinations in 1975. An English version of the Binas is also available. == Contents == The Binas is divided into five chapters: general, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology. Each chapter consists of multiple tables, each with specific information. These tables can be short or can span up to a few pages. To find information, students can use the alphabetical register in the back. The Binas does not make use of page numbers, but instead the register refers you to a table number. General. This chapter contains an extensive overview of units of measurement and quantities in the International System of units. This chapter continues in the back of the Binas with safety and environment. Physics. The contents of this chapter include physical constants, physical properties of materials, and isotopes. Additionally,


id: biochemical-predestination-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochemical_Predestination-0.md
category: reference
title: Biochemical Predestination
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochemical_Predestination
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:23.099297+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: biochemical-predestination-20260505-0
summary:
Biochemical Predestination is a 1969 book by Dean H. Kenyon and Gary Steinman which argued in support of biochemical evolution. In the book, Kenyon and Steinman conclude that "Life might have been biochemically predestined by the properties of attraction that exist between its chemical parts, especially between amino acids in proteins." They argued that life originated with the chemical properties of amino acids causing them to be attracted to each other, forming long protein chains, most important in every living cell. Kenyon believed that proteins were directly formed by attraction between amino acids without DNA coding, and that these were derivatives from non-living raw chemicals in a conducive environment. In 1976 Kenyon was persuaded by the young Earth creationist arguments of A. E. Wilder-Smith. In the 1982 foreword he wrote to What Is Creation Science? by Henry M. Morris and Gary Parker, Kenyon said that he no longer accepted the pro-evolution arguments in Biochemical Predestination. At the Edwards v. Aguillard trial he provided an affidavit in support of creation science and noted the book as one of his publications. In 1989 Kenyon became a co-author of Of Pandas and People which rebranded creation science as intelligent design. == Analysis ==


id: biological-physics-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Physics-0.md
category: reference
title: Biological Physics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Physics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:24.208368+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: biological-physics-20260505-0
summary:
Biological Physics: Energy, Information, Life: With new art by David Goodsell is a book by Philip Nelson, illustrated by David Goodsell. The fifth printing was published by W. H. Freeman in late 2013. It is a work on biology with an emphasis on the application of physical principles. == References == Altman, Russ B. (June 1, 2005), "Teaching Biology and Physics Together (Book Review: Biological Physics: Energy, Information, Life)", Biomedical Computation Review: 30. Dobson, Christopher M. (November 25, 2004), "Crossing the boundary (Review of Biological Physics)", Nature, 432 (7016): 444–445, Bibcode:2004Natur.432..444D, doi:10.1038/432444a. Doniach, Sebastian (November 2004), "Biological Physics: Energy, Information, Life", Books, Physics Today, 57 (11): 63–64, Bibcode:2004PhT....57k..63N, doi:10.1063/1.1839381 Hagen, Stephen J. (2004), "Post-Use Review. Biological Physics: Energy, Information, Life", American Journal of Physics, 72 (10): 1359, Bibcode:2004AmJPh..72.1359N, doi:10.1119/1.1783904.


id: book-of-vermilion-fish-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Vermilion_Fish-0.md
category: reference
title: Book of Vermilion Fish
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Vermilion_Fish
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:25.338101+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: book-of-vermilion-fish-20260505-0
summary:
Book of Vermilion Fish (simplified Chinese: 朱砂鱼谱; traditional Chinese: 硃砂魚譜; pinyin: Zhūshāyú pǔ; Wade–Giles: Chu-sha-yü-p'u) is the first monograph on goldfish in the world, written by Chinese writer Zhang Qiande (simplified Chinese: 张谦德; traditional Chinese: 張謙德; pinyin: Zhāng Qiāndé; Wade–Giles: Chang Ch'ien-te) (1577－1643) in 1596 during the Ming dynasty. == See also == Fishkeeping == References == A. C. Moule: A Version of the Book of Vermilion Fish. In T'oung Pao. Second Series, Vol. 39, Livr. 1/3 (1950), pp. 1–82.


id: a-briefer-history-of-time-schulman-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Briefer_History_of_Time_(Schulman_book)-0.md
category: reference
title: A Briefer History of Time (Schulman book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Briefer_History_of_Time_(Schulman_book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:26.564518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-briefer-history-of-time-schulman-book-20260505-0
summary:
A Briefer History of Time is a science humor book by American astronomer Eric Schulman. In it, Schulman presents humorous summaries of what he claims are the fifty-three most important events since the beginning of time. The title and cover are a parody of Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time. Coincidentally, Hawking later wrote a "sequel" entitled A Briefer History of Time. Hawking's publisher Bantam Books was aware that the title had already been used in a popular science book, but proceeded anyway, stating, "The other book was published six years ago, and Professor Hawking is an international figure." In 2004, the author released the book under a creative commons license, CC BY-NC-ND 1.0, as a free download on his website. == Description == Schulman's book is intended to be both humorous and educational. It explores why, even though the Universe is expanding, finding a parking space does not get any easier. Furthermore, the book contains a pulp version of the origin of life ("It was a dark and stormy night. In the shallow tide pool, a nucleic acid base collided with a sugar molecule. An amino acid sank beneath the murky depths . . . ."). ==


id: broca-s-brain-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca's_Brain-0.md
category: reference
title: Broca's Brain
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca's_Brain
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:27.721378+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: broca-s-brain-20260505-0
summary:
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science is a 1979 book by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan. Its chapters were originally articles published between 1974 and 1979 in various magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Physics Today, Playboy, and Scientific American. In the introduction, Sagan wrote: As long as there have been human beings, we have posed the deep and fundamental questions. ... If we do not destroy ourselves, most of us will be around for the answers. ... By far the most exciting, satisfying and exhilarating time to be alive is the time in which we pass from ignorance to knowledge on these fundamental issues. == Title == The title essay is named in honor of the French physician, anatomist and anthropologist Paul Broca (1824–1880). He is best known for his discovery that different functions are assigned to different parts of the brain. He believed that by studying the brains of cadavers and correlating the known experiences of the former owners of the organs, human behavior could eventually be discovered and understood. To that end, he saved hundreds of human brains in jars of formalin; among the collection is his own brain. When Sagan finds it in


id: bully-for-brontosaurus-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_for_Brontosaurus-0.md
category: reference
title: Bully for Brontosaurus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_for_Brontosaurus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:29.999030+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bully-for-brontosaurus-20260505-0
summary:
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991) is the fifth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "This View of Life" in Natural History magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, and probabilities. The title essay, "Bully for Brontosaurus", discusses the theory and history of taxonomy by examining the debate over whether Brontosaurus should be labelled Apatosaurus. In "Justice Scalia's Misunderstanding", Gould dissects and decisively rejects Antonin Scalia's dissent in the United States Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard that overturned the last creationist statute in the country. Gould claimed his favourite essay to be "In a Jumbled Drawer" which discusses the debate between Nathaniel Shaler and William James over whether the improbability of our having evolved necessitates divine intervention (Gould, like James, argues no); the essay includes a letter from former President Jimmy Carter as a postscript, which discusses the issue. The essay "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples" dealt with the issue of adaptive arguments. It derives from some work by Elisabeth Lloyd, whose subsequent 2005 book was dedicated to


id: the-butchering-art-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butchering_Art-0.md
category: reference
title: The Butchering Art
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butchering_Art
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:34.228901+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-butchering-art-20260505-0
summary:
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine is a 2017 historical nonfiction book by Lindsey Fitzharris that discusses the evolution of Victorian-era medicine between the 1840s and 1870s, along with how surgeon Joseph Lister revolutionized the practice of surgery to reduce the extremely high death rates of the time period. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 17, 2017, the book includes graphic descriptions of operating theaters and the unclean conditions of hospitals and other facilities at the time. The book was given the 2018 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and was shortlisted for both the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize and the 2018 Wolfson History Prize. == Content == The book is split into a prologue, eleven chapters, and an epilogue. The prologue discusses a general overview of the time period as an "age of agony" that was nearing its end thanks to the emergence of Joseph Lister. Each subsequent chapter covers an ongoing history of Lister's life from childhood onward, with vignettes interspersed with other events and accounts of the medical profession during the time period. The coverage of Lister's life is largely based on Fitzharris' use of his


id: the-canon-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canon_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: The Canon (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canon_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:35.370771+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-canon-book-20260505-0
summary:
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science is a book written by American science author Natalie Angier. == Overview == The Canon presents a summary of some of the different areas of science, as well as extensive descriptions of, and interviews with, contemporary scientists who work in these fields. Angier's tenet is that an understanding of the basics of major areas of science can assist with providing a means by which to understand current scientific issues, and that this process should be fun. In her Introduction, Angier writes: Of course you should know about science, for the same reason Dr. Seuss counsels his readers to sing with a Ying or play Ring the Gack: These things are fun, and fun is good. Angier included quotes from the scientists she interviewed throughout her descriptions of different scientific topics in an attempt to show how scientists experience and think about their work, and why they do it. == Scientists interviewed == To obtain material for The Canon, Angier interviewed a number of scientists, professors, and other science professionals, and incorporated their stories and quotes into her work. She asked them questions such as, "What does it mean to


id: the-collapse-of-chaos-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collapse_of_Chaos-0.md
category: reference
title: The Collapse of Chaos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collapse_of_Chaos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:36.474612+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-collapse-of-chaos-20260505-0
summary:
The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World (1994) is a book about complexity theory and the nature of scientific explanation written by biologist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart. In this book Cohen and Stewart give their ideas on chaos theory, particularly on how the simple leads to the complex, and conversely, how the complex leads to the simple, and argue for a need for contextual explanation in science as a complement to reduction. This book dovetails with other books written by the Cohen-Stewart team, particularly Figments of Reality. As with other Cohen-Stewart books, topics are illustrated with humorous science fiction snippets dealing with a fictional alien intelligence, the Zarathustrians, whom Cohen and Stewart use as metaphors of the human mind itself. == Reception == Next Generation commented, "Although the book assumes you have zero knowledge of science (and thus is a little patronizing in the early chapters), it presents the concepts of Complexity Theory as well as anything we've seen." === Additional reviews === Casti, John L. (21 July 1994). "Why is anything ever simple?" (PDF). Nature. 370 (6486): 189. Bibcode:1994Natur.370..189C. doi:10.1038/370189a0. S2CID 4317485. Regis, Ed (12 June 1994). "The World Made Easy". The New York


id: the-computational-brain-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computational_Brain-0.md
category: reference
title: The Computational Brain
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computational_Brain
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:37.610450+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-computational-brain-20260505-0
summary:
The Computational Brain is a book by Patricia Churchland and Terrence J. Sejnowski and published in 1992 by The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, ISBN 0-262-03188-4. It has cover blurbs by Karl Pribram, Francis Crick, and Carver Mead. == References ==


id: consilience-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Consilience (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:38.789540+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: consilience-book-20260505-0
summary:
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge is a 1998 book by the biologist E. O. Wilson, in which the author discusses methods that have been used to unite the sciences and might in the future unite them with the humanities. Wilson uses the term consilience to describe the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor. == Definition of consilience == This book defines consilience as "Literally a 'jumping together' of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation." The word is borrowed from Whewell's phrase the consilience of inductions in his book Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Whewell posited that this consilience of inductions occurs when an induction obtained from one class of facts coincides with an induction obtained from a different class. In this way a consilience is a test of the truth of a theory. == Examples of consilience discussed by Wilson == === Chapter 1 The Ionian enchantment === The New Synthesis of Darwin's theory of evolution with genetics is an example of unification. The conviction that the world has a unified order and can be explained by natural laws, was dubbed by Gerald Holton


id: consilience-book-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book)-1.md
category: reference
title: Consilience (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:38.789540+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: consilience-book-20260505-0
summary:
=== Chapter 7 From genes to culture === The relationship between genes and culture. Wilson posits that the basic element of culture is the meme. When a meme exists in a brain it has the form of a neuronal network that allows the meme to function within semantic memory. The link from genes to culture is that our genes shape our brains (in cooperation with the environment) and our brains allow us to work with memes as the basic units of culture. === Chapter 8 - 12 === The remaining chapters are titled Chapter 8 The fitness of human nature, Chapter 9 The social sciences, Chapter 10 The arts and their interpretation, Chapter 11 Ethics and religion, Chapter 12 To what end? == See also == Wendell Berry wrote a comprehensive critique of Consilience in his essay Life is a Miracle in his book with the same title. Philosophy of science The Two Cultures by C. P. Snow The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox by Stephen Jay Gould == External links == Vogel Carey, Toni (2013). "Consilience. Toni Vogel Carey on discovering interconnections". philosophynow.org. Philosophy now. A magazine of ideas, issue 95. Retrieved 25 January 2022. Consilience' is


id: cosmic-jackpot-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Jackpot-0.md
category: reference
title: Cosmic Jackpot
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Jackpot
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:40.073532+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cosmic-jackpot-20260505-0
summary:
Cosmic Jackpot, also published under the title The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?, is a 2007 non-fiction book by physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, describing the idea of a fine-tuned universe. == The Enigma == In Cosmic Jackpot, Davies argues that certain universal fundamental physical constants are precisely adjusted to make life in the Universe possible: that we have, in a sense, won a "cosmic jackpot," and that conditions are "just right" for life, as in The Story of the Three Bears. As Davies writes elsewhere, "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is in several respects 'fine-tuned' for life." After explaining this enigma, Davies discusses possible solutions, such as the anthropic principle, the idea of a multiverse which contains many different universes (including our "just right" one), and the idea of intelligent design. == The Multiverse == Davies also discusses a number of other ideas connected with the "multiverse." Much like a pencil falling to the ground from its tip in a trade off of symmetry for stability, Davies writes that the Big Bang could have established a complex but stable universe (or multiverse) from symmetry breaking as the


id: cosmos-humboldt-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Cosmos (Humboldt book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:41.289497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cosmos-humboldt-book-20260505-0
summary:
Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (in German Kosmos – Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung) is an influential treatise on science and nature written by the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It began as a lecture series delivered by Humboldt at the University of Berlin, and was published in five volumes between 1845 and 1862 (the fifth was posthumous and completed based on Humboldt's notes). In the first volume, Humboldt paints a general "portrait of nature", describing the physical nature of outer space and the Earth. In the second volume he describes the history of science. Widely read by academics and laymen, Cosmos applies the ancient Greek view of the orderliness of the cosmos (the harmony of the universe) to the Earth, suggesting that universal laws apply as well to the apparent chaos of the terrestrial world and that contemplation of nature can yield an awareness of its wholeness and coherence. Humboldt embraced the subjectivity of the observer and "thus ran exactly counter to the developing ideology of science, the objectivity which sought to purify science by removing subjectivity altogether". Cosmos was influenced by Humboldt's travels and studies, but mainly by his journey throughout the


id: cosmos-humboldt-book-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)-1.md
category: reference
title: Cosmos (Humboldt book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:41.289497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cosmos-humboldt-book-20260505-0
summary:
== Publication == In 1828 after the Berlin lectures, Humboldt began formulating his vision in writing. His factual text, heavily loaded with footnotes and references, was sent in proof sheets to all the various specialists for comments and corrections before publication. In this way, he aimed to ensure that what he wrote was both accurate and up-to-date. He continually looked to his friend and literary advisor Varnhagen von Ense for advice in the matter of his style of writing. In total Cosmos took twenty-five years to write. Humboldt felt as if publishing Cosmos was a race against death. The first volume was published in 1845 when he was seventy-six, the second when he was seventy-eight, the third when he was eighty-one, and the fourth when he was eighty-nine. The fifth volume, however, was only half-written when Humboldt died in 1859 and had to be completed from his notes and provided with an index over a thousand pages long. == Content == Humboldt viewed the world as what the ancient Greeks called a kosmos – “a beautifully ordered and harmonious system” – and coined the modern word “cosmos” to use as the title of his final work. This title allowed him


id: cosmos-humboldt-book-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)-2.md
category: reference
title: Cosmos (Humboldt book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:41.289497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cosmos-humboldt-book-20260505-0
summary:
Humboldt's Cosmos had a significant impact on scientific progress, as well as various scientists and authors throughout Europe and America. Humboldt's work gave a strong impetus to scientific exploration throughout the nineteenth century, inspiring many, including Charles Darwin, who brought some of Humboldt's earlier writings with him on his voyage as the naturalist aboard the Beagle in the 1830s. Darwin called Humboldt "the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived." Cosmos influenced several American writers and artists, including Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederic Edwin Church. Emerson read Humboldt's work throughout his life, and for him, Cosmos capped Humboldt's role as a scientific revolutionary. Edgar Allan Poe was also an admirer of Humboldt, even dedicating his last major work, Eureka: A Prose Poem, to Humboldt. Humboldt's attempt to unify the sciences was a major inspiration for Poe's work. Walt Whitman was said to have kept a copy of Cosmos on his desk for inspiration as he wrote Leaves of Grass, and Henry David Thoreau's Walden, like Eureka, was a response to Humboldt's ideas. Following the itinerary of Humboldt's expeditions to Colombia and Ecuador, Church found subject matter for some of his most monumental landscape paintings, including The


id: current-protocols-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_Protocols-0.md
category: reference
title: Current Protocols
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_Protocols
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:42.483677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: current-protocols-20260505-0
summary:
Current Protocols is a series of laboratory manuals for life scientists. The first title, Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, was established in 1987 by the founding editors Frederick M. Ausubel, Roger Brent, Robert Kingston, David Moore, Jon Seidman, Kevin Struhl, and John A. Smith of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Molecular Biology and the Harvard Medical School Departments of Genetics and Biological Chemistry, and Sarah Greene of Greene Publishing Associates The Current Protocols series entered into a partnership with Wiley-Interscience, John Wiley and Sons, was acquired by Wiley in 1995, and continued to introduce additional titles. Scientists contribute methods that are peer-reviewed by one of 18 editorial boards. The core content of each title is updated quarterly, and new material is added. In 2009, the Current Protocols website was launched, with online versions of all of the texts, research tools, video protocols, and a blog. Several Current Protocols titles are indexed in MEDLINE and searchable by PubMed: CP Molecular Biology, CP Immunology, CP Cell Biology, CP Protein Science, CP Microbiology. == Titles == As of April 2023 the series comprised: == References == == External links == Official website


id: darwin-and-his-great-discovery-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_and_His_Great_Discovery-0.md
category: reference
title: Darwin and His Great Discovery
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_and_His_Great_Discovery
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:43.700836+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: darwin-and-his-great-discovery-20260505-0
summary:
Darwin and His Great Discovery is a science book for young adults by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, first published by Macmillan in 1972. == Content == The work is an examination of naturalist Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution he proposed and marshaled evidence for in The Origin of Species. A brief account of his visit to the Galápagos Islands brings up the issue of human origins, leading into a discussion of early theories on the formation and age of the Earth and evolution. A biographical sketch of Darwin follows, covering his youth, his naturalistic studies on the voyage of the Beagle and subsequent life, focusing on his scientific researches and writings. The history of the theory of human evolution as currently understood is then presented, with sections on the work of Mendel, the development of the science of genetics, and the Scopes Trial. It includes a selected bibliography and index. == Reception == Isadora Kunitz, writing in the Library Journal, found the work a "well-written account of Charles Darwin's life and work," with "[d]etails about his personal life add[ing] to the interest of the book." She judged it "an excellent supplementary title for


id: the-day-of-the-dinosaur-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dinosaur-0.md
category: reference
title: The Day of the Dinosaur
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dinosaur
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:44.863573+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-day-of-the-dinosaur-20260505-0
summary:
The Day of the Dinosaur is a science book by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, illustrated with plates. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1968, and in paperback by Curtis Books in 1970 or 1971. A second hardcover edition was issued by Bonanza Books in 1985. The first chapter was reprinted as "One Day in the Cretaceous" in the de Camps's collection Footprints on Sand (Advent, 1981). == Summary == As stated on the dust cover of the Doubleday edition, the work is a survey of "the exciting story of the lost world of the great reptiles and of the fossil hunters who discovered them millions of years later." It argues, among other things, that the theory of evolution took hold after Darwin because of interest spurred by recently popularized dinosaur remains, corresponding to legends of dragons. == Contents == The Day of the Dinosaur The Finding of the Dragons Out of the Sea Life Invades the Land The Rise of the Dinosaurs The Reptilian Middle Age Reptiles of Sea and Air The Doom of the Dragons The Great Fossil Feud Diggers and Dinosaurs The Heritage of the Dragons Dinosaurs in the World


id: decoding-reality-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoding_Reality-0.md
category: reference
title: Decoding Reality
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoding_Reality
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:48.990011+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: decoding-reality-20260505-0
summary:
Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information is a popular science book by Vlatko Vedral published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Vedral examines information theory and proposes information as the most fundamental building block of reality. He argues what a useful framework this is for viewing all natural and physical phenomena. In building out this framework the books touches upon the origin of information, the idea of entropy, the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics, the replication of DNA, development of social networks, quantum behaviour at the micro and macro level, and the very role of indeterminism in the universe. The book finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The ideas address concepts related to the nature of particles, time, determinism, and of reality itself. == Contents == === "Creation Ex Nihilo: Something from Nothing" === Vedral believes in the principle that information is physical. Creation ex nihilo comes from Catholic dogma, the idea being that God created the universe out of nothing. Vedral says that invoking a supernatural being as an explanation for creation does not explain reality because the supernatural being would have to


id: decoding-reality-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoding_Reality-1.md
category: reference
title: Decoding Reality
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoding_Reality
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:48.990011+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: decoding-reality-20260505-0
summary:
=== "Surfing the Waves: Hyper-Fast Computers" === Quantum computers offer a search advantage over classical computers by searching many database elements at once as a result of quantum superpositions. A sufficiently advanced quantum computer would break current encryption methods by factorizing large numbers several orders of magnitude faster than any existing classical computer. Any computable problem may be expressed as a general quantum search algorithm although classical computers may have an advantage over quantum search when using more efficient tailored classical algorithms. The issue with quantum computers is that a measurement must be made to determine if the problem is solved which collapses the superposition. Vedral points out that unintentional interaction with the environment can be mitigated with redundancy, and this would be necessary if we were to scale up current quantum computers to achieve greater utility, i.e. to utilize 10 qubits have a 100 atom quantum system so that if one atom decoheres a consensus will still be held by the other 9 for the state of the same qubit. === "Children of the Aimless Chance: Randomness versus Determinism" === Randomness is key to generating new sources of surprise in a reality. Compression of these new sources to discard


id: the-demon-haunted-world-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World-0.md
category: reference
title: The Demon-Haunted World
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:50.093542+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-demon-haunted-world-20260505-0
summary:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1995 book by the astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan. (Four of the 25 chapters were written with Ann Druyan.) In it, Sagan aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking. He explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking and should stand up to rigorous questioning. == Themes == Sagan explains that science is not just a body of knowledge, but is a way of thinking. Sagan shows how scientific thinking is both imaginative and disciplined, bringing humans to an understanding of how the universe is, rather than how they wish to perceive it. He says that science works much better than any other system because it has a "built-in error-correcting machine". Superstition and pseudoscience get in the way of the ability of many laypersons to appreciate the beauty and benefits of science. Skeptical thinking allows people to construct, understand, reason, and recognize valid and invalid arguments.


id: the-demon-haunted-world-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World-1.md
category: reference
title: The Demon-Haunted World
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:50.093542+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-demon-haunted-world-20260505-0
summary:
Ad hominem. An arguer attacks the opposing arguer and not the actual argument. Argument from authority. Someone expects another to immediately believe that a person of authority or higher knowledge is correct. Argument from adverse consequences. Someone says that something must be done a certain way or else there will be adverse consequences. Appeal to ignorance. One argues a claim in that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. Special pleading. An arguer responds to a deeply complex or rhetorical question or statement by, usually, saying "oh you don't understand how so and so works." Begging the question. An arguer assumes the answer and makes a claim such as, this happened because of that, or, this needs to happen in order for that to happen. Observational selection. Someone talks about how great something is by explaining all of the positive aspects of it while purposely not mentioning any of the negative aspects. Statistics of small numbers. Someone argues something by giving the statistics in small numbers, which isn't very reliable. Misunderstanding of the nature of statistics. Someone misinterprets statistics given to them. Fallacy of inconsistency. An arguer is very inconsistent in their claims. Non sequitur.


id: the-demon-haunted-world-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World-2.md
category: reference
title: The Demon-Haunted World
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:50.093542+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-demon-haunted-world-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception and legacy == The book was a New York Times bestseller. The contemporary skeptical movement considers it an important book. The Demon-Haunted World has been criticized (in Smithsonian magazine and The New York Times) for not incorporating certain information relevant to the items he discusses in his book. The Smithsonian article by Paul Trachtman argues that Sagan relates issues of government choices and declining scientific thinking skills to pseudoscience topics like astrology and faith healing but ignores other issues that may be causing governmental bodies and other individuals to turn away from science. One such issue is consequences of pouring governmental money into cancer research. Trachtman writes, "it is not because of such beliefs that Congress now approaches the NIH budget with an ax. In fact, billions of dollars spent on years of research in the war on cancer have spawned growing professional bureaucracies and diminishing medical benefits." Trachtman argues that Sagan does not include problems like growing bureaucracies and diminishing medical benefits as reasons for a lack of scientific attention. In his review for The New York Times, James Gorman also argues for an unaddressed issue in Sagan's book, saying Sagan fails to emphasize the idea that


id: the-department-of-mad-scientists-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Department_of_Mad_Scientists-0.md
category: reference
title: The Department of Mad Scientists
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Department_of_Mad_Scientists
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:51.406900+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-department-of-mad-scientists-20260505-0
summary:
The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs, is a book by Michael Belfiore about the history and origins of DARPA. Belfiore describes DARPA's creation as the agency ARPA in Department of Defense and some of its notable contributions to artificial limbs, the Internet, space exploration and robotic automobiles. == Reception == In his review of the book, Tom Simonite says "Belfiore does a good job of exploring the sunny side of the moon that is DARPA", but also notes that the author had no access to DARPA's classified research, which constitutes approximately half of all work. Robin Tatu also observes Belfiore's limited access, but calls the book a "an engaging inquiry into the workings of the agency, its past contributions, and its concerns for future technology." David Pitt describes the book as "a capsule history" that, "for some readers [..] serves as a tantalizing introduction to subject that bears deeper exploration." == Notes == == References == == External links == Official website After Words interview with Belfiore on The Department of Mad Scientists, August 21, 2010


id: the-design-of-experiments-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Experiments-0.md
category: reference
title: The Design of Experiments
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Experiments
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:52.574025+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-design-of-experiments-20260505-0
summary:
The Design of Experiments is a 1935 book by the English statistician, Ronald Fisher, on experimental design, considered to be a foundational work in modern statistics and experimental methodology. The book introduced concepts such as randomization, replication, blocking, and contains Fisher’s influential discussion of the null hypothesis, illustrated in the context of the Lady tasting tea experiment. The book has had a lasting impact on the development of statistical science, shaping diverse fields such as agriculture, psychology, and medical research. It remains an important reference in the history of applied statistics and the philosophy of scientific testing. == Background == At the time of publication, Fisher was a statistician at Rothamsted Research (formally known as Rothamsted Experimental Station) where he developed statistical methods to analyze agricultural data. His broader career included fundamental contributions to statistics, genetics, and evolutionary biology. The Design of Experiments built on Fisher’s earlier work, including his book Statistical Methods for Research Workers (1925), and laid the groundwork for the practical application of statistical tests in experimental science. Much of Fisher’s approach grew out of earlier studies at Rothamsted, particularly a 1923 paper with Winifred Mackenzie on crop variation. In this work, Fisher tied the validity of


id: dinosaur-in-a-haystack-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_in_a_Haystack-0.md
category: reference
title: Dinosaur in a Haystack
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_in_a_Haystack
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:54.054353+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dinosaur-in-a-haystack-20260505-0
summary:
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995) is the seventh volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. It collects essays culled from Gould's monthly column "The View of Life" published in Natural History magazine, which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution, science biography, probabilities, and strange oddities found in nature. His essay "Poe's Greatest Hit" analyzes the controversial conchology textbook The Conchologist's First Book (1839), edited by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's volume on natural history sold out within two months, and was his only book republished during his lifetime. Essay "Dinomania" is a review of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster film of the same name. == Reception == The book received favorable reviews in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times. == References == == External links == Up Against the Wall - by Steve Jones Essay Summaries - by Lawrence N. Goeller Dinosaur in a Haystack Review - by Danny Yee Book review by Kathryn Denning Two Cultures - by Howard A. Doughty, Innovation Journal Dinosaur in a Haystack Hooking Leviathan by Its Past Dinomania Cordelia's Dilemma Of Tongue Worms, Velvet Worms, and Water


id: distillation-design-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation_Design-0.md
category: reference
title: Distillation Design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation_Design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:55.230278+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: distillation-design-20260505-0
summary:
Distillation Design is a book which provides complete coverage of the design of industrial distillation columns for the petroleum refining, chemical and petrochemical plants, natural gas processing, pharmaceutical, food and alcohol distilling industries. It has been a classical chemical engineering textbook since it was first published in February 1992. The subjects covered in the book include: Vapor–liquid equilibrium(VLE): Vapor–liquid K values, relative volatilities, ideal and non-ideal systems, phase diagrams, calculating bubble points and dew points Key fractional distillation concepts: theoretical stages, x-y diagrams, multicomponent distillation, column composition and temperature profiles Process design and optimization: minimum reflux and minimum stages, optimum reflux, short-cut methods, feed entry location Rigorous calculation methods: Bubble point method, sum rates method, numerical methods (Newton–Raphson technique), inside out method, relaxation method, other methods Batch distillation: Simple distillation, constant reflux, varying reflux, time and boilup requirements Tray design and tray efficiency: tray types, tray capacities, tray hydraulic parameters, tray sizing and determination of column diameter, point and tray efficiencies, tray efficiency prediction and scaleup Packing design and packing efficiency: packing types, packing hydraulics and capacities, determination of packing efficiency by transfer unit method and by HETP method, packed column sizing == See also == Chemical engineer – Professional


id: does-god-play-dice-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Does_God_Play_Dice-0.md
category: reference
title: Does God Play Dice?
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Does_God_Play_Dice?
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:56.337782+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: does-god-play-dice-20260505-0
summary:
Does God Play Dice: The New Mathematics of Chaos is a non-fiction book about chaos theory written by British mathematician Ian Stewart. The book was initially published by Blackwell Publishing in 1989. == Summary == In this book, Stewart explains chaos theory to an audience presumably unfamiliar with it. As the book progresses the writing changes from simple explanations of chaos theory to in-depth, rigorous mathematical study. Stewart covers mathematical concepts such as differential equations, resonance, nonlinear dynamics, and probability. The book is illustrated with diagrams and graphs of mathematical concepts and equations when applicable. The back of the book, and a summary of its content, reads, "The science of chaos is forcing scientists to rethink Einstein's fundamental assumptions regarding the way the universe behaves. Chaos theory has already shown that simple systems, obeying precise laws, can nevertheless act in a random manner. Perhaps God plays dice within a cosmic game of complete law and order. Does God Play Dice? reveals a strange universe in which nothing may be as it seems. Familiar geometric shapes such as circles and ellipses give way to infinitely complex structures known as fractals, the fluttering of a butterfly's wings can change the weather, and


id: don-t-be-such-a-scientist-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Be_Such_a_Scientist-0.md
category: reference
title: Don't Be Such a Scientist
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Be_Such_a_Scientist
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:57.503156+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: don-t-be-such-a-scientist-20260505-0
summary:
Don't Be Such A Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style is a book published by Island Press written by scientist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olson which arises from a talk of the same title Olson gave to science audiences at universities and museums for five years preceding its publication. The focus of the book is the challenge scientists face in communicating to the general public in an age of information-overload. Olson draws on his two careers, first as a marine biologist who achieved a tenured professorship, then his second career which began when he then resigned to attend film school and acting classes, eventually becoming an independent feature filmmaker. Among other topics, the book addresses the role of spontaneity, storytelling, and likeability in the mass communication of science. == Reviews == Science News Discover Magazine NPR == References ==


id: the-dragons-of-eden-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragons_of_Eden-0.md
category: reference
title: The Dragons of Eden
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragons_of_Eden
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:58.604870+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-dragons-of-eden-20260505-0
summary:
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence is a 1977 book by Carl Sagan, in which the author combines the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and computer science to give a perspective on how human intelligence may have evolved. Sagan discusses the search for a quantitative means of measuring intelligence. He argues that the brain to body mass ratio is an extremely good correlative indicator for intelligence, with humans having the highest ratio and dolphins the second highest, though he views the trend as breaking down at smaller scales, with some small animals (ants in particular) placing disproportionately high on the list. Other topics mentioned include the evolution of the brain (with emphasis on the function of the neocortex in humans), the evolutionary purpose of sleep and dreams, demonstration of sign language abilities by chimps and the purpose of mankind's innate fears and myths. The title "The Dragons of Eden" is borrowed from the notion that man's early struggle for survival in the face of predators, and in particular a fear of reptiles, may have led to cultural beliefs and myths about dragons. The Dragons of Eden won a Pulitzer Prize. In 2002, John Skoyles


id: dream-pool-essays-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays-0.md
category: reference
title: Dream Pool Essays
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:59.774914+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dream-pool-essays-20260505-0
summary:
The Dream Pool Essays (or Dream Torrent Essays) was an extensive book written by the Chinese polymath and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095), published in 1088 during the Song dynasty (960–1279). Shen compiled this encyclopedic work while living in forced retirement from government office, naming the book after his private estate near modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. The Dream Pool Essays was heavily reorganized in reprint editions by later Chinese authors from the late 11th to 17th centuries. In modern times it has been translated from Chinese into several languages. These include English, German, French, and Japanese translations. The Dream Pool Essays covers a range of topics including discoveries and advancements in traditional Chinese medicine, mathematics, astronomy, science and technology, optics, architecture and civil engineering, metallurgy, and early archaeology. Observations of the natural world included those of wildlife, meteorology, hypotheses advancing early ideas in geomorphology and climate change based on findings of petrification and natural erosion, and strange recorded phenomena such as the description of an unidentified flying object. In addition to establishing the theory of true north in magnetic declination towards the North Pole, Shen was also the first to record the use of a compass for navigation, the first to


id: dream-pool-essays-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays-1.md
category: reference
title: Dream Pool Essays
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:59.774914+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dream-pool-essays-20260505-0
summary:
In recent years [cca. 1080] there was a landslide on the bank of a large river in Yong-ning Guan near Yanzhou. The bank collapsed, opening a space of several dozens of feet, and under the ground a forest of bamboo shoots was thus revealed. It contained several hundred bamboo with their roots and trunks all complete, and all turned to stone...Now bamboos do not grow in Yanzhou. These were several dozens of feet below the present surface of the ground, and we do not know in what dynasty they could possibly have grown. Perhaps in very ancient times the climate was different so that the place was low, damp, gloomy, and suitable for bamboos. On the Jin-hua Shan in Wuzhou there are stone pine-cones, and stones formed from peach kernels, stone bulrush roots, stone fishes, crabs, and so on, but as these are all (modern) native products of that place, people are not very surprised at them. But these petrified bamboos appeared under the ground so deep, though they are not produced in that place today. This is a very strange thing. === Astronomy === When the Director of the Astronomical Observatory asked Shen Kuo if the shapes of the


id: dream-pool-essays-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays-2.md
category: reference
title: Dream Pool Essays
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:59.774914+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dream-pool-essays-20260505-0
summary:
=== Personal beliefs and philosophy === Of Taoism and the inability of empirical science to explain everything in the world, Shen Kuo wrote: Those in the world who speak of the regularities underlying the phenomena, it seems, manage to apprehend their crude traces. But these regularities have their very subtle aspect, which those who rely on mathematical astronomy cannot know of. Still even these are nothing more than traces. As for the spiritual processes described in the [Book of Changes] that "when they are stimulated, penetrate every situation in the realm," mere traces have nothing to do with them. This spiritual state by which foreknowledge is attained can hardly be sought through changes, of which in any case only the cruder sort are attainable. What I have called the subtlest aspect of these traces, those who discuss the celestial bodies attempt to know by depending on mathematical astronomy; but astronomy is nothing more than the outcome of conjecture. === Dissertation on the Timberwork Manual === Below are two passages from Shen's book outlining the basics contained in Yu Hao's Timberwork Manual. Yu Hao was a Chinese architect of the earlier 10th, and Kuo was one to praise his work. In


id: dream-pool-essays-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays-3.md
category: reference
title: Dream Pool Essays
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:59.774914+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dream-pool-essays-20260505-0
summary:
A house belonging to Li Shunju was struck by lightning. Brilliant sparkling light was seen under the eaves. Everyone thought that the hall would be burnt, and those who were inside rushed out. After the thunder had abated, the house was found to be alright, though its walls and the paper on the windows were blackened. On certain wooden shelves, certain lacquered vessels with silver mouths had been struck by the lightning, so that the silver had melted and dropped to the ground, but the lacquer was not even scorched. Also, a valuable sword made of strong steel had been melted to liquid, without the parts of the house nearby being affected. One would have thought that the thatch and wood would have been burnt up first, yet here were metals melted and no injury to thatch and wood. This is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. There are Buddhist books which speak of 'dragon fire' which burns more fiercely when it meets with water instead of being extinguished by water like 'human' fire. Most people can only judge of things by the experiences of ordinary life, but phenomena outside the scope of this are really quite numerous. How insecure


id: dream-pool-essays-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays-4.md
category: reference
title: Dream Pool Essays
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:03:59.774914+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dream-pool-essays-20260505-0
summary:
=== Bibliography === Bowman, John S. (2000). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Chan, Alan Kam-leung and Gregory K. Clancey, Hui-Chieh Loy (2002). Historical Perspectives on East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine. Singapore: Singapore University Press ISBN 9971-69-259-7 Mohn, Peter (2003). Magnetism in the Solid State: An Introduction. New York: Springer-Verlag Inc. ISBN 3-540-43183-7. Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 1, Introductory Orientations. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1: Paper and Printing. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1: Botany. Taipei, Caves Books Ltd. Sivin, Nathan (1995). Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing. Ropp, Paul S. (1990). Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese History. Berkeley: University of California Press.


id: eight-little-piggies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Little_Piggies-0.md
category: reference
title: Eight Little Piggies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Little_Piggies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:03.882652+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eight-little-piggies-20260505-0
summary:
Eight Little Piggies (1993) is the sixth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were selected from his monthly column "The View of Life" in Natural History magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book covers topics that are common to Gould's writing in a discursive manner, including evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities, and common sense. The title essay, "Eight Little Piggies", is a thought piece on the prevalence of five digits on hands and feet throughout the animal kingdom. It also explores concepts such as archetypes and polydactyly via the anatomy of early tetrapods. Other essays discuss themes such as the scale of extinction, vertebrate anatomy, grand patterns of evolution, and human nature. == References == == External links == The Snail Wars - by Derek Bickerton, The New York Times Book review - by Howard A. Doughty, College Quarterly Book review - John Farrell, National Review Book review - Edward Kay, Eye Weekly W. W. Norton promotional page Google Books - contains book excerpts and jacket description


id: einstein-s-unfinished-symphony-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein's_Unfinished_Symphony-0.md
category: reference
title: Einstein's Unfinished Symphony
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein's_Unfinished_Symphony
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:05.114680+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-s-unfinished-symphony-20260505-0
summary:
Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time is a 2000 non-fiction book by Marcia Bartusiak about the preliminary work preceding operational efforts to detect the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. She tells the story of LIGO's two gravitational-wave observatories in Louisiana and Washington State, with some mention of other such observatories in Italy, Germany, Japan, and Australia, and the scientists and scientific considerations involved. Initial LIGO operations between 2002 and 2010 did not detect any gravitational waves. After technical enhancements, gravitational waves were first detected in 2016. After the detection, Bartusiak wrote an updated version entitled Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: The Story of a Gamble, Two Black Holes, and a New Age of Astronomy published in 2017 by Yale University Press. == Reception == For her 2000 book, Bartusiak won the 2001 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award to a Journalist. The route to LIGO was long and checkered; it is beautifully recounted by Marcia Bartusiak in her latest book, Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony. ... She has clearly made a great effort to interview all major players in the field, scan the literature, and capture the relevant science. What results is an easy-to-read and clear


id: the-emperor-s-new-mind-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind-0.md
category: reference
title: The Emperor's New Mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:06.350774+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-emperor-s-new-mind-20260505-0
summary:
The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics is a 1989 book by the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose that posits a quantum mind theory. Penrose argues that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine, which includes a digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function. Most of the book is spent reviewing, for the scientifically-minded lay-reader, a plethora of interrelated subjects such as Newtonian physics, special and general relativity, the philosophy and limitations of mathematics, quantum physics, cosmology, and the nature of time. Penrose intermittently describes how each of these bears on his developing theme: that consciousness is not "algorithmic". Only the later portions of the book address the thesis directly. == Overview == Penrose states that his ideas on the nature of consciousness are speculative, and his thesis is considered erroneous by some experts in the fields of philosophy, computer science, and robotics. The Emperor's New Mind attacks the claims of artificial intelligence using the physics of computing: Penrose notes


id: energy-and-power-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_Power-0.md
category: reference
title: Energy and Power
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_Power
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:07.509850+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: energy-and-power-20260505-0
summary:
Energy and Power is a 1962 science book for children by L. Sprague de Camp, illustrated by Weimer Pursell and Fred Eng, published by Golden Press as part of The Golden Library of Knowledge Series. It has been translated into Portuguese and Spanish. The title blurb summarizes the content as "How man uses animals, wind, water, heat, electricity, chemistry, and atoms to perform work." == Notes ==


id: engineering-and-the-mind-s-eye-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_and_the_Mind's_Eye-0.md
category: reference
title: Engineering and the Mind's Eye
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_and_the_Mind's_Eye
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:08.787864+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: engineering-and-the-mind-s-eye-20260505-0
summary:
Engineering and the Mind's Eye (1992) is a book by Eugene S. Ferguson, an engineer and historian of science and technology. It was published by MIT Press. In it, Ferguson discusses the importance of the mind's eye for the practicing engineer, including spatial visualization and visual thinking. == Preface == A major argument of the book is summarized as follows in the preface: Since World War II, the dominant trend in engineering has been away from knowledge that cannot be expressed as mathematical relationships. The art of engineering has been pushed aside in favor of the "engineering sciences," which are higher in status and easier to teach. The underlying argument of this book is that an engineering education that ignores its rich heritage of nonverbal learning will produce graduates who are dangerously ignorant of the myriad subtle ways in which the real world differs from the mathematical world their professors teach them. == Chapters == The book comprises 7 chapters and two additional sections on notes about the text and its figures. The chapters are: The Nature of Engineering Design The Mind's Eye Origins of Modern Engineering The Tools of Visualization The Development and Dissemination of Engineering Knowledge The Making


id: engines-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Engines (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:09.916889+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: engines-book-20260505-0
summary:
Engines: Man's Use of Power, from the Water Wheel to the Atomic Pile is a science book for children by L. Sprague de Camp, illustrated by Jack Coggins, published by Golden Press as part of its Golden Library of Knowledge Series in 1959. A revised edition was issued in 1961, and a paperback edition in 1969. The book has been translated into Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese, and German. == Summary == As stated on the cover, the work is a survey of "Man's use of power, from the water wheel to the atomic pile." The topic is covered in short segments, titled "The Age of Engines," "Putting Energy to Work," "The First Engines," "Water and Wind Engines," "Early Steam Engines," "How a Steam Engine Works", "Steam Turbines," "Internal-combustion engines," "Otto Cycle Engines," "Two-stroke Cycle Engines," "Diesel Engines," "Gas Turbines," "Rockets," "Electric Motors," "How an Electric Motor Works," "Electric Generators and Power Systems," "Atomic Engines," and "How a Reactor Works." There is a brief one-page topical index. == Reception == The Science News-Letter, in its July 18, 1959 issue, listed the book among its "Books of the Week," describing the work as a "[f]actual book for young readers." == Notes ==


id: das-entdeckte-geheimnis-der-natur-im-bau-und-in-der-befruchtung-der-blumen-20260505-0
category: reference
title: Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:11.061881+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: das-entdeckte-geheimnis-der-natur-im-bau-und-in-der-befruchtung-der-blumen-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_entdeckte_Geheimnis_der_Natur_im_Bau_und_in_der_Befruchtung_der_Blumen-0.md

summary:
Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen (The Secret of Nature in the Form and Fertilisation of Flowers Discovered) by Christian Konrad Sprengel was published in 1793, but received little acclaim during the author's lifetime. Sprengel's ideas were rejected by other naturalists when it was published, but the importance of this work was duly appreciated by Charles Darwin some sixty years later. Darwin's use of Sprengel's ideas and reference to this book in the seminal work on the Fertilisation of Orchids established Sprengel's book as one of the most important works in the fields of floral biology and pollination ecology and its author as a founding father of these fields. The fact that flowers have a sexual role had been recognised earlier by Linnaeus who did not investigate any functional significance of the visits of insects, but by Sprengel's time it was known that they were sometimes involved in fertilisation. These were thought to be chance visits and nectar was not thought to be intended for insects. Sprengel's book introduced a functional view, which would today be called ecology, and provided evidence that pollination was an organised process in which insects acted as "living

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_entdeckte_Geheimnis_der_Natur_im_Bau_und_in_der_Befruchtung_der_Blumen


id: escaping-the-rabbit-hole-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escaping_the_Rabbit_Hole-0.md
category: reference
title: Escaping the Rabbit Hole
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escaping_the_Rabbit_Hole
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:12.219460+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: escaping-the-rabbit-hole-20260505-0
summary:
Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect is a non-fiction book by Mick West that describes a method for helping people disengage from conspiratorial beliefs through patient dialogue, clear evidence, and an emphasis on trust building. Skyhorse Publishing released the first edition in 2018. A revised and updated edition appeared in 2023 with new case material on the COVID-19 pandemic, election fraud narratives, QAnon, and contemporary UFO claims. The work combines practical communication tactics with case studies drawn from West's investigations on the Metabunk forum. == Background == West is a science writer and investigator who founded Metabunk, an online forum focused on analyzing extraordinary claims. The book emerged from a decade of moderating and documenting conversations with believers and former believers, which shaped the focus on respectful engagement, calibration of claims to evidence, and attention to the social dynamics around conspiracist communities. An excerpt from the book appeared in Salon before publication, outlining steps for approaching a friend who believes a conspiracy theory, including establishing common ground, isolating specific points of disagreement, and agreeing on shared standards of evidence. == Contents == The first edition sets out a communication framework that prioritizes


id: evil-genes-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Genes-0.md
category: reference
title: Evil Genes
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Genes
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:13.367096+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: evil-genes-20260505-0
summary:
Evil Genes is a book by Barbara Oakley, a systems engineer, about the neurological and social factors contributing to chronic antisocial behavior. The text was published on October 31, 2008, by Prometheus Books. The book has earned both praise and criticism for its treatment of what Oakley considers gaps in psychological research surrounding "successfully sinister" individuals—those who show subclinical symptoms of personality disorders, and who are often found in positions of authority in politics, religion, business, and academia. == See also == Psychopathy The Mask of Sanity Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work The Psychopath Test == References == == Further reading == Erich Fromm: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness == External links == Official website


id: evolution-what-the-fossils-say-and-why-it-matters-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution:_What_the_Fossils_Say_and_Why_It_Matters-0.md
category: reference
title: Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution:_What_the_Fossils_Say_and_Why_It_Matters
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:14.649103+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: evolution-what-the-fossils-say-and-why-it-matters-20260505-0
summary:
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters is a 2007 book by American paleontologist Donald Prothero where he documents the evolutionary history of fossil vertebrates. == Summary == Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters was written as a response to Duane Gish's 1995 book Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! It is dedicated to Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould to recognize their contributions to the fields of paleontology and evolutionary biology. The foreword, written by Michael Shermer, is titled Why People Do Not Accept Evolution. The book is divided into two sections. In section one Prothero provides a detailed description of evolution and its relationship to the study of biology. The second section provides a distinct discussion of the fossil record. In a review of the book Peter Dodson says "Prothero points out that the evolution of horses, elucidated since the 1870s, remains one of the finest demonstrations of evolutionary change over time." Prothero is well prepared to cover the topic due to his knowledge of the fossil record, geology, biogeography, embryology, contemporary abiogenetic theory and Biblical origins. One example of the compelling presentations in the book is Prothero's illustrated discussion of tiktaalik, otherwise


id: experiments-and-observations-on-different-kinds-of-air-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Different_Kinds_of_Air-0.md
category: reference
title: Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Different_Kinds_of_Air
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:18.810905+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: experiments-and-observations-on-different-kinds-of-air-20260505-0
summary:
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1774–86) is a six-volume work published by 18th-century British polymath Joseph Priestley which reports a series of his experiments on "airs" or gases, most notably his discovery of the oxygen gas (which he called "dephlogisticated air"). == Airs == While working as a companion for Lord Shelburne, Priestley had a great deal of free time to engage in scientific investigations. The Earl even set up a laboratory for him. Priestley's experiments during his years in Calne were almost entirely confined to "airs" and from this work emerged his most important scientific texts: the six volumes of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air. These experiments helped repudiate the last vestiges of the theory of four elements; as one early biographer writes: "taken collectively, [Priestley] did more than those of any one of his contemporaries to uproot and destroy the only generalisation by which his immediate predecessors had sought to group and connect the phenomena of chemistry", however "he was wholly unable to perceive this fact." Priestley's work on "airs" is not easily classified. As historian of science Simon Schaffer points out, it "has been seen as a branch of physics, or


id: experiments-and-observations-on-different-kinds-of-air-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Different_Kinds_of_Air-1.md
category: reference
title: Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Different_Kinds_of_Air
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:18.810905+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: experiments-and-observations-on-different-kinds-of-air-20260505-0
summary:
Priestley assembled his oxygen paper and several others into a second volume of Experiments and Observations on Air and published it in 1776. He does not emphasise his discovery of "dephlogisticated air" (leaving it to Part III of the volume) but instead argues in the preface how important such discoveries are to rational religion. His paper narrates the discovery chronologically, relating the long delays between experiments and his initial puzzlements. Thus, it is difficult to determine when exactly Priestley "discovered" oxygen. Such dating is significant as Lavoisier and Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele both have strong claims to the discovery of oxygen as well, Scheele having been first to isolate the gas (although he published after Priestley) and Lavoisier having been first to describe it as purified "air itself entire without alteration" (not "dephlogisticated air"). == Scientific work on Airs == In this section, a list of all Priestley's scientific books on Airs has been compiled. The list doesn't include any of the several scientific papers, that he also wrote to various journals on the subject (see: List of works by Joseph Priestley). Books from 1772 to 1790: Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air. London, 1772. Experiments and Observations


id: experiments-and-observations-on-electricity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Electricity-0.md
category: reference
title: Experiments and Observations on Electricity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Electricity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:19.991116+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: experiments-and-observations-on-electricity-20260505-0
summary:
Experiments and Observations on Electricity is a treatise by Benjamin Franklin based on letters that he wrote to Peter Collinson, who communicated Franklin's ideas to the Royal Society. The letters were published as a book in England in 1751, and over the following years the book was reissued in four more editions containing additional material, the last in 1774. Science historian I. Bernard Cohen crafted an edition with historical commentary that was published in 1941. == References == == Further reading == "Experiments and Observations, [April 1751]". Founders Online. National Archives. Original source: Labaree, Leonard W., ed. (1961). The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 4, July 1, 1750, through June 30, 1753. Yale University Press. pp. 125–130. Watson, William (1751). "An Account of Mr. Benjamin Franklin's Treatise, Lately Published, Intituled, Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America; By Wm. Watson, F. R. S.". Philosophical Transactions. 47: 202–211. JSTOR 105044. == External links == Experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America (1751), scanned from a copy in Franklin's personal library with his own handwritten notes, at the Internet Archive


id: fads-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:21.317067+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fads-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957)—originally published in 1952 as In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present—was Martin Gardner's second book. A survey of what it described as pseudosciences and cult beliefs, it became a founding document in the nascent scientific skepticism movement. Michael Shermer said of it: "Modern skepticism has developed into a science-based movement, beginning with Martin Gardner's 1952 classic". The book debunks what it characterises as pseudoscience and the pseudo-scientists who propagate it. == Contents == === Synopsis === Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science starts with a brief survey of the spread of the ideas of "cranks" and "pseudo-scientists", attacking the credulity of the popular press and the irresponsibility of publishing houses in helping to propagate these ideas. Cranks often cite historical cases where ideas were rejected which are now accepted as right. Gardner acknowledges that such cases occurred, and describes some of them, but says that times have changed: "If anything, scientific journals err on the side of permitting questionable theses to be published". Gardner acknowledges that "among older scientists ... one may occasionally meet with irrational prejudice


id: fads-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science-1.md
category: reference
title: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:21.317067+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fads-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
In the Name of Science the introductory chapter Flat and Hollow the Flat Earth theory of Wilbur Glenn Voliva the Hollow Earth theories of John Cleves Symmes, Jr. and Cyrus Reed Teed Monsters of Doom Immanuel Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision William Whiston’s A New Theory of the Earth Ignatius Donnelly’s Ragnarok; Hanns Hörbiger’s Welteislehre and Hörbiger’s disciple Hans Schindler Bellamy. The Forteans Charles Fort, Tiffany Thayer and the Fortean Society The Hutchins-Adler Great Books Movement: "most of them regard scientists, on the whole, as a stupid lot." Flying Saucers Kenneth Arnold, the Mantell UFO Incident Raymond Palmer, Richard Shaver, Donald Keyhoe, Frank Scully, Gerald Heard and the Unidentified flying object movement. Zig-Zag-and-Swirl Alfred Lawson and his "Lawsonomy" Down with Einstein! Joseph Battell, Thomas H. Graydon, George Francis Gillette, Jeremiah J. Callahan and others. Sir Isaac Babson Roger Babson and the Gravity Research Foundation. Dowsing Rods and Doodlebugs Solco Walle Tromp and radiesthesia Kenneth Roberts, Henry Goss and their dowsing. Under the Microscope Andrew Crosse, Henry Charlton Bastian, Charles Wentworth Littlefield and others who claimed to observe spontaneous generation of living forms. Geology versus Genesis Philip Henry Gosse and his Omphalos George McCready Price and The New Geology Mortimer Adler’s writings


id: fads-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science-2.md
category: reference
title: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:21.317067+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fads-and-fallacies-in-the-name-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Just as an experienced doctor is able to diagnose certain ailments the instant a new patient walks into his office, or a police officer learns to recognize criminal types from subtle behavior clues which escape the untrained eye, so we, perhaps, may learn to recognize the future scientific crank when we first encounter him. == Reception == A contemporary review in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette particularly welcomed Gardner's critical remarks about Hoxsey Therapy and about Krebiozen, both of which were being advanced as anti-cancer measures at that time. The review concluded that the book "should help to counteract some amusing and some positively harmful cults, the existence of which is all too often promoted by irresponsible journalism." The work has often been mentioned in subsequent books and articles. Louis Lasagna, in his book The Doctors' Dilemmas, considered it to be a "superb account of scientific cults, fads, and frauds" and wrote that "This talented writer combines solid fact with a pleasing style." Sociologist of religion Anson D. Shupe took in general a positive attitude, and praises Gardner for his humor. But he says If there is a single criticism to be made of Gardner ... it is that he accepts too


id: fauna-entomologica-scandinavica-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_Entomologica_Scandinavica-0.md
category: reference
title: Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_Entomologica_Scandinavica
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:22.481881+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fauna-entomologica-scandinavica-20260505-0
summary:
Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica is a scientific book series of entomological identification manuals for insects (and other terrestrial arthropods) in North-West Europe, mainly Fennoscandia and Denmark. The series is used by a number of groups, such as ecologists, biologists, and insect collectors. The books are in English, and published by the Dutch academic publishing house Brill. == Titles == == References ==


id: finding-darwin-s-god-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Darwin's_God-0.md
category: reference
title: Finding Darwin's God
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Darwin's_God
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:23.696063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: finding-darwin-s-god-20260505-0
summary:
Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution is a 2000 book by the American cell biologist and Roman Catholic Kenneth R. Miller wherein he argues that evolution does not contradict religious faith. Miller argues that evolution occurred, that Earth is not young, that science must work based on methodological naturalism, and that evolution cannot be construed as an effective argument for atheism. He examines various views of God and evolution, before describing his own. == Content == Darwin’s Apple discusses Miller’s first encounter with Darwin’s' On the Origin of Species. He summarizes the main points: “Breeders did draw upon the range of variation in domestic animals and plants to make new varieties. A similar range of variation did exist in nature. The conditions of life did place each individual in competition with others. And this competition clearly affected the range of variation that survived.” He quotes Thomas Huxley on first reading Origin: “How foolish of me not to have thought of it!” He asks: “Does evolution nullify all world views that depend upon the spiritual? Does it demand logical agnosticism as the price of scientific consistency? And does it rigorously exclude belief in God?


id: finding-darwin-s-god-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Darwin's_God-1.md
category: reference
title: Finding Darwin's God
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Darwin's_God
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:23.696063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: finding-darwin-s-god-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception == Kirkus Reviews called it a “well-reasoned, intelligent text describing why followers of mainstream religions can also embrace the theory of evolution.” Per Publishers Weekly, Miller “displays an impressive fairness, which he communicates in friendly, conversational prose. This is a book that will stir readers of both science and theology, perhaps satisfying neither, but challenging both to open their minds.” Liz Marlantes writes “Miller's scientific arguments are compelling, presented in terms that any layman could understand. He's never condescending or dull.” == References == == Reviews == Review of Finding Darwin's God by Henry E. Neufeld (theistic evolutionist) Review of Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" by Michael Ruse for Metanexus Institute (agnostic) Yin and Yang of Kenneth Miller: How Professor Miller finds Darwin's God by Amiel Rossow (skeptic) Review of Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God Archived 2016-04-30 at the Wayback Machine by Edward B. Davis (Christian historian of science), based on a version published by Reports of the National Center for Science Education 22.1-2 (Jan-Apr 2002): 47–8. == External links == Official website


id: five-billion-years-of-change-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Billion_Years_of_Change-0.md
category: reference
title: Five Billion Years of Change
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Billion_Years_of_Change
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:24.870615+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: five-billion-years-of-change-20260505-0
summary:
Five Billion Years of Change: A History of the Land (2003, ISBN 157230958X) is a book by Denis Wood that attempts a holistic view of reality that ranges from the Big Bang to the World Wide Web. Specifically, this books deals with the formation of various structures: the universe the Earth and its atmosphere, oceans, and continents the origin of life the evolution of humans the development of agriculture the rise and fall of civilizations contemporary globalization A key theme is repeated through this book: humans have a tendency to divide our understandings into "history" and "prehistory". People are shocked when some event from prehistory intrudes upon their current lives; Wood likens the shock of this intrusion to an expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This division is a metaphor for various artificial divisions; for example: the formation of the Earth, the pre-biotic chemistry, and the origin of life before the Industrial Revolution and our subsequent modern era Instead of thinking in terms of artificial divisions of "now" and "back then", readers should develop an intuitive mindset of graduated changes in which the "fossils" of the ancient past are intermingled with contemporary objects; for instance, the "oxygen holocaust" of the


id: fooled-by-randomness-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness-0.md
category: reference
title: Fooled by Randomness
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:25.975827+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fooled-by-randomness-20260505-0
summary:
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets is a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb that deals with the fallibility of human knowledge. It was first published in 2001. Updated editions were released a few years later. The book is the first part of Taleb's multi-volume philosophical essay on uncertainty, titled the Incerto, which also includes The Black Swan (2007–2010), The Bed of Procrustes (2010–2016), Antifragile (2012), and Skin in the Game (2018). == Thesis == Taleb sets forth the idea that modern humans are often unaware of the existence of randomness. They tend to explain random outcomes as non-random. Human beings: overestimate causality, e.g., they see elephants in the clouds instead of understanding that they are in fact randomly shaped clouds that appear to our eyes as elephants (or something else); tend to view the world as more explainable than it really is. So they look for explanations even when there are none. Other misperceptions of randomness that are discussed include: Survivorship bias. We see the winners and try to learn from them, while forgetting the huge number of losers. Skewed distributions. Many real life phenomena are not 50:50 bets like tossing a


id: the-fringe-of-the-unknown-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fringe_of_the_Unknown-0.md
category: reference
title: The Fringe of the Unknown
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fringe_of_the_Unknown
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:27.233073+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-fringe-of-the-unknown-20260505-0
summary:
The Fringe of the Unknown is a science book by L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover and paperback by Prometheus Books in 1983. == Summary == The book is a collection of articles that constitute a "study ... of controversial and often little-known happenings in science and technology, with an emphasis on the wayward activities of those who dabble in fringe science." The material is organized in three sections, "Our Ingenious Forebears," "Beasts of Now and Then," and "Scientists, Mad and Otherwise." The first debunks extravagant occult and pseudoscientific claims regarding ancient civilizations while highlighting these cultures' actual accomplishments. The second performs much the same function in regard to biology, focusing on elephants, claims regarding the survival of dinosaurs into the present day, and past extinction events. The third explores the distinction between science and pseudoscience as illustrated in the lives of a number of scientists holding extreme views. == Contents == Part I. Our Ingenious Forebears 1. "The Wisdom of the Ancients" (from Science Fiction Quarterly, Nov. 1951) 2. "Apollonios Enlists" (from Astounding Science Fiction, Jun. 1961) 3. "Appius Claudius Crassus" (original title: "Appius Claudius Crassus: Roman Builder") (from Science Digest, Jun. 1962) 4. "The First Missile


id: from-eros-to-gaia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Eros_to_Gaia-0.md
category: reference
title: From Eros to Gaia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Eros_to_Gaia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:28.395748+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: from-eros-to-gaia-20260505-0
summary:
From Eros to Gaia is a non-fiction scientific book of 35 non-technical writings by Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. This book is a collection of essays written from 1933 (when Dyson was nine years old) to 1990. It was originally published by Pantheon Books in 1992. The book begins with Dyson's juvenile 1933 science fiction story concerning the asteroid Eros. The pieces in the collection range over anecdotal history, expository popular-science articles, lectures on public policity related to science, political issues concerning problems created by science and technology, book reviews, and people (known personally by Dyson) such as Richard Feynman, Paul Dirac, and Helen Dukas. The book ends with Dyson's contribution Gaia to Clifton Fadiman's 1990 collection Living Philosophies. The concluding essay deals with the value and potential of the emerging Gaia philosophy. Along with articles on quantum field theory and the mystery of unaccounted-for carbon in the biosphere, there are tributes to Richard Feynman and Paul Dirac, a travel sketch on Armenia and Dyson's proposed 60-year program for space science, including manned missions to Mars. The book has been translated into Spanish (1994), French (1995), and Japanese (2005). == References ==


id: germs-biological-weapons-and-america-s-secret-war-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germs:_Biological_Weapons_and_America's_Secret_War-0.md
category: reference
title: Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germs:_Biological_Weapons_and_America's_Secret_War
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:29.585844+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: germs-biological-weapons-and-america-s-secret-war-20260505-0
summary:
Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War is a 2001 book written by New York Times journalists Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad. It describes how humanity has dealt with biological weapons, and the dangers of bioterrorism. It was the 2001 New York Times #1 Non-Fiction Bestseller the weeks of October 28 and November 4. == Overview == Germs, is a work of investigative journalism employing biographical and historical narrative to provide context. The three authors interviewed hundreds of scientists and senior U.S. officials, and reviewed recently declassified documents, and reports from the former Soviet Union's bioweapons laboratories. == Summary == The book opens with an account of the 1984 salmonella poisonings in The Dalles, Oregon, caused by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh who sprayed salmonella onto salad bars. Other research shows how Moscow scientists created an untraceable germ that would induce the body to self-destruct, and reveals that the U.S. military planned for germ warfare on Cuba during the 1960s. Three classified U.S. biodefense projects are detailed: Project Bacchus, Project Clear Vision, and Project Jefferson. Germs concludes with an assessment of the United States' ability to deter future bio-attack. == Reviews == The New York Times Book Review


id: golden-guide-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Guide-0.md
category: reference
title: Golden Guide
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Guide
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:33.611570+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: golden-guide-20260505-0
summary:
The Golden Guides, originally Golden Nature Guides, were a series of 160-page, pocket-sized books created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line (primarily a children's book imprint) from 1949. Edited by Herbert S. Zim and Vera Webster, the books were written by experts in their field and featuring realistic color illustrations. Intended for primary and secondary school level readers, the first books were field guides illustrated by James Gordon Irving, with such titles as Birds (1949), Insects (1951), and Mammals (1955). The series later expanded beyond identification guides to cover a wider range of subjects, such as Geology (1972), Scuba Diving (1968), and Indian Arts (1970). In 1966, Zim launched a related series, the Golden Field Guides, aimed at high school or college-age readers. An updated series was relaunched in 2001 as "Golden Guides by St. Martin's Press", illustrated largely with photographs but retaining some of the original 1950s illustrations. == List of Golden Guides == == References == == External links == Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press - Current list of Golden Guides List of the original Golden Guide titles with links to cover images


id: good-faith-collaboration-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Faith_Collaboration-0.md
category: reference
title: Good Faith Collaboration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Faith_Collaboration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:34.781217+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: good-faith-collaboration-20260505-0
summary:
Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia is a 2010 book by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. that deals with the topic of Wikipedia and the Wikipedia community. The book was first published on August 27, 2010, through the MIT Press and has a foreword by Lawrence Lessig. The book is an ethnographic study of the history of Wikipedia, its real life and theoretical precursors, and its culture including its consensus and collaborative practices. The book has been described as a pioneering ethnographic study of the culture of Wikipedia. Reagle's main thesis has been summarized as the argument that "the success of Wikipedia may be less technological than a consequence of the community of Wikipedians and their cultural norms". == History of publication == Good Faith Collaboration is based on Reagle's PhD dissertation. Reagle, the book's author, is a scholar specializing in sociology of the Internet, as well as a Wikipedia volunteer. In writing the book, Reagle relied on documents produced by the Wikipedia community, such as "content pages, discussion pages, mailing lists, newsletters, and meet-ups". The book was published in 2010 by MIT Press. In September 2011, the Web edition of the book was released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA


id: good-faith-collaboration-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Faith_Collaboration-1.md
category: reference
title: Good Faith Collaboration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Faith_Collaboration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:34.781217+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: good-faith-collaboration-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception == William S. Kowinski, in a review of the book for the North Coast Journal published in 2010, wrote that "What this book does well is describe how Wikipedia works and what issues have arisen... this may remain the best opportunity for learning about this remarkable project." Cory Doctorow, in a 2010 review on the Boing Boing portal, said that Reagle "offers a compelling case that Wikipedia's most fascinating and unprecedented aspect isn't the encyclopedia itself – rather, it's the collaborative culture that underpins it: brawling, self-reflexive, funny, serious, and full-tilt committed to the project". The book was also reviewed by R. Stuart Geiger for The Wikipedia Signpost that year. He commended the author on his involvement in the Wikipedia project, which has allowed him to create a work that "goes well beyond most accounts written about Wikipedia, insisting on studying Wikipedians both on and in their own terms." Geiger concluded that the book "is well-written, well-sourced, and neutral; something I'd recommend for my mother." He also noted that the book had been praised by the then-director of the Wikimedia Foundation, Sue Gardner, on her blog. Humphreys Lee, reviewing the book for the Journal of Communication in 2011,


id: great-mambo-chicken-and-the-transhuman-condition-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mambo_Chicken_and_the_Transhuman_Condition-0.md
category: reference
title: Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mambo_Chicken_and_the_Transhuman_Condition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:35.996206+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: great-mambo-chicken-and-the-transhuman-condition-20260505-0
summary:
Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition is a non-fiction book copyright 1990 by Ed Regis, an American author and educator, that presents a lighthearted look at scientific visionaries planning for a future with "post-biological" people, space colonization, nanotechnology, and cryonics. The book emphasizes the personality and projects of Robert Truax, Eric Drexler, Gerard K. O'Neill, Chris Langton, Freeman Dyson, Hans Moravec, Ralph Merkle, Robert Forward, Keith Henson, Carolyn Meinel, Gary Hudson, Saul Kent, and a number of others. == External links == Book PDF. == References ==


id: a-guide-to-the-scientific-knowledge-of-things-familiar-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_to_the_Scientific_Knowledge_of_Things_Familiar-0.md
category: reference
title: A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_to_the_Scientific_Knowledge_of_Things_Familiar
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:37.233104+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-guide-to-the-scientific-knowledge-of-things-familiar-20260505-0
summary:
A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, also known as The Guide to Science or Brewer's Guide to Science, is a book by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer presenting explanations for common phenomena. First published in the United Kingdom around 1840, the book is laid out in the style of a catechism and proved very popular. 47 editions were printed by 1905 in English alone and translations made into various other languages. A revised version was produced for the US market which was digitised and republished in 2005 as part of Making of America IV: the American voice, 1850–1877. Although it presented itself as an accurate science text, the book actually promotes religious ideas, including divine design. The popularity of The Guide to Science enabled Brewer to gather material for his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable which remains a classic reference work. == Content == The object of The Guide to Science was to present answers to over 2000 questions about common phenomena. There are questions dealing with man-made objects such as candles, stoves and chimneys, as well as answers seeking to explain natural phenomena such as thunder, lightning (including a mention of ball lightning), clouds, dew, and rainbows. Brewer


id: a-guide-to-the-scientific-knowledge-of-things-familiar-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_to_the_Scientific_Knowledge_of_Things_Familiar-1.md
category: reference
title: A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_to_the_Scientific_Knowledge_of_Things_Familiar
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:37.233104+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-guide-to-the-scientific-knowledge-of-things-familiar-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception and legacy == A review of the second edition of The Guide to Science was published by Punch magazine in 1850. The book was seen to be a "very useful little work", but in the typical Punch satirical style, the reviewer disagreed with one answer that we "feel a desire for activity in cold weather" due to "fanning combustion in the blood" by instead insisting that we feel a desire "to sit cosily over a fire in cold weather". The success of The Guide to Science convinced Brewer that his readers still accepted religious explanations rather than evolutionary theory. Following the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, Brewer wrote Theology in Science; or The Testimony of Science to the Wisdom and Goodness of God (published in 1860) in order to demonstrate that evolution had not destroyed theological tradition and to continue The Guide to Science's promotion of natural theology. The book's popularity also resulted in Brewer being sent "a large number of questions on all imaginary matters". These questions and their answers became the nucleus of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, first published in 1870. This latter book has long outlived all of Brewer's


id: the-history-and-present-state-of-electricity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_and_Present_State_of_Electricity-0.md
category: reference
title: The History and Present State of Electricity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_and_Present_State_of_Electricity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:38.470095+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-history-and-present-state-of-electricity-20260505-0
summary:
The History and Present State of Electricity (1767), by eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley, is a survey of the study of electricity up until 1766, as well as a description of experiments by Priestley himself. == Background == Priestley became interested in electricity while he was teaching at Warrington Academy. Friends introduced him to the major British experimenters in the field: John Canton, William Watson, and Benjamin Franklin. These men encouraged Priestley to perform the experiments he was writing about in his history; they believed that he could better describe the experiments if he had performed them himself. In the process of replicating others' experiments, however, Priestley became intrigued by the still unanswered questions regarding electricity and was prompted to design and undertake his own experiments. Priestley possessed an electrical machine designed by Edward Nairne. With his brother Timothy he designed and constructed his own machines (see Timothy Priestley#Scientific apparatus). == Contents == The first half of the 700-page book is a history of the study of electricity. It is parted into ten periods, starting with early experiments "prior to those of Mr. Hawkesbee", finishing with variable experiments and discoveries made after Franklin's own experiments. The book takes Franklin's work


id: the-hot-zone-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone-0.md
category: reference
title: The Hot Zone
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:39.634684+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-hot-zone-20260505-0
summary:
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story is a best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. The basis of the book was Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone". The filoviruses—including Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Marburg virus, and Ravn virus—are Biosafety Level 4 agents, extremely dangerous to humans because they are very infectious, have a high fatality rate, and most have no known prophylactic measures, treatments, or cures. Along with describing the history of the devastation caused by two of these Central African diseases, Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease, Preston described a 1989 incident in which a relative of Ebola virus, Reston virus, was discovered at a primate quarantine facility in Reston, Virginia, less than 15 miles (24 km) away from Washington, D.C. == Synopsis == The book is in four sections: "The Shadow of Mount Elgon" delves into the history of filoviruses, as well as speculation about the origins of AIDS. Preston recounts the story of "Charles Monet" (a pseudonym), who might have caught Marburg virus from visiting Kitum Cave on Mount Elgon in Kenya. The author describes the progression of


id: the-hot-zone-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone-1.md
category: reference
title: The Hot Zone
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:39.634684+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-hot-zone-20260505-0
summary:
The discovery of the Reston virus was made in November 1989 by Thomas W. Geisbert, an intern at United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Peter B. Jahrling isolated the filovirus further. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted blood tests of the 178 animal handlers. While six tested positive, they did not exhibit any symptoms. The Reston virus was found to have low pathogenicity in humans. This was further supported later when a handler infected himself during a necropsy of an infected monkey, as the handler did not show symptoms of the virus after the incubation period. == Reception == The Hot Zone was listed as one of around 100 books that shaped a century of science by American Scientist. Many reviews of The Hot Zone exemplify the impact the book had on the public's view of emerging viruses. A review in the British Medical Journal captures the paranoia and public panic described in this book. The reviewer was left "wondering when and where this enigmatic agent will appear next and what other disasters may await human primates". This can also be seen in a review in the Public Health Reports which highlights the "seriousness of


id: how-the-self-controls-its-brain-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Self_Controls_Its_Brain-0.md
category: reference
title: How the Self Controls Its Brain
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Self_Controls_Its_Brain
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:40.746776+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: how-the-self-controls-its-brain-20260505-0
summary:
How the Self Controls Its Brain is a book by Sir John Eccles, proposing a theory of philosophical dualism, and offering a justification of how there can be mind-brain action without violating the principle of the conservation of energy. The model was developed jointly with the nuclear physicist Friedrich Beck in the period 1991–1992. Eccles called the fundamental neural units of the cerebral cortex "dendrons", which are cylindrical bundles of neurons arranged vertically in the six outer layers or laminae of the cortex, each cylinder being about 60 micrometres in diameter. Eccles proposed that each of the 40 million dendrons is linked with a mental unit, or "psychon", representing a unitary conscious experience. In willed actions and thought, psychons act on dendrons and, for a moment, increase the probability of the firing of selected neurons through quantum tunneling effect in synaptic exocytosis, while in perception the reverse process takes place. Previous mention of the "psychon" The earliest prior use of the word "psychon" with a similar meaning of an "element of consciousness" is in the book "Concerning Fluctuating and Inaudible Sounds" by K. Dunlap in 1908. The most popular prior use is in Robert Heinlein's short story Gulf, wherein a


id: how-to-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_To_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: How To (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_To_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:41.876078+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: how-to-book-20260505-0
summary:
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems is a book by Randall Munroe in which the author provides absurd suggestions based in scientific fact on ways to solve some common and some absurd problems. The book contains a range of possible real-world and absurd problems, each the focus of a single chapter. The book was released on September 3, 2019. == Production == Munroe had the idea for How To while working on his 2014 book, What If?, which answered questions submitted by readers of Munroe's blog. While working on the book, Munroe started to think about problems that he would like to solve and the consequences of solving them in different ways. While researching his answers for How To, Munroe investigated how to dry out a phone that has fallen in water. However, he could not find a reliable practical answer, and did not want to give readers bad information. Ultimately, Munroe decided to omit the question from his book. As part of researching the chapter on "How to Catch a Drone", Munroe reached out to professional tennis player Serena Williams to knock a drone out of the sky by hitting it with a tennis ball. Williams'


id: how-to-build-a-dinosaur-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Build_a_Dinosaur-0.md
category: reference
title: How to Build a Dinosaur
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Build_a_Dinosaur
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:43.075582+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: how-to-build-a-dinosaur-20260505-0
summary:
How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever is a 2009 book by paleontologist Jack Horner and James Gorman. The book outlines Horner's theory for being able to resurrect a maniraptoran dinosaur by altering the genes of a chicken embryo. In 2010, a paperback version was published under the title How to Build a Dinosaur: The New Science of Reverse Evolution. == Summary == Paleontologist Jack Horner describes evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) and outlines his theory for being able to resurrect a maniraptoran dinosaur from a chicken embryo, by activating and deactivating certain genes to restore dormant dinosaur characteristics such as a tail, claws, teeth, and a snout. Horner also discusses paleontology in the book. == Background and publication == Horner's idea for the "Chickenosaurus" project came from "a pretty good script" that was written for Jurassic Park IV early in its development. The film's story, at that time, was expected to involve genetic engineering of dinosaurs. Horner was planning the book with co-author James Gorman in spring 2005. Gorman was deputy science editor for The New York Times, and had previously co-written Horner's 1990 book, Digging Dinosaurs. Horner and his publisher planned for the book to


id: the-human-zoo-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Zoo_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: The Human Zoo (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Zoo_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:44.228558+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-human-zoo-book-20260505-0
summary:
The Human Zoo is a book written by the British zoologist Desmond Morris, published in 1969. It is a follow-up to his earlier book The Naked Ape; both books examine how the biological nature of the human species has shaped the character of the cultures of the contemporary world. The Human Zoo examines the nature of civilised society, especially in the cities. Morris compares the human inhabitants of a city to the animal inhabitants of a zoo, which have their survival needs provided for, but at the cost of living in an unnatural environment. Humans in their cities, and animals in their zoos, both have food and shelter provided for them, and have considerable free time on their hands. But they have to live in an unnatural environment, and are both likely to have problems in developing healthy social relationships, both are liable to suffer from isolation and boredom, and both live in a limited amount of physical space. The book explains how the inhabitants of cities and zoos have invented ways to deal with these problems, and the consequences that follow when they fail at dealing with them. From this point of view, Morris examines why civilised society is


id: the-hunting-hypothesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunting_Hypothesis-0.md
category: reference
title: The Hunting Hypothesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunting_Hypothesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:48.474161+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-hunting-hypothesis-20260505-0
summary:
The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man (commonly known as The Hunting Hypothesis) is a 1976 work of paleoanthropology by Robert Ardrey. It is the final book in his widely read Nature of Man Series, which also includes African Genesis (1961) and The Territorial Imperative (1966). The work deals with the ramifications of evolutionarily inherited traits in man, particularly those that developed through hunting. It was also one of the earliest books to warn about the possible dangers of climate change. == Theories and controversy == Ardrey's main focus in The Hunting Hypothesis was to examine the ways in which human evolution developed with and because of hunting behavior, and the effects on modern man of inherited traits related to this evolution. At the time of the publication of The Hunting Hypothesis there was still significant controversy surrounding the thesis that early man hunted for food. Ardrey's work was often attacked for its focus on human aggression. In particular, Ashley Montagu, representing a camp known as the "Blank State" theorists, who believed that man's behavior was entirely socially determined, marshaled fourteen scientists to refute Ardrey and his predecessors (chiefly Konrad Lorenz) in two volumes. Though


id: i-am-a-strange-loop-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop-0.md
category: reference
title: I Am a Strange Loop
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:49.576578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: i-am-a-strange-loop-20260505-0
summary:
I Am a Strange Loop is a 2007 book by Douglas Hofstadter, examining in depth the concept of a strange loop to explain the sense of "I". The concept of a strange loop was originally developed in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach. In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference. == Content == Hofstadter had previously expressed disappointment with how Gödel, Escher, Bach, which won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, was received. In the preface to its 20th anniversary edition, he laments that the book was perceived as a hodgepodge of neat things with no central theme. He writes: "GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle?" Hofstadter seeks to remedy this problem in I Am a Strange Loop by focusing on and expounding the central message of Gödel, Escher, Bach. He demonstrates how the properties of self-referential systems, demonstrated most famously in Gödel's incompleteness theorems, can be used to describe the unique properties of


id: the-icepick-surgeon-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Icepick_Surgeon-0.md
category: reference
title: The Icepick Surgeon
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Icepick_Surgeon
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:50.668364+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-icepick-surgeon-20260505-0
summary:
The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science is a 2021 American nonfiction book written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown and Company. It features a series of stories throughout the past several centuries involving abuses and crimes committed by scientists in the pursuit of knowledge at all costs. Extensive documents and other historical sources, among additional facts portrayed through footnotes, are used to discuss the impact of various individuals from their actions, along with an appendix contemplating on the potential future crimes that may be committed by new scientific advancements. == Content == The book is split into chapters generally in chronological order. It begins and ends with the same quote from Albert Einstein, which reads "Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character." A prologue to the book has its own apocryphal story about Egyptian Queen Cleopatra originally written by the philosopher Plutarch. It claims that the Queen did experiments on both criminals and her own servants involving the effects of poisons and whether one could determine the sex of a child before it was born.


id: the-idiot-brain-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot_Brain-0.md
category: reference
title: The Idiot Brain
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot_Brain
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:51.889703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-idiot-brain-20260505-0
summary:
The Idiot Brain is a 2016 science book by comedian and neuroscientist Dean Burnett. The book was published in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Goodreads Best Science & Technology Book Award. == Reception == Critical reception for The Idiot Brain has been positive, with The Independent describing it as "a wonderful introduction to neuroscience." and The Wall Street Journal as "Entertaining…[A] grand tour around modern cognitive science and psychology." == References ==


id: in-the-name-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Name_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: In the Name of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Name_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:54.174176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: in-the-name-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
In the Name of Science is a book written by Harold L. Nieburg in 1966 concerning the political uses of science. It focuses on American defense spending on science and the U.S. military-industrial complex, and was one of the first books to discuss this issue at length. A summary appears in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 22 (March 1966), pp. 20–24, as R and D in the Contract State: Throwing Away the Yardstick in a review by Bernard L. Spinrad. == References ==


id: incomplete-nature-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature-0.md
category: reference
title: Incomplete Nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:55.321127+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: incomplete-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter is a 2011 book by biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon. The book covers topics in biosemiotics, philosophy of mind, and the origins of life. Broadly, the book seeks to naturalistically explain "aboutness", that is, concepts like intentionality, meaning, normativity, purpose, and function; which Deacon groups together and labels as ententional phenomena. == Core ideas == Deacon's first book, The Symbolic Species focused on the evolution of human language. In that book, Deacon notes that much of the mystery surrounding language origins comes from a profound confusion about the nature of semiotic processes themselves. Accordingly, the focus of Incomplete Nature shifts from human origins to the origin of life and semiosis. Incomplete Nature can be viewed as a sizable contribution to the growing body of work positing that the problem of consciousness and the problem of the origin of life are inexorably linked. Deacon tackles these two linked problems by going back to basics. The book expands upon the classical conceptions of work and information in order to give an account of ententionality that is consistent with materialism and yet does not seek to explain away or pass off as epiphenominal the non-physical properties of


id: incomplete-nature-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature-1.md
category: reference
title: Incomplete Nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:55.321127+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: incomplete-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Maximum entropy production: The organized structure of a morphodynamic system forms to facilitate maximal entropy production. In the case of a Rayleigh–Bénard cell, heat at the base of the liquid produces an uneven distribution of high energy molecules which will tend to diffuse towards the surface. As the temperature of the heat source increases, density effects come into play. Simple diffusion can no longer dissipate energy as fast as it is added and so the bottom of the liquid becomes hot and more buoyant than the cooler, denser liquid at the top. The bottom of the liquid begins to rise, and the top begins to sink - producing convection currents. Two systems: The significant heat differential on the liquid produces two homeodynamic systems. The first is a diffusion system, where high energy molecules on the bottom collide with lower energy molecules on the top until the added kinetic energy from the heat source is evenly distributed. The second is a convection system, where the low density fluid on the bottom mixes with the high density fluid on the top until the density becomes evenly distributed. The second system arises when there is too much energy to be effectively dissipated by


id: incomplete-nature-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature-2.md
category: reference
title: Incomplete Nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:55.321127+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: incomplete-nature-20260505-0
summary:
=== Thermodynamic work === A thermodynamic system's capacity to do work depends less upon the total energy of the system and more upon the geometric distribution of its components. A glass of water at 20 degrees Celsius will have the same amount of energy as a glass divided in half with the top fluid at 30 degrees and the bottom at 10, but only in the second glass will the top half have the capacity to do work upon the bottom. This is because work occurs at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. Microscopically, there is constant work being performed on one molecule by another when they collide. But the potential for this microscopic work to additively sum to macroscopic work depends on there being an asymmetric distribution of particle speeds, so that the average collision pushes in a focused direction. Microscopic work is necessary but not sufficient for macroscopic work. A global property of asymmetric distribution is also required. === Morphodynamic work === By recognizing that asymmetry is a general property of work - that work is done as asymmetric systems spontaneously tend towards symmetry, Deacon abstracts the concept of work and applies it to systems whose symmetries are vastly


id: incomplete-nature-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature-3.md
category: reference
title: Incomplete Nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:55.321127+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: incomplete-nature-20260505-0
summary:
== Information == One of the central purposes of Incomplete Nature is to articulate a theory of biological information. The first formal theory of information was articulated by Claude Shannon in 1948 in his work A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Shannon's work is widely credited with ushering in the Information Age, but somewhat paradoxically, it was completely silent on questions of meaning and reference, i.e., what the information is about. As an engineer, Shannon was concerned with the challenge of reliably transmitting a message from one location to another. The meaning and content of the message was largely irrelevant. So, while Shannon information theory has been essential for the development of devices like computers, it has left open many philosophical questions regarding the nature of information. Incomplete Nature seeks to answer some of these questions. === Shannon information === Shannon's key insight was to recognize a link between entropy and information. Entropy is often defined as a measurement of disorder, or randomness, but this can be misleading. For Shannon's purposes, the entropy of a system is the number of possible states that the system has the capacity to be in. Any one of these potential states can constitute a message.


id: inside-the-atom-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Atom-0.md
category: reference
title: Inside the Atom
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Atom
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:56.509139+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: inside-the-atom-20260505-0
summary:
Inside the Atom is a popular science book by American author Isaac Asimov. The first edition of the book was published in 1956 by Abelard-Schuman. Revised editions were brought out in subsequent years. == Overview == The book describes the internal structure of the atom. The sequence of concepts described in the book follows the sequence that those facts were discovered in. It describes the various sub-atomic structures within the atom, and the functions they fill in the whole structure. Later chapters describe chemical elements and isotopes, the stability and instability of atomic nuclei, and finally atomic energy, the uses it has, and the threat that it poses. A review in the educational journal The Clearing House said that the book was "lucid", and that its "analytical style exemplifies the art of good teaching." The book is aimed at educated lay-readers, and high-school science students. Inside the Atom ends on a cautionary note, stating "If only we can learn to use the knowledge we already have..." In 1956, the book was used in a pilot program to advance science education sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Approximately two hundred titles were circulated amongst high schools that


id: the-internet-galaxy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_Galaxy-0.md
category: reference
title: The Internet Galaxy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_Galaxy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:57.712725+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-internet-galaxy-20260505-0
summary:
The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society is a book by Manuel Castells, Professor of Sociology and Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2001. The title is a reference to The Gutenberg Galaxy, a 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan. It is regarded as a good introduction to Social informatics. == Overview == The book contains 9 chapters. Castells starts with the history of Internet, focuses on the process of Internet evolution influence our society. He emphasizes the development of Internet from 1962 to 1995, the extension from ARPANET to WWW. Castells believes that "The openness of the Internet's architecture was the source of its main strength". Then he states that the 'Internet Culture' is structured by four kinds of culture including: 'the techno-meritocratic culture', 'the hacker culture', 'the virtual communication culture', and 'the entrepreneurial culture'. Next, Castells analyses the vital status of Internet in the business and economy fields, and he refers to the impact of virtual communication which is based on the Internet communication to the reality in the following chapter. In terms of the Politics of the Internet, Castells points that 'social


id: the-internet-galaxy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_Galaxy-1.md
category: reference
title: The Internet Galaxy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_Galaxy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:57.712725+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-internet-galaxy-20260505-0
summary:
"Human culture only exists in and by human minds, usually connected to human bodies. Therefore, if our minds have the material capability to access the whole realm of cultural expressions—select them, recombine them—we do have a hypertext: the hypertext is inside us." == The Geography of the Internet: Networked Places == "Cities are faced with a challenge... It follows that public space and monumentality (museums, cultural centers, public art, architectural icons) will play a key role in marking space, and facilitating meaningful interaction." There are different ways in which to picture the geography of the Internet. The picture of the graph on the cover of the book resembles that of Matt Britt shown on the right. == The Digital Divide in a Global Perspective == "Education, information, science, and technology become the critical sources of value creation in the Internet-based economy. Educational, informational, and technological resources are characterized by extremely uneven distribution throughout the world (UNESCO, 1999)." == Conclusion: The Challenges of the Network Society == "I imagine one could say: ″Why don't you leave me alone?! I want no part of your Internet, of your technological civilization, of your network society! I just want to live my life!″..." ==


id: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia-0.md
category: reference
title: Interpretation of Schizophrenia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:58.935768+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-0
summary:
Interpretation of Schizophrenia (first edition, 1955) is a book by Italy-born American psychiatrist Silvano Arieti in which the author sets forth demonstrative evidence of a psychological etiology for schizophrenia. Arieti expanded the book vastly in 1974 (ISBN 0-465-03429-2) and that edition won the U.S. National Book Award in the Science category. Interpretation of schizophrenia is a 756-page book divided in 45 chapters. Arieti begins his book stating that it is difficult to define schizophrenia. He asks if schizophrenia is an illness and answers in the negative, since the disorder is not understood in classic Virchowian criterion of cellular pathology. Though those searching for a biological basis of schizophrenia far outnumber those undertaking psychological approaches, Arieti supports the minority view. He believes schizophrenia is an unrealistic way to represent both the self and the world and praises psychiatrist Adolf Meyer for stressing the importance of psychological factors in the etiology of schizophrenia. == The basis of schizophrenia == Arieti examines the family history of people with schizophrenia, and references twin studies to support the notion that the potentiality for schizophrenia has a genetic basis, but maintains that this genetic potentiality is not enough to predispose someone to schizophrenia unless early life


id: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia-1.md
category: reference
title: Interpretation of Schizophrenia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:58.935768+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-0
summary:
A characteristic of Homo sapiens is a prolonged childhood with a consequently extended dependency on adults. This, according to Arieti, "is the basis of the psychodynamics of schizophrenia", a claim that also appears in later writers on child abuse such as Alice Miller and Colin Ross. Arieti reviews the paper by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann about the "schizophrenogenic" mother and reaches the tentative conclusion that only 25 percent of the mothers of people with schizophrenia in his clinical experience fit that image. However, he adds that only in a minority of schizophrenia cases "the child is able to retain the good maternal image". He clarifies that the internal maternal image is not based solely on the real mother, but is rather influenced by all relations the patient has throughout his life. The reason for this is that from infancy onward, the relationship with the mother lays the basis for all future relationships, and remains as an internal model for every relationship the patient has, and is shaped and altered by any future relations that influence the patient's view of the world, and of society at large. Arieti also mentions the work of Theodore Lidz, another trauma model author of schizophrenia. Like Lidz,


id: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia-2.md
category: reference
title: Interpretation of Schizophrenia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:58.935768+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-0
summary:
== Pre-psychotic panic == In Part three of Interpretation of schizophrenia Arieti describes how in spite of its efforts to stay in reality, the patient's defenses finally succumb when attacks on the self-image both from outside and within cause the anxiety to become too unbearable. When the patient "cannot change the unbearable situation of himself any longer, he has to change reality". Arieti examines the inner world of the person with schizophrenia, and the genesis of the schizophrenic regression. Arieti maintains that even with the schizophrenic potentiality laid down in early childhood and by genetic predisposition, not all of these cases will develop psychosis, as new defense mechanisms are acquired throughout the life of the individual. For schizophrenics however, all such attempts eventually fail at staving off a complete break. The negative self-image that is dissociated from the conscious mind of the individual may be reactivated by any number of life events, such as entering a into a new relationship, the birth of a child, or a tragic accident, the death of a relative, especially the death of parents, moving out of home, stress at work, the loss of a job, or a promotion at work which destabilizes the individual's


id: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia-3.md
category: reference
title: Interpretation of Schizophrenia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:58.935768+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-0
summary:
== Schizophrenic thinking == Arieti describes a distinct type of logic, separate from the aristotelian logic used by modern man in advanced societies, called "paleological thinking", or primary process thinking. In paleological thought, nature's events are attributed to the will of outside forces. "If the greeks were afflicted by an epidemic, it was because Phoebus wanted to punish Agamemnon." In the world of paleological thinking, every happening that is relevant to the schizophrenic's complexes is interpreted as being willed by the projected persecutors of the individual. Primary process thinking, which is only encountered in dreams and in early childhood by modern man, is adapted by the schizophrenic to reduce destructive anxiety. Aristotelian logic is abandoned almost entirely, and primary process thinking gains more and more footing as the disease progresses from acute to chronic schizophrenia. In deterministic or paleological/teleologic causality, if Nature's happenings were not willed they simply would not occur. In paranoid projection the schizophrenic takes out from him/herself a disagreeable part of the self onto the world. In Interpretation of schizophrenia Arieti illustrates all of the above theoretical constructions with concrete cases of his clinical experience as a psychiatrist. Anxiety-provoking material is projected onto the environment, because for


id: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia-4.md
category: reference
title: Interpretation of Schizophrenia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_Schizophrenia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:04:58.935768+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: interpretation-of-schizophrenia-20260505-0
summary:
== Self-image of the schizophrenic == According to Arieti, the pre-schizophrenic person in early childhood fails to build a healthy self-image, being unable to assert themselves in a healthy manner against their primary caregivers, as the dominant, narcissistic and hostile parent allows the child no chance to build up healthy limits and distinctions between themselves and the parent. The dominant parent sees the child less as an individual being, and more as an extension of themselves. The passive parent who projects their hostility from the dominant parent will also thwart such attempts. This is further complicated if other family members also take part in maintaining this atmosphere of hostility. Frequently the child who later becomes schizophrenic is either the dominant parent's favorite child, on whom the dominant parent depends for their self-esteem and self-gratification, or the family scapegoat who sits at the bottom of the family hierarchy, who is used as a lightning rod for discharging hostility within the family both by siblings and by the parents. All children have an internal need to see their parents in a positive light, as the child depends on the parents for survival, even if the parental behavior is destructive to the child's


id: the-kingdom-of-speech-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_Speech-0.md
category: reference
title: The Kingdom of Speech
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_Speech
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:00.136165+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-kingdom-of-speech-20260505-0
summary:
The Kingdom of Speech is a critique of Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky written by Tom Wolfe. The book's criticisms of Chomsky are outlined in an article in Harper's. In the book, Wolfe criticises Darwin and his colleagues for taking partial credit from Alfred Wallace for the theory of evolution and ignoring Wallace's later work on the theory. Wolfe then criticises Noam Chomsky for dismissing Daniel Everett, who disputes Chomsky's claim that all languages are based ultimately on a hard-wired mechanism known as the language acquisition device (LAD). Wolfe argues that speech, not evolution, sets humans apart from animals and is responsible for all of humanity's complex achievements. == Critical response == In The Guardian, Steven Poole criticises Wolfe's whole approach to Darwin and dismisses his suggestion that Darwin had no evidence for his theory of evolution by natural selection, saying that Darwin "adduced a lot of evidence at the time, including the geographical distribution of species, comparative anatomy, fossils and the existence of vestigial organs. Today, of course, evolution is observed in real time in the laboratory, among microbes or insects." In The Washington Post, Jerry Coyne agrees that Wolfe "grossly distorts the theory of evolution". He also notes


id: laboratory-life-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_Life-0.md
category: reference
title: Laboratory Life
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_Life
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:04.286555+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: laboratory-life-20260505-0
summary:
Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts is a 1979 book by sociologists of science Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar. This influential book in the field of science studies presents an anthropological study of Roger Guillemin's scientific laboratory at the Salk Institute. It advances a number of observations regarding how scientific work is conducted, including descriptions of the complex relationship between the routine lab practices performed by scientists, the publication of papers, scientific prestige, research finances and other elements of laboratory life. The book is considered to be one of the most influential works in the laboratory studies tradition within science and technology studies (STS). It is inspired by but not entirely dependent on the ethnomethodological approach. In turn, it served as the inspiration for actor–network theory (or ANT); many of ANT's core concepts (like transcription, inscription, translation, and the deployment of networks) are present in Laboratory Life. == Introduction and Methodology == Latour and Woolgar state that their work "concerns the way in which the daily activities of working scientists lead to the construction of scientific facts" (pp. 32). Laboratory Life therefore stands in opposition to the study of scandalous moments in which the so-called "normal" operation of


id: laboratory-life-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_Life-1.md
category: reference
title: Laboratory Life
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_Life
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:04.286555+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: laboratory-life-20260505-0
summary:
== The Construction of a Fact: The Case of TRF(H) == The next chapter aims at giving a precise account of the way in which this process operates with respect to a single scientific fact: the peptide TRF(H). This historical account, which Latour and Woolgar admit is, like all histories, a "necessarily literary fiction" (107), has the ostensible purpose of qualifying the initial account given by the observer. To this end, the chapter focuses on the specific way in which TRF(H) was constructed as a fact, describing how one scientist, Guillemin, "redefine[d] the TRF subspecialty solely in terms of determining the structure of the substance" (119). As sequencing TRF(H) required far more sophisticated equipment and techniques than merely determining its physiological effects, Guillemin raised the cost of entry to this field and cut his potential competitors by three-fourths. The authors next claim that the fact regarding TRF(H)'s structure progressed by decreases in the number of "'logically' possible alternatives" (146). However, Latour and Woolgar critique the explanation that "logic" or "deduction" is a satisfactory and complete explanation for the specific way in which a scientific fact is constructed. Instead, as their historical account of TRF(H) shows, the "list of possible alternatives


id: laboratory-life-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_Life-2.md
category: reference
title: Laboratory Life
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_Life
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:04.286555+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: laboratory-life-20260505-0
summary:
Slovik proposed an assay but his assay did not work everywhere; people could not repeat it; some could, some could not. Then one day Slovik got the idea that it could be related to the selenium content in the water: they checked to see where the assay worked; and indeed, Slovik's idea was right, it worked wherever the selenium content of water was high. (169) This story is contrasted with another story based on interviews with the participants: The University of California required that graduate students get credits in a field totally unrelated to their own. Sara, one of Slovik's students, fulfilled this requirement by taking selenium studies, since it had a vague relation to her major. Graduate students had a tradition of informal seminars where they discussed these unrelated classes. At one meeting, Sara presented a paper on the effects of Selenium on cancer and noted that someone on campus proposed that the geographical distribution of selenium content in water might correlate with the geographical distribution of cancer rates. Slovik was at the meeting and thought that this might explain the geographical difference in his assay working. He phoned a colleague to tell him the idea and ask him


id: lands-beyond-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands_Beyond-0.md
category: reference
title: Lands Beyond
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands_Beyond
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:05.529651+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lands-beyond-20260505-0
summary:
Lands Beyond is a study of geographical myths by L. Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley, first published in hardcover by Rinehart in 1952, and reissued by Barnes & Noble in 1993. It has been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. It was the winner of the 1953 International Fantasy Award for nonfiction. == Contents == Introduction Chapter I. The Land of Longing Chapter II. The Long Homecoming Chapter III. The Fabulous Feast Chapter IV. The Sea of Sindbad Chapter V. The Land of Prester John Chapter VI. The Mislaid Tribes Chapter VII. The Great Dream Chapter VIII. The Western Ocean Chapter IX. Golden Men and Amazons Chapter X. The Shape of the Earth Epilogue Bibliography Index == Reception == New York Times columnist Charles Poore placed Lands Beyond on his annual list of books recommended for Christmas giving. Kirkus Reviews recommended it as "a zestful geographical round-up which combines fact, legend and literature in equally interested parts". Boucher and McComas praised the book, saying it was "written with scholarly authority, literary grace, and an amusedly tolerant exposition of error, to make one of the season's most enjoyable items." New Worlds reviewer Leslie Flood described it as “fascinating”. Weird


id: lexicon-technicum-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_Technicum-0.md
category: reference
title: Lexicon Technicum
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_Technicum
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:06.681561+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lexicon-technicum-20260505-0
summary:
Lexicon Technicum: or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves was in many respects the first alphabetical encyclopedia written in English, compiled by John Harris, with the first volume published in 1704 and the second in 1710. Although the emphasis of the Lexicon Technicum was on mathematical subjects, its contents go beyond what would be called science or technology today, in conformity with the broad eighteenth century understanding of the terms "arts" and "science," and it includes entries on the humanities and fine arts, notably on law, commerce, music, and heraldry. However, the Lexicon Technicum neglects theology, antiquity, biography, and poetry. == Overview == The Lexicon Technicum was the work of a London clergyman, John Harris (1666-1719). Its professed advantage over French dictionaries of the arts and sciences was that it contained explanation not only of the terms used in the arts and sciences, but also of the arts and sciences themselves. Harris issued a three-page proposal for this work in 1702, and the first edition of the first volume was published in London in 1704. The first volume contains 1220 pages, 4 plates, and many additional diagrams


id: life-and-energy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Energy-0.md
category: reference
title: Life and Energy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Energy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:07.915236+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: life-and-energy-20260505-0
summary:
Life and Energy is a 1962 book by Isaac Asimov. It is about the biological and physical world, and their contrasts and comparisons. Thus the book is divided into two sections, which is separated by further sub-sections (i.e. chapters): 1) energy; 2) body. In order to accomplish its goal, the book starts with "layman" discussions about energy and how these can be used to single out human from other living systems, or even living systems from non-living matter, what differentiates a rock from an oyster, and finishes with advanced concepts, how living systems are able to "produce" energy. == First Chapters: Energy == The first chapters covers the common questions of the distinctions between living and inanimate objects. == Following Chapters == Asimov then explains in a step by step manner about the physical world first through slow, but interesting chapters. He writes about the effect and major role of the evolution and advance of man by fire and heat, he tells about thermodynamics (and its laws), he recollects the thoughts of previous scientists, and their painstaking works, and finally, the quantum theory and radiation, which has revolutionised physics and technology. An explanation of electricity and basic chemistry laws and


id: life-science-library-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Science_Library-0.md
category: reference
title: Life Science Library
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Science_Library
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:09.039582+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: life-science-library-20260505-0
summary:
The Life Science Library is a series of hardbound books published by Time Life between 1963 and 1967. Each of the 26 volumes explores a major topic of the natural sciences at a level appropriate to an educated lay readership. In each volume, the text of each of eight chapters is followed by a "Picture Essay" illustrating the subject of the preceding chapter. They were available in a monthly subscription from Life magazine. The series explains scientific concepts in simple metaphors; for example, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is explained in a cartoon about a spy drama involving a train traveling very close to the speed of light, probability is explained with poker hands, and the periodic table of the elements is conveyed with common household items. Although progress has overtaken much of the material in the more than 50 years since their publication, the series' explanations of basic science and the history of discovery remain valid. The consulting editors of the series are microbiologist René Dubos, physicist Henry Margenau, and physicist and novelist C. P. Snow. Each volume was written by a primary author or authors, "and the Editors of LIFE". The volumes are: Matter (1963), by Ralph E.


id: little-science-big-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Science,_Big_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Little Science, Big Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Science,_Big_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:10.153678+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: little-science-big-science-20260505-0
summary:
Little Science, Big Science is a book of collected lectures given by Derek J. De Solla Price, first published in 1963. The book presents the 1962 Brookhaven National Laboratory Pegram Lectures, a series of lectures dedicated to discussing science and its place in society. Price's goal in the lectures is to outline what it may look like for science to be analysed scientifically, by applying methods of measuring, hypothesizing, and deriving to science itself. With this goal in mind, he sets out to define quasi-mathematically how the shape and size of science has shifted from "small science" to "big science" in a historical and sociological way. Price presents a quantification of science as a measurable entity via an analogy to thermodynamics, conceptualizing science like a gas with individual molecules possessing individual velocities and interactions, a total volume, and general properties or laws. == Prologue to a Science of Science == Price begins the lectures by setting forth a demarcation in science centered around the modern period. He describes the phenomenon that, at the time of the lectures, 80 to 90 percent of important scientific work had occurred in one normal human life span. With this facet in mind, he sets


id: little-science-big-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Science,_Big_Science-1.md
category: reference
title: Little Science, Big Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Science,_Big_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:10.153678+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: little-science-big-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Galton Revisited == In this chapter, Price suggests various ideas and methods about conducting a science of science, or scientometrics, by first narrating some peculiar contributions to statistics made by Francis Galton. His overall goal is to further the possibility of applying scientific methods to science itself by suggesting various metrics and measures of the size, growth rate, and distribution of science. He focuses on Galton's work concerning the distribution of high achieving scientists and statesmen in the upper echelons of British society, specifically Hereditary Genius and English Men of Science. These works are reviewed with the goal of understanding a basic metric for the number of people or papers in science that reach different levels of quality, an idea basic in Price's formulation of scientometrics. Further, he suggests that understanding such a metric would allow predictions to be made of science and scientists when changes associated with Big Science arrive. Galton's original approach was to estimate the distribution of high achieving practitioners of science among the eminent parts of British society, and Price takes this as a starting step in grasping a scientific metric of the productivity of science. In analyzing Galton's work and the work of another


id: little-science-big-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Science,_Big_Science-2.md
category: reference
title: Little Science, Big Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Science,_Big_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:10.153678+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: little-science-big-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Political Strategy for Big Scientists == The final section of the lectures focuses on a larger-picture analysis of science and the monetary trends within it. As a general first statement, Price proposes that the cost of science has been increasing proportional to the square of the number of scientists. He points out that the cost of research in terms of the GDP did not increase in the years preceding World War II, yet afterward began increasing at the rate previously mentioned. As research amounts increase, the current and necessary number of researchers increases, promoting the inducement of scientists with higher salaries and better facilities in turn increasing the overall costs of science. Price suggests that it is this feedback loop that is a potential decelerator for the growth of science, and the main difference between Little Science and Big Science. What follows is his analysis of the "explosion of science" within non-developed countries, specifically Japan. He shows through this analysis that the United States' lack of experience of this explosion of science within the 20th century up to this point is due to the saturation of society with the activities of science, nearing costs not maintainable by the country.


id: loimologia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loimologia-0.md
category: reference
title: Loimologia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loimologia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:11.249765+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: loimologia-20260505-0
summary:
Loimologia, or, an historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665, With precautionary Directions against the like Contagion is a treatise by Dr. Nathaniel Hodges (1629–1688), originally published in London in Latin (Loimologia, sive, Pestis nuperæ apud populum Londinensem grassantis narratio historica) in 1672; an English translation was later published in London in 1720. The treatise provides a first-hand account of the Great Plague of London; it has been described as the best medical record of the epidemic. == Hodges' records of treatments == While most physicians fled the city, including the renowned Thomas Sydenham, and Sir Edward Alston, president of the Royal College of Physicians, Hodges was one of the few physicians who remained in the city during 1665, to record observations and test the effectiveness of treatments against the plague. The book also contains statistics on the victims in each parish. == Additions in the 1720 edition == The English translation (1720) was released while a plague was spreading throughout Marseilles, and people in England were fearful of another disease outbreak. To this 1720 edition was added An essay on the different causes of pestilential diseases, and how they become contagious; with remarks on the infection now


id: longitude-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Longitude (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:12.463460+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: longitude-book-20260505-0
summary:
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time is a 1995 best-selling book by Dava Sobel about John Harrison, an 18th-century clockmaker who created the first clock (chronometer) sufficiently accurate to be used to determine longitude at sea—an important development in navigation. The book was made into a television series entitled Longitude. In 1998, The Illustrated Longitude was published, supplementing the earlier text with 180 images of characters, events, instruments, maps and publications. == Problem of longitude == Determining longitude on land was fairly easy compared to the task at sea. A stable surface to work from, known coordinates to refer to, a sheltered environment for the unstable chronometers of the day, and the ability to repeat determinations over time made for great accuracy. For calculating longitude at sea however, early ocean navigators had to rely on dead reckoning, or if in sight of land, coastal navigation, which involves triangulating several bearings of the same land feature from different positions. Once out of sight of land, longitude became impossible to calculate, which sometimes led to tragedies in stormy or foggy conditions. In order to deal with not being able to calculate


id: longitude-book-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)-1.md
category: reference
title: Longitude (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:12.463460+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: longitude-book-20260505-0
summary:
As Dava Sobel explains, "To know one's longitude at sea, one needs to know what time it is aboard ship and also the time at the home port or another place of known longitude—at that very same moment. The two clock times enable the navigator to convert the hour difference into geographical separation. Since the earth takes 24 hours to revolve 360 degrees, one hour marks 1/24 of a revolution or 15 degrees. And so each hour's time difference between the ship and starting point marks a progress of fifteen degrees of longitude to the east or west. "Every day at sea, when the navigator resets his ship's clock to local noon when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, and then consults the home port clock, every hour's discrepancy between them translates into another fifteen degrees of longitude. One degree of longitude equals four minutes of time the world over, although in terms of distance, one degree shrinks from 60.15 nautical miles or 111 km [Earth's circumference being 21,653.521 nautical miles, or 24,901.55 statute miles at the Equator], to virtually nothing at the poles. "Precise knowledge of the hour in two different places at once—a longitude prerequisite


id: magia-naturalis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magia_Naturalis-0.md
category: reference
title: Magia Naturalis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magia_Naturalis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:13.619621+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: magia-naturalis-20260505-0
summary:
Magia Naturalis (in English, Natural Magic) is a work of popular science by Giambattista della Porta first published in Naples in 1558. Its popularity ensured it was republished in five Latin editions within ten years, with translations into Italian (1560), French, (1565) Dutch (1566) and English (1658) printed. Natural Magic was revised and considerably expanded throughout the author's lifetime; its twenty books (Naples 1589) include observations upon geology, optics, medicines, poisons, cooking, metallurgy, magnetism, cosmetics, perfumes, gunpowder and invisible writing. Natural Magic is an example of pre-Baconian science. Its sources include the ancient learning of Pliny the Elder and Theophrastus as well as numerous scientific observations made by Della Porta. == Author == Giambattista della Porta (also known as John Baptist Porta) was born in Vico Equense, Italy, between October 3rd and November 15th, 1535 and was the second of three sons. The Porta family belonged to the ancient nobility of Solerno, granting them a modest fortune until Giambattista's father, Nardo Antonio della Porta entered the service of Emperor Charles V in 1541. This allowed the family to alternate residences between Vico Equense and Naples. The nature of Giambattista's formal education is unknown. Only two of Giambattista's teachers have been


id: man-and-power-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Power-0.md
category: reference
title: Man and Power
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Power
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:14.772094+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: man-and-power-20260505-0
summary:
Man and Power: the Story of Power from the Pyramids to the Atomic Age is a science book for children by L. Sprague de Camp, illustrated with documents, photographs by Russ Kinne, Roman Vishniac, and others, and paintings by Alton S. Tobey, first published in hardcover by Golden Press in 1961. == Summary == As stated on the cover, the work is a survey of "the story of power from the pyramids to the atomic age." It traces the "progression of man's discovery and utilization of power ... in chapters dealing consecutively with the different sources of power--animal, wind, water, steam, internal combustion, chemical, electrical, and nuclear power, and possible future sources." == Partial Contents == Manpower Animal Power Wind Power Water Power Steam Power Internal-combustion Power Chemical Power Electric Power Nuclear Power == Reception == Thomas Goonan, writing for Library Journal, rated the book "[r]ecommended," praising its "[e]xcellent illustrations" that "elucidate the text" and "[g]ood index. Comparing it to Edward Stoddard's The Story of Power, he judged de Camp's work "[m]ore comprehensive and detailed." The Science News-Letter, in its September 23, 1961 issue, listed the book among its "Books of the Week," describing the work as a "[c]olorful panorama


id: the-meme-machine-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine-0.md
category: reference
title: The Meme Machine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:18.746897+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-meme-machine-20260505-0
summary:
The Meme Machine is a popular science book by Susan Blackmore on the subject of memes. Blackmore attempts to constitute memetics as a science by discussing its empirical and analytic potential, as well as some important problems with memetics. The first half of the book tries to create greater clarity about the definition of the meme as she sees it. The last half of the book consists of a number of possible memetic explanations for such different problems as the origin of language, the origin of the human brain, sexual phenomena, the Internet and the notion of the self. These explanations, in her view, give simpler and clearer explanations than trying to create genetic explanations in these fields. The idea of memes, and the word itself, were originally speculated by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene although similar, or analogous, concepts had been in currency for a while before its publishing. Richard Dawkins wrote a foreword to The Meme Machine. In the book, Blackmore examines the difficulties associated with the meme including its definition and how to spot one as well as the difficulties which arise from seeing it as being like the gene. She sees the meme


id: the-millennial-project-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project-0.md
category: reference
title: The Millennial Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:19.887806+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-millennial-project-20260505-0
summary:
The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage is a book (published in 1992 and reprinted in 1994 with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) in the field of exploratory engineering that gives a series of concrete stages the author believes will lead to interstellar colonization. Many specific scientific and engineering details are presented, as are numerous issues involved in space colonization. == The book's thesis == Savage takes a Malthusian view of the exponential growth of human population and life in general, and also recommends the exponential growth of blue-green algae for sustenance. He states that it is humanity's destiny to colonize every star in the galaxy. He draws heavily on the Fermi paradox (briefly stated as, "If there is intelligent life in space, why haven't we found it yet?") to support his position that it is humanity's burden alone to ignite the universe with the "spark of Life." In The Millennial Project, he calls for the creation of an international foundation to realize these goals. Originally known as the First Millennial Foundation (founded by Savage in 1987), the organization changed its name to the Living Universe Foundation. == The steps of the


id: the-mind-of-god-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_of_God-0.md
category: reference
title: The Mind of God
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_of_God
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:21.131877+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-mind-of-god-20260505-0
summary:
The Mind of God is a 1992 non-fiction book by Paul Davies. Subtitled The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, it is a whirlwind tour and explanation of theories, both physical and metaphysical, regarding ultimate causes. Its title comes from a quotation from Stephen Hawking: "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God." In the preface, Davies explains that he has been interested in ultimate causes since childhood, having annoyed his parents with unending "why's" about everything, with each answer demanding another "why," and usually ending with the reply, "Because God made it that way, and that's that!" In the book proper, Davies briefly explores: the nature of reason, belief, and metaphysics; theories of the origin of the universe; the laws of nature; the relationship of mathematics to physics; a few arguments for the existence of God; the possibility that the universe shows evidence of a deity; and his opinion of the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, that "the search for a closed logical scheme that provides a complete and self-consistent explanation is doomed to failure." He concludes with a statement of his


id: mind-the-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_the_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Mind the Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_the_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:22.304123+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mind-the-science-20260505-0
summary:
Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry is a 2024 book by psychologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Calgary, Jonathan N. Stea. This book examines the Wellness industry, the harm medical pseudoscience can have on individuals in the hope that people will be able to make more informed decisions about their health care. The book is written for the lay audience and also includes many appendices that define terms that act as a reference guide. This book was published by Oxford University Press. == Synopsis == The journal Psychiatric Times notes that the book is divided into three main sections: how to see red flags in wellness information, identifying propaganda and misinformation, and solutions "grounded in mainstream science and medicine". Stea uses many examples to explain to the layperson how seductive alternative medicine can be when science-based medicine does not offer immediate results. Using the personal story of his mother, Stea explains various pseudoscience practices such as acupuncture, reflexology, chiropractic, Reiki and more. Multiple examples used show how difficult it is to navigate through mental illness, addiction and obsessive compulsive disorder often wasting time, money and causing "great harm". == Reception == Psychologist


id: the-naked-ape-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Ape-0.md
category: reference
title: The Naked Ape
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Ape
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:24.669197+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-naked-ape-20260505-0
summary:
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal is a 1967 book by English zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris that looks at humans as a species and compares them to other animals. The Human Zoo, a follow-up book by Morris that examined the behaviour of people in cities, was published in 1969. == Summary == The Naked Ape, which was serialised in the Daily Mirror newspaper and has been translated into 23 languages, depicts human behaviour as largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as a hunter (see Nature versus nurture). The book was so named because out of 193 species of monkeys and apes, only humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) are not covered in hair. Desmond Morris, the author, who had been the curator of mammals at London Zoo, said his book was intended to popularise and demystify science. Morris said that Homo sapiens not only have the largest brains of all higher primates, but that sexual selection in human evolution has caused humans to have the highest ratio of penis size to body mass. Morris conjectured that human ear-lobes developed as an additional erogenous zone to facilitate the extended sexuality necessary in the evolution of


id: natural-obsessions-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Obsessions-0.md
category: reference
title: Natural Obsessions
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Obsessions
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:25.859067+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-obsessions-20260505-0
summary:
Natural Obsessions is a book written by American science author Natalie Angier published in 1988. It chronicles a year in the laboratories of two prominent cancer biologists during a period where there was a race to discover and characterize some of the first cancer-causing and cancer-suppressing genes. == Overview == It chronicles the time, about a year, that she spent in the labs of two very prominent cancer biologists, Robert Weinberg and Michael Wigler, during a period where there was a race to discover and characterize some of the first cancer causing and cancer-suppressing genes (oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, respectively). This book gives insight into the day-to-day working of a top scientific laboratory with no embellishment - both the excitement and thrill of discovery as well as the drudgery and politics can be found in Natural Obsessions. Pressure to find these genes mounts and everyone is scrambling to be the first to announce this major discovery which could have gone to several laboratories. == Commercial and critical reception == Natural Obsessions was reviewed favorably in the New York Times and Smithsonian magazine in the months after its initial publication. The book was named a New York Times Notable Book


id: nature-of-man-series-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_of_Man_Series-0.md
category: reference
title: Nature of Man Series
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_of_Man_Series
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:27.032852+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nature-of-man-series-20260505-0
summary:
The Nature of Man Series is a four-volume series of works in paleoanthropology by the prolific playwright, screenwriter, and science writer Robert Ardrey. The books in the series were published between 1961 and 1976. The series majorly undermined standing assumptions in social sciences, leading to an abandonment of the "blank slate" hypothesis; incited a renaissance in the science of ethology; and led to widespread popular interest in human evolution and human origins. The first work, African Genesis (1961), particularly helped revive interest in ethology, and was a direct precursor to the Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression (1966), Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape (1967), Lionel Tiger's Men in Groups (1969), and Tiger and Robin Fox's The Imperial Animal (1971). The director of the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program Rick Potts, cited Ardrey's work as inspiring him to go anthropology. The works were wildly popular and influenced the public imagination. Stanley Kubrick cited them as major influences in developing his films 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). == Robert Ardrey == Robert Ardrey was a prolific playwright, screenwriter, and science writer. By the time he returned to the sciences in the 1950s, he had already had a decorated Hollywood


id: the-new-inquisition-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Inquisition-0.md
category: reference
title: The New Inquisition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Inquisition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:28.194822+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-new-inquisition-20260505-0
summary:
The New Inquisition is a book written by Robert Anton Wilson and first published in 1986. The New Inquisition is a book about ontology, science, paranormal events, and epistemology. Wilson identifies what he calls "Fundamentalist Materialism" belief and compares it to religious fundamentalism. == Description == In The New Inquisition Wilson criticizes the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal by claiming that scientists do not give a fair hearing to anyone they do not already agree with. Something else he criticizes is that the dependence on the military-industrial complex is the norm. He proclaims that instead of this dictatory attitude scientists should apply skepticism, or a kind of agnostic principle, when faced with new ideas. According to Wilson, science these days glorifies the "Idol of Materialism". He calls their belief "Fundamental Materialism" and likens it to religious fundamentalists. Wilson suggests a principle that "refuses total belief or total denial and regards models as tools to be used only and always where appropriate and replaced (by other models) only and always where not appropriate". It is intended to be deliberately shocking, as Wilson states that he "does not want its ideas to seem any less startling than


id: the-new-inquisition-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Inquisition-1.md
category: reference
title: The New Inquisition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Inquisition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:28.194822+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-new-inquisition-20260505-0
summary:
== Critical reception == Jim Lippard described the quality of research in the book as "very shoddy". The book had a large number of typographical errors. He also said that Wilson's message about avoiding dogmatism was worthwhile, that the book was entertaining but that readers should be careful about taking Wilsons' explanations seriously. Lippard listed inaccuracies about the Esperanza Stone, fish falling from the sky and the alleged Mars effect. Kristin Buxton compared Wilson to Martin Gardner, noting that Gardner has written on many of the topics that Wilson writes about in the book, taking very different points of view. She pointed out that Gardner does not think it is easy to exactly define pseudoscience, nor does Gardner think his ideas are infallible. She mentioned that other reviewers had pointed out problems with the research and that the book needs to be read with care. She concluded with suggesting a merging of the views of Robert Anton Wilson and Martin Gardner as a possible new approach to science. Scientist Carl Sagan criticized Wilson's characterizing people skeptical of the phenomena he relates as an "inquisition" in his book The Demon-Haunted World, writing: "Wilson... describes skeptics as a 'new inquisition.' But to


id: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: A New Kind of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:29.444242+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
A New Kind of Science is a book by Stephen Wolfram, published by his company Wolfram Research under the imprint Wolfram Media in 2002. Wolfram explores how rules that control the interactions between cellular automata can generate surprisingly non-chaotic results. == Contents == === Computation and its implications === The thesis of A New Kind of Science (NKS) is twofold: that the nature of computation must be explored experimentally, and that the results of these experiments have great relevance to understanding the physical world. === Simple programs === The basic subject of Wolfram's "new kind of science" is the study of simple abstract rules—essentially, elementary computer programs. In almost any class of a computational system, one very quickly finds instances of great complexity among its simplest cases (after a time series of multiple iterative loops, applying the same simple set of rules on itself, similar to a self-reinforcing cycle using a set of rules). This seems to be true regardless of the components of the system and the details of its setup. Systems explored in the book include, among others, cellular automata in one, two, and three dimensions; mobile automata; Turing machines in 1 and 2 dimensions; several varieties of


id: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science-1.md
category: reference
title: A New Kind of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:29.444242+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Systematic abstract science === While Wolfram advocates simple programs as a scientific discipline, he also argues that its methodology will revolutionize other fields of science. The basis of his argument is that the study of simple programs is the minimal possible form of science, grounded equally in both abstraction and empirical experimentation. Every aspect of the methodology NKS advocates is optimized to make experimentation as direct, easy, and meaningful as possible while maximizing the chances that the experiment will do something unexpected. Just as this methodology allows computational mechanisms to be studied in their simplest forms, Wolfram argues that the process of doing so engages with the mathematical basis of the physical world, and therefore has much to offer the sciences. Wolfram argues that the computational realities of the universe make science hard for fundamental reasons. But he also argues that by understanding the importance of these realities, we can learn to use them in our favor. For instance, instead of reverse engineering our theories from observation, we can enumerate systems and then try to match them to the behaviors we observe. A major theme of NKS is investigating the structure of the possibility space. Wolfram argues that science


id: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science-2.md
category: reference
title: A New Kind of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:29.444242+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Periodicals gave A New Kind of Science coverage, including articles in The New York Times, Newsweek, Wired, and The Economist. Some scientists, including Cosma Shalizi and Scott Aaronson, criticized the book and perceived a fatal flaw—that simple systems such as cellular automata are not complex enough to describe the degree of complexity in evolved systems, and observed that Wolfram ignored the research categorizing the complexity of systems. Although critics accept Wolfram's result showing universal computation, they view it as minor and dispute Wolfram's claim of a paradigm shift. Others found that the work contained valuable insights and refreshing ideas. Wolfram addressed his critics in a series of blog posts. === Scientific philosophy === A tenet of NKS is that the simpler the system, the more likely a version of it will recur in a wide variety of more complicated contexts. Therefore, NKS argues that systematically exploring the space of simple programs will lead to a base of reusable knowledge. But many scientists believe that of all possible parameters, only some actually occur in the universe. For instance, of all possible permutations of the symbols making up an equation, most will be essentially meaningless. NKS has also been criticized for asserting


id: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science-3.md
category: reference
title: A New Kind of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:29.444242+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-new-kind-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Originality === NKS has been heavily criticized as not original or important enough to justify its title and claims. The authoritative manner in which NKS presents a vast number of examples and arguments has been criticized as leading the reader to believe that each of these is original to Wolfram; in particular, one of the most substantial new technical results presented in the book, that the rule 110 cellular automaton is Turing complete, was not proven by Wolfram. Wolfram credits the proof to his research assistant Matthew Cook. But the book's notes section acknowledges many of the discoveries made by these other scientists, citing their names together with historical facts, although not in the form of a traditional bibliography section. Additionally, the idea that very simple rules often generate great complexity is already an established idea in science, particularly in chaos theory and complex systems. == See also == Digital physics Scientific reductionism Calculating Space Marcus Hutter's "Universal Artificial Intelligence" algorithm == References == == External links == A New Kind of Science free E-Book What We've Learned from NKS YouTube playlist — extensive discussion of each NKS chapter; (As of 2022, Stephen Wolfram discusses the NKS chapters in


id: nicolaus-copernicus-gesamtausgabe-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus_Gesamtausgabe-0.md
category: reference
title: Nicolaus Copernicus Gesamtausgabe
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus_Gesamtausgabe
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:30.561247+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nicolaus-copernicus-gesamtausgabe-20260505-0
summary:
The Nicolaus-Copernicus-Gesamtausgabe (Nicolaus Copernicus Complete Edition) is a comprehensive, commented collection of works by, about, and related to Nicolaus Copernicus. The Gesamtausgabe includes Copernicus's surviving manuscripts and notes, his published writings, other authors' commentary about Copernicus and his works, a bibliography, and a biography. Compilation of the series began in 1973 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Copernicus's birth. The first volume is the astronomer's landmark work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), which expounded Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the universe. The set is published by Akademie Verlag in Berlin, Germany. == Volumes == I: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 1974, ISBN 978-3-05-003897-1 II: III/1: Kommentar zu "De revolutionibus", 1998, ISBN 978-3-05-003123-1 III/3: De Revolutionibus. Die erste deutsche Übersetzung in der Grazer Handschrift, 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004355-5 IV: V: Opera Minora 1999, ISBN 978-3-05-003498-0 VI/1: Documenta Copernicana, 1994, ISBN 978-3-05-002594-0 VI/2: Documenta Copernicana, 1996, ISBN 978-3-05-003009-8 VII: VIII/1: Receptio Copernicana, ISBN 978-3-05-003433-1 IX: Biographia Copernicana == External links == Nicolaus Copernicus Gesamtausgabe at Akademie Verlag


id: orr-s-circle-of-the-sciences-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orr's_Circle_of_the_Sciences-0.md
category: reference
title: Orr's Circle of the Sciences
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orr's_Circle_of_the_Sciences
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:34.569652+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: orr-s-circle-of-the-sciences-20260505-0
summary:
Orr's Circle of the Sciences was a scientific encyclopedia of the 1850s, published in London by William Somerville Orr. == William S. Orr & Co. == William S. Orr & Co. was a publisher in Paternoster Row, London. It put out the British Cyclopædia in ten volumes of the 1830s. It also was in business selling engravings (for example the Kenny Meadows illustrations to Shakespeare), and maps, such as a mid-century Cab Fare and Guide Map of London (c. 1853). The firm was a general commercial publisher, with a specialist area of natural history, and also published periodicals. It was innovative in its use of wood engraving, in its 1838 edition of Paul et Virginie. In children's literature, it published Christoph von Schmid's Basket of Flowers in an English translation of 1848, in partnership with J. B. Müller of Stuttgart. == William Somerville Orr == Orr himself was a publishers' agent from the 1830s, and was a close associate of Robert and William Chambers. He printed a London edition of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal by mid-1832. The arrangement used stereotype plates, and brought the circulation up to 50,000. By 1845 the circulation was declining from its peak, and Orr wrote to


id: overshoot-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Overshoot (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:35.708949+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: overshoot-book-20260505-0
summary:
Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change is a book by American sociologist William R. Catton Jr. The book is a critical work that many consider one of the most essential yet overlooked books of the 20th century. The book discusses how humanity's overexploitation of Earth's resources has led to a situation where our consumption exceeds the planet's capacity for regeneration. It is divided into several parts, each addressing different aspects of ecological overshoot. It covers the historical development of human society, our dependence on unsustainable practices, and the need for a new environmental perspective. Catton emphasizes that humanity must recognize and adapt to the limits imposed by nature to avoid catastrophic consequences. Catton urges humanity to adopt a more realistic and sustainable way of life on Earth. He warns that ignoring these ecological limits will have severe repercussions, and only by understanding and respecting them can we hope to create a viable future for ourselves and future generations. == Background == William Catton came of age in sociology when the major debates were about social-only theoretical orientations (structural functionalism or consensus theory versus Marxism or conflict theory) and methodology (quantitative versus qualitative). His primary contribution was articulating an environmental


id: overshoot-book-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)-1.md
category: reference
title: Overshoot (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:35.708949+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: overshoot-book-20260505-0
summary:
The book emphasizes the need for a new perspective on the unsustainable exploitation of resources, which threatens future generations’ well-being. It stresses the importance of questioning old ways of thinking and putting more emphasis on being aware of the environment. The book highlights what the author calls “the tragic story of human success,” a period of rapid population growth and technological innovation, which led to an overshoot of the planet’s carrying capacity. The myth of limitlessness, distorted by technological advancements and exploitation of new lands, has exacerbated the environmental crisis. The book also discusses the culture of abundance, which led to a belief in human exemption from natural constraints. The book calls for a shift in perspective, acknowledging the ecological reality of finite resources and adapting to them. Abundance and liberty, once supported by ecological prerequisites, are under threat as living standards decline. The decline from what the author calls “the Age of Exuberance” has led to environmental changes and an overshoot crisis, causing declining living standards and political instability. Humans must acknowledge their role in altering their habitats and the interconnectedness of all life forms. The rapid growth and mechanization of agriculture have amplified this impact, suggesting a shift


id: overshoot-book-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)-2.md
category: reference
title: Overshoot (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:35.708949+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: overshoot-book-20260505-0
summary:
In 1995, Derrick Jensen similarly chose to highlight Catton's generosity of soul—despite the dark certainty of humanity's future. In his book Listening to the Land, Jensen chose to introduce his interview with Catton by way of this pull quote from Catton's book Overshoot: In a future that is as unavoidable as it will be unwelcome, survival and sanity may depend upon our ability to cherish rather than to disparage the concept of human dignity. In 2008, the introductory paper (by Richard York) for the "Symposium on Catton and Dunlap’s Foundational Work Establishing an Ecological Paradigm" concluded: The effect of Catton and Dunlap’s work has been profound, since it opened up a large swath of new terrain to sociological inquiry. It made possible the growing body of research in sociology that examines both human effects on the environment and the effects of the environment on society.York listed as "foundational" to the field not only the 1978 "New Paradigm" collaboration by Catton and Dunlap but also their coauthored papers published in the Annual Review of Sociology in 1979 and American Behavioral Scientist in 1980. Together, these provided "an explicit intellectual grounding for environmental sociology—defined as the study of societal-environmental interactions." In an


id: overshoot-book-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)-3.md
category: reference
title: Overshoot (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:35.708949+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: overshoot-book-20260505-0
summary:
In his 2015 obituary for Catton, John Michael Greer put this ecological term into its activist context: The core of Overshoot, which is also the core of the entire world of appropriate technology and green alternatives that got shot through the head and shoved into an unmarked grave in the Reagan years, is the recognition that the principles of ecology apply to industrial society just as much as they do to other communities of living things. The manuscript itself attracted an icon of the environmental movement, former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. To write the book's foreword was a sign of the popular (and activist) reach the book would garner. That reach included wilderness advocate Dave Foreman, a cofounder of Earth First! and of Wild Earth magazine. In a reflection upon Catton's death, Foreman wrote:William Catton's Overshoot is one of the most important books I've ever read, and Bill was one of my greatest teachers." Catton attributed his own wilderness experiences in national parks of the USA as the source of his drive to understand ecological systems and ecological limits — including the fundamental ecological principle of carrying capacity.In a 2021 guest post titled "Overshoot: Where We Now Stand," Michael


id: the-oxford-book-of-modern-science-writing-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Science_Writing-0.md
category: reference
title: The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Science_Writing
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:36.821539+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-oxford-book-of-modern-science-writing-20260505-0
summary:
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is an anthology of scientific writings, arranged and introduced by Richard Dawkins of the University of Oxford. Published first in March 2008, it contains 83 writings on many topics from a diverse variety of authors, which range in length from one to eight pages. All inclusions are dated post-1900, and include poetry, anecdotes, and general philosophical musings. == Contents == The book is divided into four segments. The following is a list of pieces included in each segment. === What Scientists Study === from: The Mysterious Universe by James Jeans Just Six Numbers by Martin Rees Creation Revisited by Peter Atkins The Ant and the Peacock by Helena Cronin The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection by R. A. Fisher Mankind Evolving by Theodosius Dobzhansky Adaptation and Natural Selection by G. C. Williams Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature by Francis Crick Genome by Matt Ridley "Theoretical Biology in the Third Millennium" by Sydney Brenner The Language of the Genes by Steve Jones "On Being the Right Size", an essay by J. B. S. Haldane The Explanation of Organic Diversity by Mark Ridley "The Importance of the Nervous System in the Evolution of Animal


id: the-panda-s-thumb-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Panda's_Thumb_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: The Panda's Thumb (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Panda's_Thumb_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:38.061123+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-panda-s-thumb-book-20260505-0
summary:
The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (1980) is a collection of 31 essays by the Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. It is the second volume culled from his 27-year monthly column "This View of Life" in Natural History magazine. Recurring themes of the essays are evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense. The title essay (of 1978, originally titled "The panda's peculiar thumb") presents the paradox that poor design is a better argument for evolution than good design, as illustrated by the anatomy of the panda's "thumb"—which is not an actual thumb at all, but an extension of the radial sesamoid bone. Topics addressed in other essays include the female brain, the Piltdown Man hoax, Down syndrome, and the relationship between dinosaurs and birds. The Panda's Thumb won the 1981 U.S. National Book Award in Science. == Reviews == Books of the Times - by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times == Notes == == References ==


id: pathological-altruism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_Altruism-0.md
category: reference
title: Pathological Altruism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_Altruism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:39.192100+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pathological-altruism-20260505-0
summary:
Pathological Altruism is a book edited by Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhavan, and David Sloan Wilson. It was published on 5 January 2012 by Oxford University Press, and contains 31 academic papers. Oakley defines pathological altruism as "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm". == Overview == The book comprises a collection of essays which discuss negative aspects of altruism and empathy towards others, such as when altruism hurts the altruist, is taken to an unhealthy extreme, or causes more harm than good. Examples given include depression and burnout seen in healthcare professionals, an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, hoarding of animals, and ineffective philanthropic and social programs that ultimately worsen the situations they are meant to aid. It is considered the first book to explore negative aspects of altruism and empathy. According to Oakley, anorexia, supporting addictions of other people (codependency), animal hoarding, depression, guilt and self-righteousness can be pathological altruism. Oakley has also stated that suicide bombings and genocides can be caused by pathological altruism, when perpetrators of these acts believe they are behaving altruistically towards those who share their ideology. Oakley further


id: el-per-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Perú_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: El Perú (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Perú_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:40.383607+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: el-per-book-20260505-0
summary:
El Perú: Itinerarios de Viajes is an expansive written work covering a variety of topics in the natural history of Peru, written by the prominent Italian-born Peruvian geographer and scientist Antonio Raimondi in the latter half of the 19th century. The work was compiled from extensive and detailed notes Raimondi took while criss-crossing the country, studying the nation's geography, geology, meteorology, botany, zoology, ethnography, and archaeology; El Perú focuses to some extent on each of these topics and others. The first volume was published in 1874; several more volumes were published both before Raimondi's death and posthumously from his notes, the last being released in 1913, making a five volume set. The volumes are a classic example of exploration scholarship, and form one of the earliest and broadest scientific reviews of Peru's natural and cultural heritage. == References == Raimondi, Antonio. El Perú : itinerarios de viajes (literal transcription from published 1929 copy). Published online by the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes from a 1929 edition. Spanish language. Wiard, Brenda. "2neat books: For Sale: Peruvian Publications". Retrieved September 23, 2005. == External links == El Perú : itinerarios de viajes (versión literal de libretas originales) Original text, tables, and drawings


id: phantom-of-the-poles-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_the_Poles-0.md
category: reference
title: Phantom of the Poles
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_the_Poles
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:41.597283+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: phantom-of-the-poles-20260505-0
summary:
The Phantom of the Poles is a book written by William Reed and published in 1906. It attempts to explain certain mysterious phenomena reported by polar explorers by postulating that the Earth is in fact hollow, with holes at its poles. == Phenomena to be explained == In the General Summary chapter of The Phantom of the Poles, Reed posed several questions that he claimed were explained by the Hollow Earth theory: Why is the earth flattened at the poles? Why have the poles never been reached? Why does the sun not appear for so long in winter near the supposed poles? Assuming that the earth is hollow, the interior should be warmer. We must now resort to the compass. Does it refuse to work when drawing near the supposed poles? Meteors are constantly falling near the supposed poles. Why? The next query is concerning the great quantities of dust constantly found in the Arctic Ocean. What causes this dust? What produces the Aurora Borealis? Icebergs are next in order. Where are they formed? And how?? What causes tidal waves? What causes colored snow in the Arctic region? Why are the nights so long in the polar regions? What causes


id: physics-and-beyond-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_and_Beyond-0.md
category: reference
title: Physics and Beyond
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_and_Beyond
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:42.791166+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: physics-and-beyond-20260505-0
summary:
Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (German: Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik, lit. 'The Part and the Whole: Conversations in the Field of Atomic Physics') is a book by Werner Heisenberg, the German physicist who discovered the uncertainty principle. It tells, from his point of view, the history of exploring atomic science and quantum mechanics in the first half of the 20th century. The subtitle is "Encounters and Conversations", and the core of the book takes the form of reconstructed discussions between himself and other scientists. Heisenberg said: "I wanted to show that science is done by people, and the most wonderful ideas come from dialog". Among the chapters are "The first encounter with the science about atoms", "Quantum mechanics and conversations with Einstein", "Conversation about the relation between biology, physics and chemistry", "Conversations about language" and "The behavior of an individual during a political disaster", dated 1937–1941. With other scientists, including Erwin Schrödinger, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein and Max Planck, Heisenberg discussed physics and other questions related to biology, humans, philosophy, and politics. He often includes detailed descriptions of the historical atmosphere and natural scenery, as many of the conversations took place while backpacking


id: pihkal-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL-0.md
category: reference
title: PiHKAL
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:44.032910+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pihkal-20260505-0
summary:
PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, also known as Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved, is a book by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin published in 1991. The subject of the work is psychoactive phenethylamine chemical derivatives, notably those that act as psychedelics and/or entactogens. The book has two halves, with the second part containing detailed entries on 179 phenethylamines. PiHKAL was followed by TiHKAL: The Continuation (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) (1997). == Content == The book is arranged into two parts, the first part being a fictionalized autobiography of the couple and the second part describing 179 different psychedelic compounds (most of which Shulgin discovered himself), including detailed synthesis instructions, bioassays, doses, durations, and other commentary. The second part was made freely available by Shulgin on Erowid while the first part is available only in the printed text. While the reactions described are beyond the ability of people with a basic chemistry education, some tend to emphasize techniques that do not require difficult-to-obtain chemicals. Notable among these are the use of mercury-aluminium amalgam (an unusual but easy to obtain reagent) as a reducing agent and detailed suggestions on legal plant sources of important drug precursors such as safrole.


id: pioneers-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneers_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Pioneers of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneers_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:45.287249+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pioneers-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Pioneers of Science (Turkish: Bilimin öncüleri) (ISBN 9786055888039) is a book by Cemal Yıldırım which has run to 22 editions. The book explains the scientific method with anecdotes from significant figures in scientific history such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Marie Curie. == References ==


id: the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pleasure_of_Finding_Things_Out-0.md
category: reference
title: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pleasure_of_Finding_Things_Out
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:49.360531+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out-20260505-0
summary:
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a collection of short works from American physicist Richard Feynman, including interviews, speeches, lectures, and printed articles. Among these is his famous 1959 lecture "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", his report on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and his speech on scientific integrity in which he coined the term "cargo cult science". The original foreword was written by Freeman Dyson. == References == == External links == Norman, Eric B. (2000). "Reviewed Work: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard P. Feynman". The American Biology Teacher. 62 (9): 678. doi:10.2307/4451014. JSTOR 4451014. Root-Bernstein, Robert (1999). "The Dubious Pleasure of Yet More Feynman". American Scientist. 87 (5): 462–464. JSTOR 27857907.


id: the-poisoner-s-handbook-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poisoner's_Handbook-0.md
category: reference
title: The Poisoner's Handbook
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poisoner's_Handbook
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:50.561037+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-poisoner-s-handbook-20260505-0
summary:
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York is a New York Times best-selling non-fiction book by Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum that was released by Penguin Press in 2010. == Synopsis == In 1918, New York City appointed Charles Norris, Bellevue Hospital's chief pathologist, as its first scientifically trained medical examiner. The book, about Norris and Alexander Gettler, the city's first toxicologist, describes the Jazz Age's poisoning cases. Before the two began working in the medical examiner's office, Blum pointed out in her book, poisoners could get away with murder. The book covers the years from 1915 to 1936, which Blum described as a "coming-of-age" for forensic toxicology. "Under (Norris's) direction, the New York City medical examiner's office would become a department that set forensic standards for the rest of the country," Blum wrote. While a guest on National Public Radio’s "Talk of the Nation/Science Friday" to discuss the book, Blum told host Ira Flatow that she wrote the book because "I've always been interested in poison. I wanted to write about the mystery of how (poisons) kill us.” == Reception == Reader's Digest named The Poisoner's Handbook one of its


id: programming-the-universe-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_the_Universe-0.md
category: reference
title: Programming the Universe
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_the_Universe
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:51.677188+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: programming-the-universe-20260505-0
summary:
Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos is a 2006 popular science book by Seth Lloyd, professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The book proposes that the Universe is a quantum computer (supercomputer), and advances in the understanding of physics may come from viewing entropy as a phenomenon of information, rather than simply thermodynamics. Lloyd also postulates that the Universe can be fully simulated using a quantum computer; however, in the absence of a theory of quantum gravity, such a simulation is not yet possible. "Particles not only collide, they compute." == Reaction == Reviewer Corey S. Powell of The New York Times writes: In the space of 221 dense, frequently thrilling and occasionally exasperating pages, ... tackles computer logic, thermodynamics, chaos theory, complexity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, consciousness, sex and the origin of life—throwing in, for good measure, a heartbreaking afterword that repaints the significance of all that has come before. The source of all this intellectual mayhem is the kind of Big Idea so prevalent in popular science books these days. Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at M.I.T., takes as his topic the fundamental workings of the universe..., which he


id: questions-of-truth-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questions_of_Truth-0.md
category: reference
title: Questions of Truth
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questions_of_Truth
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:52.829359+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: questions-of-truth-20260505-0
summary:
Questions of Truth is a book by John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale which offers their responses to 51 questions about science and religion. The foreword is contributed by Antony Hewish. The book was launched at a workshop at the 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Chicago, and then in the UK at a discussion at the Royal Society chaired by Onora O'Neill, in a week when it was also featured on the Today Programme. == Key themes and ideas == The book grew out of questions generated at a website organized to communicate Polkinghorne's ideas. It groups selected questions under seven topics: Leading questions gives an overview of Polkinghorne's views on nine questions, including science and religion, the existence of god, and atheism. The concept and existence of god begins with "Can God's existence be proved?" and addresses The God Delusion, omniscience, predestination and the Trinity. The Universe considers the Big Bang, the anthropic principle and a theory of everything. Evolution starts with "Is evolution a fact or a theory?", discusses intelligent design, which is deemed an unfortunate use of language and a theological mistake, and explores whether the mind can be explained by evolution.


id: the-ragged-edge-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged_Edge_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: The Ragged Edge of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged_Edge_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:53.962271+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-ragged-edge-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The Ragged Edge of Science is a science book by L. Sprague de Camp, illustrated by Don Simpson. It was first published by Owlswick Press in 1980. The book is a collection of twenty-two articles (two of them book reviews) on various curiosities and wonders exploring the boundaries between science and pseudo-science. "The[ir] common thread is [their] skeptical takes on subjects that are often muddled by paranormal and pseudoscientific claims." De Camp viewed such phenomena from a skeptically rational viewpoint, pointing out the fallacies in supernatural and otherwise fantastic explanations. His debunking efforts were an important and characteristic feature of his nonfiction, and the present collection is a notable instance of it. The book's constituent articles were originally published in a variety of science magazines, science fiction magazines, and other publications from 1950 to 1976. == Contents == "Preface" Long Ago and Far Away "The Mayan Elephants" (from Astounding Science Fiction, v. 45, no. 4, Jun. 1950) "Faery Lands Forlorn" (from Science Fiction Stories, v. 6, no. 3, Nov. 1955 and v. 6, no. 5, Mar. 1956) "The Pyramids of Kush" (from Science Digest, v. 63, no. 4, Apr. 1968) "The Falls of Troy" (from The Magazine of Fantasy &


id: reaction-chemistry-in-the-movies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReAction!_Chemistry_in_the_Movies-0.md
category: reference
title: ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReAction!_Chemistry_in_the_Movies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:55.249616+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: reaction-chemistry-in-the-movies-20260505-0
summary:
ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies (2009, ISBN 978-0-19-532692-5) is a nonfiction book about movies, chemistry, and chemistry in the movies by Chemistry Professor Mark Griep and Artist Marjorie Mikasen published by Oxford University Press USA. The authors were awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant in the area of Public Understanding of Science to research and write the book. This book is about the chemistry when it is part of the narrative. Most of the examples are contemporary popular feature films while some are documentaries, shorts, silents, and international films. The book uses the dualities personified by the benevolent Dr. Jekyll on one hand and the evil Mr. Hyde on the other to describe how chemists and chemistry are portrayed in the movies. There are 10 chapters, the first five of which have dark chemical themes and the second five of which have bright chemical themes. The chapter titles are: 1. Dr. Jekyll's Mysterious Transformative Formula 2. Invisibility Steals the Seen: Chemistry Creates Criminal Opportunities 3. Isomorphs of Paranoia: Chemical Arsenals 4. Bad Company: The Business of Toxicity 5. A Master/Slave Narrative: Drug Addiction and Psychoactives 6. Inventors and their Often Wacky Chemical Inventions 7. Hard Science = Hard Evidence:


id: the-republican-brain-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_Brain-0.md
category: reference
title: The Republican Brain
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_Brain
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:56.459465+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-republican-brain-20260505-0
summary:
The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality is a 2012 book about the psychological basis for many Republicans' rejection of mainstream scientific theories, as well as theories of economics and history, by the American journalist Chris Mooney. == Reception == The Financial Times gave the book a favorable review, describing it as an "intelligent, nuanced and persuasive account" of psychological differences in political behavior. Alissa Quart, in a New York Times opinion piece, cited conservative writers Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell who equated Mooney's argument with eugenics. It was criticized by American conservative Jonah Goldberg, who tried to associate it with "conservative phrenology". Mooney responded, stating that Goldberg had mispresented his book in several respects. Mooney also stated that Goldberg exhibited "precisely the traits he seeks to deny: ideological defensiveness, a lack of nuance, and a deeply unwarranted and overconfident sense of certainty". Mooney later rebutted a similar criticism by Andrew Ferguson and stated that Ferguson dismissed science himself while attacking the book. Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times that Mooney makes a good point: the personality traits associated with modern conservatism, particularly a lack of openness, make the modern Republican Party


id: the-republican-war-on-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_War_on_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: The Republican War on Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_War_on_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:57.640443+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-republican-war-on-science-20260505-0
summary:
The Republican War on Science is a 2005 book by Chris Mooney, an American journalist who focuses on the politics of science policy. In the book, Mooney discusses the Republican Party leadership's stance on science, and in particular that of the George W. Bush administration, with regard to issues such as climate change denialism, intelligent design, bioethics, alternative medicine, pollution, separation of church and state, and the government funding of education, research, and environmental protection. The book argues that the administration regularly distorted and/or suppressed scientific research to further its own political aims. The book was reviewed in Science and Nature Medicine as well as the popular press. It was featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review and selected as an "Editors' Choice" by The New York Times, which described it as "[a] frankly polemical survey of scientific findings and procedures in collision with political operations." Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame) optioned the rights for the book to create a documentary film, but in 2008 announced that he had released the option. == Reviews == === In scientific journals === A review in Science by Naomi Oreskes states the author recounts the 20-year


id: science-and-religion-some-historical-perspectives-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Religion:_Some_Historical_Perspectives-0.md
category: reference
title: Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Religion:_Some_Historical_Perspectives
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:58.762510+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-and-religion-some-historical-perspectives-20260505-0
summary:
Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives is a book on the relationship between science and religion by John Hedley Brooke. The book identifies three traditional views of the relationship between science and religion found in historical analyses: conflict, complementarity, and commonality. The book portrays all three as oversimplifications. It offers up the alternative notion of complexity, which bases the relationship between science and religion on changing circumstances where it is defined upon each particular historical situation and the actual beliefs and ideas of the scientific and religious figures involved. == Reception == The American Historical Review states that the book's bibliographic essay "identifies and … incorporates the results of virtually every significant and relevant article published in the past fifty years." == References == == Further reading == Brooke, John H. (1998). "Essays on Science And Society: Science and Religion: Lessons from History?". Science. 282 (5396): 1985–1986. Bibcode:1998Sci...282.1985B. doi:10.1126/science.282.5396.1985. S2CID 159909162. == List of reviews == Cantor, Geoffrey (1992). "Science and Religion (Book Reviews)". The Times Literary Supplement (4639): 27. Howell, Kenneth J. (December 1994). "Book Review: Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. John Hedley Brooke, George Basalla". The Journal of Modern History. 66 (4): 779–782. doi:10.1086/244944. Olson, Richard; Brooke,


id: science-at-the-crossroads-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_at_the_Crossroads-0.md
category: reference
title: Science at the Crossroads
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_at_the_Crossroads
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:05:59.919087+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-at-the-crossroads-20260505-0
summary:
Science at the Crossroads was an anthology of the contributions of the delegation from the Soviet Union which attended the Second International Congress of the History of Science. Joseph Needham provided a foreword. It was republished with a new foreword and introduction in 1971. Alfred Rupert Hall wrote a scathing review, claiming that it had little impact in the Soviet Union and that most of the contributors' careers led, rather, to the prison camp and the execution squad. == Contents == The 1971 edition included: == References ==


id: science-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_book-0.md
category: reference
title: Science book
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_book
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:04.124915+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-book-20260505-0
summary:
A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually written by a scientist, researcher, or professor like Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time), or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything). Usually these books are written for a wide audience presumed to have a general education rather than a specifically scientific training, as opposed to the very narrow audience that a scientific paper would have, and are therefore referred to as popular science. As such, they require considerable talent on the part of the author to sufficiently explain difficult topics to people who are totally new to the subject, and a good blend of storytelling and technical writing. In the UK, the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books are considered to be the most prestigious awards for science writing. In the US, the National Book Awards briefly had a category for science writing in the 1960s, but now they just have the broad categories of fiction and nonfiction. There are many disciplines that are well explained to lay people through science books. A few examples include Carl Sagan on astronomy, Jared Diamond on geography, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins on evolutionary


id: science-fictions-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Fictions-0.md
category: reference
title: Science Fictions
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Fictions
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:05.217920+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-fictions-20260505-0
summary:
Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth is a 2020 non-fiction book on issues undermining scientific research by Scottish psychologist Stuart J. Ritchie. It was published by Metropolitan Books on July 14, 2020 and is Ritchie's second book. Science Fictions was nominated for the £25,000 Royal Society Prize for Science Books but lost out to Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life. == Summary == In Science Fictions, Ritchie argues that modern scientific research suffers from a number of issues – including outright fraud; publication bias and human bias; negligence and error; and sensationalism through media hype – that undermine its ability to be objective and accurate. He describes methodological issues involved in the replication crisis, such as p-hacking, as well as broader systemic issues, such as perverse incentives in the peer review process and the problem of null results being difficult or impossible to publish, leading to under-reporting of many important findings. He also details the ways in which technology such as Photoshop has made it easier for researchers to commit subtle but serious fraud. Throughout the book, Ritchie offers examples of egregious fraud in scientific research, such as the misleading studies on trachea replacement published


id: science-in-action-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_Action_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Science in Action (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_Action_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:06.315812+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-action-book-20260505-0
summary:
Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (ISBN 0-674-79291-2) is a seminal book by French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour first published in 1987. It is written in a textbook style, proposes an approach to the empirical study of science and technology, and is considered a canonical application of actor-network theory. It also entertains ontological conceptions and theoretical discussions making it a research monograph and not a methodological handbook per se. In the introduction, Latour develops the methodological dictum that science and technology must be studied "in action", or "in the making". Because scientific discoveries turn esoteric and difficult to understand, it has to be studied where discoveries are made in practice. For example, Latour turns back time in the case of the discovery of the "double helix". Going back in time, deconstructing statements, machines and articles, it is possible to arrive at a point where scientific discovery could have chosen to take many other directions (contingency). Also the concept of "black box" is introduced. A black box is a metaphor borrowed from cybernetics denoting a piece of machinery that "runs by itself". That is, when a series of instructions are too complicated to be


id: science-in-society-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_In_Society-0.md
category: reference
title: Science In Society
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_In_Society
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:07.543658+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-society-20260505-0
summary:
Science In Society: An Introduction to Social Studies of Science (ISBN 0415321999) is a 2004 book by Massimiano Bucchi. The book explains how science works, what sociologists find to be of interest, and how scientific knowledge is produced. There are chapters on the relevance of science to contemporary life, Kuhn's work and its modern relevance, as well as the role of scientific communication. == See also == List of books about the politics of science == References ==


id: science-order-and-creativity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_Order,_and_Creativity-0.md
category: reference
title: Science, Order, and Creativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_Order,_and_Creativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:08.671776+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-order-and-creativity-20260505-0
summary:
Science, Order, and Creativity is a book by theoretical physicist David Bohm and physicist and writer F. David Peat. It was originally published 1987 by Bantam Books, US, then 1989 in Great Britain by Routledge. The second edition, published in 2000 after Bohm's death, comprises a new foreword by Peat as well as an additional introductory chapter, in which a fictitious dialogue between Bohm and Peat serves to introduce the reader to the context and topics of the book. In Science, Order and Creativity, the authors emphasize the role of creativity and communication for science and, also beyond science, for humanity as a whole. == Contents by chapter == 1 Revolutions, Theories, and Creativity in Science The authors consider the form of creativity that is constituted by a metaphor and by equating two different kinds of things, based on an act of perception of a similarity. They emphasize the role of communication and art as part of creativity, citing the example of Helen Keller who, through communication with her mentor Anne Sullivan was led to understanding a similarity among the sensations of water and the symbolic gesture pressed into her palm which represented it. 2 Science as Creative Perception–Communication The


id: scientific-memoirs-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Memoirs-0.md
category: reference
title: Scientific Memoirs
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Memoirs
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:09.904358+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientific-memoirs-20260505-0
summary:
Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of science and Learned Societies and from Foreign Journals was a series of books edited and published by Richard Taylor (1781–1858) in London between 1837 and 1852. After 1852 the publication continued in two series: Natural Philosophy, edited by J. Tyndall and William Francis; and, Natural history, edited by Arthur Henfrey and Thomas Henry Huxley. Volume 3 (1843) is noteworthy because it contained Ada Lovelace's notes appended to her translation of Luigi Federico Menabrea's article. Both are available on Wikisource. The Menebrea article The notes by Ada Lovelace. Some volumes have been reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corp. New York in 1966. == Further reading == Richard Taylor, 1781–1858 at the Darwin Correspondence Online Database Niels Bohr Library Book Catalog Scientific memoirs, selected from the transactions of foreign academies of science, and from foreign journals. Natural history at WorldCat Volumes 1-4 on Wikisource == References ==


id: scientologie-wissenschaft-von-der-beschaffenheit-und-der-tauglichkeit-des-wissens-20260505-0
category: reference
title: Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:11.019654+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientologie-wissenschaft-von-der-beschaffenheit-und-der-tauglichkeit-des-wissens-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientologie,_Wissenschaft_von_der_Beschaffenheit_und_der_Tauglichkeit_des_Wissens-0.md

summary:
Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens (Scientology: Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge) is a 1934 book published by Anastasius Nordenholz, in which he defines the term "Scientologie" or "Eidologie" as a science of knowing or knowledge and discusses the philosophical implications of the concept. The book has been cited by some as a possible source of inspiration for L. Ron Hubbard and his better-known conception of Scientology, though this interpretation is disputed. == Summary of the book == Nordenholz highlights the problem of isolating knowledge as "a particular appearance of the world." He asks: "What is Knowing? What IS Knowledge? What can we know, what must we know about Knowledge/Knowing, to do justice to and to justify the world? The question is thus nothing less than self-knowing, determination of the nature of self, and also of self-realization and self-understanding of Knowledge/Knowing. Is this possible? If possible, how can the systemization of Knowledge/Knowing itself be accomplished? How can a Science of Knowledge/Knowing be produced?" After establishing a number of definitions, he concludes that "the world is nothing but knowledge, merely an extraction from knowing....Only out of the equally valued mutual operation of Knowledge/Knowing as

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientologie,_Wissenschaft_von_der_Beschaffenheit_und_der_Tauglichkeit_des_Wissens


id: the-sea-around-us-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Around_Us-0.md
category: reference
title: The Sea Around Us
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Around_Us
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:12.214138+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-sea-around-us-20260505-0
summary:
The Sea Around Us is a prize-winning and best-selling book by the American marine biologist Rachel Carson, first published as a whole by Oxford University Press in 1951. It reveals the science and poetry of the sea while ranging from its primeval beginnings to the latest scientific probings. Often described as "poetic," it was Carson's second published book and the one that launched her into the public eye and a second career as a writer and conservationist; in retrospect it is counted the second book of her so-called sea trilogy, including Under the Sea-Wind and The Edge of the Sea. The Sea Around Us won both the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction and a Burroughs Medal in nature writing. It remained on the New York Times Best Seller List for 86 weeks and it has been translated into 28 languages. == History == Simon & Schuster had published her first book Under the Sea Wind in 1941; it was reviewed favorably but it sold poorly. Carson initially planned to call the sequel Return to the Sea, and began writing in 1948, just after hiring Marie Rodell as her literary agent. Carson began by writing a single chapter (what would


id: sekka-zusetsu-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekka_Zusetsu-0.md
category: reference
title: Sekka Zusetsu
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekka_Zusetsu
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:13.452859+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sekka-zusetsu-20260505-0
summary:
Sekka Zusetsu (雪華図説) is a figure collection written by Doi Toshitsura, the fourth daimyō of Koga Domain in 1832. == Overview == Koga Domain was located at the center of the Kantō Plain. Due to heavy snowfall, the Koga Domain was a good place to observe snowflakes. Doi Toshitsura, the fourth daimyō of Koga Domain started observing snowflakes as his hobby with his own microscope which was imported from the Netherlands, and he drew pictures and studies about snowflakes in the book. This figure collection of his is highly valued today in Japan as the first Japanese figure collection of snowflakes. It's said that Toshitsura had many difficulties observing snowflake properly because snowflakes need −10 to −15 Celsius degrees temperature to hold their correct shapes. So Toshitsura had to observe them under very cold temperatures. This book was written for him and his family (the Doi clan, 土井氏), but it had great influence on Japanese textile-patterns also. As soon as he wrote the book, snowflake patterns (雪華模様) became popular among ordinary people in Edo. == Observation method == Putting a black cloth outside at night when it seems cold enough to snow Receiving snowflakes with the cloth If snowflakes received,


id: the-shulgin-index-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shulgin_Index-0.md
category: reference
title: The Shulgin Index
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shulgin_Index
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:06:14.611940+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-shulgin-index-20260505-0
summary:
The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds is a 2011 book written by Alexander Shulgin, Tania Manning, and Paul F. Daley and published by Transform Press. It is about psychedelic substituted phenethylamines and related compounds and their chemistry and pharmacology. The book discusses 126 main compounds from this family as well as 1,300 compounds discussed in total. It followed the earlier books PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (1991) and TiHKAL: The Continuation (1997) by Shulgin and his wife Ann Shulgin. A second volume on substituted tryptamines was being prepared but was never completed due to Shulgin's death in 2014. According to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 2014, the second volume would be finished in the "near future", but there have been no updates since. == Compounds listed == == See also == Bibliography of Alexander Shulgin List of psychedelic literature PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) (1991) TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) (1997) The Simple Plant Isoquinolines (2002) Substituted phenethylamine (PEA) Substituted amphetamine (AMPH) Substituted methylenedioxyphenethylamine (MDxx) Substituted methoxyphenethylamine 2C, DOx, 4C, scaline, 3C, Ψ-PEA, 25-NB, FLY == References == == External links == The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines


