Subject: Biological Sciences

The Hidden Half: How the World Conceals its Secrets

The Hidden Half: How the World Conceals its Secrets

Posted by | Jan 13, 2021 | |

Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is ‘The Hidden Half’ – those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world.

We humans are very clever creatures – but we’re idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result – from GDP figures to medicine – is that experts know a lot less than they think.

Filled with compelling stories from economics, genetics, business, and science, The Hidden Half is a warning that an explanation which works in one arena may not work in another. Entertaining and provocative, it will change how you view the world. — amazon.co.uk

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Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things

Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things

Posted by | Nov 9, 2020 | |

For centuries, the scientific question of life’s origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems.
But how life began isn’t just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe. — Amazon.co.uk

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The Believing Brain: From Spiritual Faiths to Political Convictions – How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

The Believing Brain: From Spiritual Faiths to Political Convictions – How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

Posted by | Nov 6, 2020 | |

Synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist and science historian, Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. Using sensory data that flow in through the senses, the brain naturally looks for and finds patterns – and then infuses those patterns with meaning, forming beliefs. Once beliefs are formed, our brains subconsciously seek out confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop. — Amazon.co.uk

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The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here

The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here

Posted by | Nov 1, 2020 | |

“Hope Jahren is an award-winning geobiologist, a brilliant writer, an inspiring teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, Jahren illuminates the link between human consumption habits and our imperiled planet. In short, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions – from electric power to large-scale farming and automobiles – that, even as they help us, release untenable amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. She explains the current and projected consequences of greenhouse gases – from superstorms to rising sea levels – and the actions that all of us can take to fight back.” — Amazon.co.uk

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