This is an absolutely fascinating book for anyone interested in the way that science really works, bearing in mind the difficulties of having to base our models and theories on induction. Andrew Jaffe introduces the difficulties we face when trying to take a scientific view because largely we are dependent on induction: predicting the future from what has previously been observed. He explores what probability is, the two key ways of looking at it (frequentist and Bayesian) and how scientists use (or misuse it) to work out the implications of their experiments for hypotheses. This is then expanded into looking at the nature of scientific models and the philosophy of science before heading out to entropy, quantum randomness and attempting to achieve meaningful cosmology with its potential dearth of evidence.  The topic might sound a little dry, but in fact Jaffe does it with good humour and a very readable style. For example, he uses measuring his daughter's height by making marks on...

Apparently it comes as a surprise to many that medicine was not particularly scientific until the end of the twentieth century (to be honest, it's no surprise to me - we had a GP who used homeopathy in the 90s). Instead it was based on anecdotal guidance - the kind of thing that appeared to work. Evidence-based medicine has since improved the field, trying where possible to base decisions on evidence, ideally based on randomised controlled trials. The first part of Helen Pearson's book covers this well - though I think it's by far the least interesting part of what we discover. Instead what's truly fascinating is the rest of it, looking at a wide range of other fields where evidence was rarely properly used and that are only now starting to dip a toe in the water. These include social policy, policing, conservation, business and education. The main part of the book gives us examples of how bad these areas have been in terms of basing decisions on what's always been ...

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...

The interesting premise of this book is that evolution goes far beyond its biological applications, reaching into everything from economics and language to invention. Strictly the title doesn't accurately fit the starting point we get regularly reiterated in the text, which is that there are basically two sciences. The first science is physics, and the other is evolution.  The idea here is that physics is based on natural laws, fundamental constants and the like and is effectively unchanging (hence my doubt about the title). This then drives chemistry and biology, which as all physicists will agree (but probably not many chemists and biologists) are just more messy applications of physical principles. The second science, though, Mark Vellend argues is all about change and explains many things that physics-based science can never deal with. I could really enjoy a book of this kind if it gave us lots of detail about evolution in those application areas like economics and languages wh...

At first glance this might appear to be yet another book on how to deal with climate change deniers and the like, such as How to Talk to a Science Denier.   It is, however, a much more significant book because it addresses the way that universities, government and pressure groups have attempted to undermine the scientific process. Conceptually I would give it five stars, but it's quite heavy going because it's a collection of around 18 essays by different academics, with many going over the same ground, so there is a lot of repetition. Even so, it's an important book. There are a few well-known names here - editor Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker - but also a range of scientists (with a few philosophers) explaining how science is being damaged in academia by unscientific ideas. Many of the issues apply to other disciplines as well, but this is specifically about the impact on science, and particularly important there because of the damage it has been doing...

I found this book hard to rate as it's a really good idea, but one where I'm not sure who the natural audience is. The authors (an astrophysicist and an astronomer) are responding in part to an artist friend who said that she didn't know what scientists do, and also to the zeitgeist where a reasonable proportion of the population don't trust science and scientists, particularly on subjects such as global warming and vaccines. Alan Lightman and Martin Rees, in an introduction that almost makes it sound as if they live together Morecambe and Wise style, rightly emphasise the dangers of the population having a negative view of science when we live in a society that both has been hugely enhanced by science and where our very existence is now so tied into technology that is based on science. They give science the label 'disciplined wonder', an approach echoing Richard Feynman's famous contradiction of Keats' suggestion that Newton's 'destroyed all the...

David Mindell's take on learning lessons for the present from the eighteenth century Lunar Society could easily have been a dull academic tome, but instead it was a delight to read. Mindell splits the book into a series of short essay-like chapters which includes details of the characters involved in and impact of the Lunar Society, which effectively kick-started the Industrial Revolution, interwoven with an analysis of the decline of industry in modern twentieth and twenty-first century America, plus the potential for taking a Lunar Society approach to revitalise industry for the future. We see how a group of men (they were all men back then) based in the English Midlands (though with a strong Scottish contingent) brought together science, engineering and artisan skills in a way that made the Industrial Revolution and its (eventual) impact on improving the lot of the masses possible. Interlaced with this, Mindell shows us how 'industrial' has become something of a dirty wo...

This seemed to be a book that had a lot going for it. The topic of 'the science of certainty' appealed to a reader like me who is fascinated by probability and statistics, and I enjoyed the way the introduction made use of the uncertainty of the impact of the Eyjafjallakökull volcano on flight safety, then the delight that is the Monty Hall problem. But although the rest of the book had some highlights, I couldn't get on with much of it. In a way, the title is highly misleading, because the book isn't really about 'proof' - after all, very little science involves proof. Certainly most of the studies we see misreported in the press don't. We can only prove something with perfect knowledge. This is fine when applying basic logic. We can make deductions, for example, if we are able to make a statement like 'no square is circular'. But such statements are rarely applicable in the real world. Instead we have to rely on induction or abduction, which is usu...

When someone came up with the title for this book they were probably thinking deep cultural echoes - I suspect I'm not the only Robert Rankin fan in whom it raised a smile instead, thinking of The Suburban Book of the Dead . That aside, this is a glossy and engaging book showing how physical makeup (phenotype), behaviour and more tell us about the past, with the messenger being (inevitably, this being Richard Dawkins) the genes. Worthy of comment straight away are the illustrations - this is one of the best illustrated science books I've ever come across. Generally illustrations are either an afterthought, or the book is heavily illustrated and the text is really just an accompaniment to the pictures. Here the full colour images tie in directly to the text. They are not asides, but are 'read' with the text by placing them strategically so the picture is directly with the text that refers to it. Many are photographs, though some are effective paintings by Jana Lenzová. T...