The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science (Canto original series)

by Trevor Pinch (Author), Harry M. Collins (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.29

  Science, it would seem, is neither all good nor all bad. It gives us nuclear accidents and cures for disease, agricultural self-sufficiency and death in space flight. Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch liken science to the Golem, a creature from Jewish mythology, powerful yet potentially dangerous, a gentle, helpful creature that may yet run amok at any moment. Through a series of intriguing case studies of famous and not-so-famous scientific episodes, ranging from relativity and cold fusion to memory in worms and the sex lives of lizards, the authors debunk the idea that science is the straightforward result of competent theorisation, observation and experimentation. Closer to the truth, they suggest, is the realisation that scientific certainty comes from interpreting ambiguous results within an order imposed by scientists themselves. This thought-provoking account will give general readers a new perspective on the place of science in society. '...perverse but entertaining ...the writing is deft, the stories are good and there is not a boring page.' Nature '...a must for every science student.' Science Reporter

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $3.29

  El exito obtenido por la Historia del tiempo, de Stephen Hawking, propicio la creacion, en 1991, de esta coleccion de divulgacion cientifica que fue dirigida durante largo tiempo por dos personas de formacion humanistica: de ahi ciertas contaminaciones al inicio de la coleccion. Sin embargo, cuando Jose Manuel Sanchez Ron se hizo cargo de ella, dio un aprobado a la gestion anterior. En esta coleccion, quiza la mas ambiciosa de todas las de divulgacion cientifica que se editan en espanol, se han publicado obras de Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, lan Stewart, Edward O. Wilson, Antonio Damasio, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Ilya Prigogine, John D. Barrow, Rita Levi Montalcini, Richard P. Feynman, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg, Rachel Carson, Francisco Garcia Olmedo, Francisco Yndurain o Jose Manuel Sanchez Ron. Este fascinante libro parece a primera vista una coleccion de historias sobre episodios curiosos, discutibles o fraudulentos de la investigacion cientifica pero su finalidad no es la de divertir, sino la de mostrar como funciona en realidad la ciencia.