Post by: Perd Hapley on September 14, 2007, 03:39:06 PM
I have been given a gift card for Barnes & Noble Booksellers, in the amount of twenty-five dollars. I spent about an hour and a half there, last night, and was surprised that I really didn't see much I wanted. Some books they didn't have, but I might find them on the web site. I'll tell you all what sort of books I'm looking for, and hope for some good recommendations. Feel free to recommend other stuff.
Politics and history:
Recommendations of books on the American Constitution or Revolution would be welcome. I looked at a copy of The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates, but I hope someone here could tell me more about it. If I understand right, there are different books of this type, some with different articles or speeches. Which would be the best edition? It may help to know that I already have Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention.
Science:
I am looking for a book that would be a good overview of science and the scientific method. My science background is only high school level, so it would need to be pretty basic.
Thanks,
fistful
Post by: De Selby on September 14, 2007, 03:44:19 PM
Post by: cosine on September 14, 2007, 03:47:14 PM
When I was in high school, pretty much all gifts received at Christmas and birthdays were in the form of a Barnes & Noble or Borders gift card.
I always walked in with it, and always walked out with some sheet music. Never varied once.
Weak-willed indeed. But it's a good weak will.
Oh, and by the way... they can order for you pretty much anything you see online.
Post by: Perd Hapley on September 14, 2007, 03:48:58 PM
Post by: lee n. field on September 14, 2007, 05:51:25 PM
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I have been given a gift card for Barnes & Noble Booksellers, in the amount of twenty-five dollars. I spent about an hour and a half there, last night, and was surprised that I really didn't see much I wanted. Some books they didn't have, but I might find them on the web site. I'll tell you all what sort of books I'm looking for, and hope for some good recommendations. Feel free to recommend other stuff.
Twenty Five bucks? Not hardly enough, anymore. Borders is kind of like the mall anymore -- can't find anything I really want to have.
Anymore I tend towards odd specialty items that would never in a million years show up at Borders & Noble.
Post by: roo_ster on September 14, 2007, 07:02:44 PM
Isaac Asimov does a good job explaining non-fiction subjects and he did a few science books among them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Nonfiction
BTW, I never like Asimov's fiction.
Post by: Perd Hapley on September 14, 2007, 07:53:39 PM
Anymore I tend towards odd specialty items that would never in a million years show up at Borders & Noble.
If they stocked odd-ball stuff like that, they wouldn't have room for 101 Hot Man-on-Man Love Stories or KKKarl Rove and His Legions of Hate.
Post by: wmenorr67 on September 14, 2007, 08:09:56 PM
cosine, if you weren't a moderator I would start saying mean things right now. I'll settle for calling you a weird music geek.
Yeah, but it isn't like he is a real moderator or anything. He is just a GLOBAL moderator.
Post by: Perd Hapley on September 15, 2007, 04:42:29 AM
Post by: Paddy on September 15, 2007, 05:57:32 AM
Outrage-Dick Morris
Common Sense on Mutual Funds-John C Bogle
Modern Fascism-Gene Veith
Government Failure-Turlock, Seldon, Brady
Does God Exist-Moreland and Neilsen
The Mind of God-Paul Davies
How the Irish Saved Civilization-Thomas Cahill
The Secret Treasure of Oak Island-D'Arcy O'Connor
Confessions of a Tax Collector-Richard Yancey
It's Not About the Bike-Lance Armstrong
I started 'Evidence that Demands A Verdict', but it's too textbooky and scientific for me. Anything written by the founding fathers is also good. You can find a lot of that here:
http://www.constitution.org/cs_found.htm
Post by: Silver Bullet on September 15, 2007, 07:33:22 AM
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781845763145&itm=9
I don't know if you can use the gift card with the online store, but you could use the site to look for books to order at the local brick & mortar.
Post by: Perd Hapley on September 15, 2007, 07:41:35 AM
If you like Eugene Veith and are interested in theology, you might want to check out Issues, Etc. They might be on the air in your area. They interviewed Veith when that book came out.
Thanks for reminding me about Evidence That Demands a Verdict. They had a copy of the massive More Evidence That Demands a Verdict. I glanced at it, but passed on. Maybe I should go back and just buy that.
Thanks.
Post by: tyme on September 15, 2007, 12:05:29 PM
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Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
Maybe you shouldn't waste your money. Believers use books like that for validation, but what does it really accomplish? If the divine origin/inspiration of the Bible could be proved so easily to non-believers, everyone would be a Christian. It's akin to using historical sources from before the dark ages to try to prove the existence of ghosts. I have no idea if ghosts exist, but ancient history, no matter how many instances of hauntings it presents, is not a basis for believing in ghosts. The world seems to work just fine without needing to assume that ghosts exist. The fact that some people die with no obvious physical cause is not evidence for soul-snatchers. The fact that piles of books sometimes fall over after days or months of being undisturbed is not evidence of ghosts. A book on documented hauntings won't change my mind. A poltergeist taking up residence with me, however, would change my mind.http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/
You'd pay for a book describing the scientific method? There's no magic to it. It's common sense.
The process tends to start with a hypothesis/theory. With major breakthroughs, scientists often get new ideas as if by black magic (some sort of subconscious mixing and matching of ideas/models taken from other areas -- math for instance -- with prior informal observations of a phenomenon). Or a hypothesis can be generated by looking at formally-collected data, but that data must not then be reused to test the hypothesis. Or a hypothesis can be from some other scientist, and the goal can be simply to test that hypothesis with a new, hopefully independent data set.
So you have a hypothesis. Then you design some way to test it. You implement the experiment, collect data, and make sure that the data match the theory to within the experiment's margin of error.
If the data don't support the hypothesis, sometimes scientists give up on the idea, or sometimes they adjust the hypothesis and retry (but ideally with new data, since the old data influenced the new version of the hypothesis).
Fetishization of the scientific method really annoys me. The scientific method is a fluid process that doesn't always start at the first step (hypothesis formation) because often scientists start with an externally-provided hypothesis (when testing someone else's theory, for instance). Or sometimes they unexpectedly find a new way to collect data... and they just re-check a prior hypothesis to make sure it holds with the new data. All the pieces (hypothesis, data, test) have to be there, but not all have to be actively pursued. Sometimes data just fall from the sky like apples without being sought. Hypothesis formation, when a hypothesis is not explicitly taken from elsewhere, is hardly a formal procedure.
The scientific method is more of a framework for communicating scientific results so that the result can be reviewed for bias and independently retested. It's not how science operates. It's just the method by which science is communicated between different people or groups, to try to minimize quackery, unintentional and intentional bias.
Post by: Paddy on September 15, 2007, 12:33:35 PM
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Wow! There's an unbiased source. A bunch of deophobic self proclaimed atheistic secular humanists promoting metaphysical naturalism. IOW, nature is all there is and if human 'reasoning' can't understand it, it doesn't exist.
No thanks. I'll take my chances with faith, if it's all the same to you.
Post by: 280plus on September 15, 2007, 01:24:54 PM
Post by: lee n. field on September 15, 2007, 02:42:34 PM
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101 Hot Man-on-Man Lust Stories
I have seen a "Tom of Finland" picturebook on sale at Borders. The kind of thing that would have been in the locked stacks in the GayLes Bibliography Collection, back in the day I worked at the Screw of I Library.
Went to Borders today with a 25% off coupon, couldn't find anything I wanted badly enough to use it other than a copy of Handloader magazine.
Post by: K Frame on September 15, 2007, 02:45:47 PM
Miracle at Philadelphia.
Best work ever done on the subject.
Post by: Perd Hapley on September 15, 2007, 08:07:57 PM
Hey, Mike did you just lock this thread temporarily?
Tyme and Riley, thanks for trying to derail my thread.
Tyme, it's ironic that you don't want me to validate my point of view with McDowell's book, but you apparently read a website that validates your view. I presume you read both thoroughly, before making a balanced judgment? The greater irony is that the book on science I'm seeking is a first step to reading other books from an evolutionary point of view, rather than continuing to read the creationist view. Yet, you don't want me to buy that book either. Don't discourage me, I might read something from your camp that changes my mind. And don't imagine that I only buy books I agree with. I've got some Dawkins and some Marx and some pro-gun-control books sitting here on my shelves, not to mention the Koran, the Book of Mormon, etc. Now if you want to respond, would you consider starting another thread, so we can keep this on the book recommendations?
Post by: mfree on September 16, 2007, 10:19:44 AM
- "The Great Game", peter Hopkirk
- "Uncle Tungsten", Oliver Sacks
- "The 13'th element", Emsley
Post by: HankB on September 16, 2007, 10:58:47 AM
Post by: Hugh Damright on September 17, 2007, 09:21:43 AM
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780871136619&itm=1
Post by: K Frame on September 17, 2007, 09:24:29 AM
I may have for a few minutes. I was doing some testing in response to a question that one of the Moderators had.
As for why I may have picked this thread... I picked the one that was on top at the time in the view I was in.
Post by: wooderson on September 17, 2007, 10:30:40 AM
Tobias Wolff: This Boy's Life, In Pharaoh's Army (his account of Vietnam), a pair of short story collections, The Barracks Thief
Nathaniel Fick: One Bullet Away (the Lieutenant from Generation Kill's account of joining the Marines and the invasion of Iraq)
Richard Price: Samaritan (cop/noir kind of, very similar in tone to The Wire - unsurprising because Price later became a writer for the show)
Eric Haney: Inside Delta Force - dunno what he made up and what he didn't, but the latter half (action) pales next to the half about training to become Delta Force anyway.
last books I didn't make it through:
The Bourne Identity - brutal. The three movies are my favorite action films of recent memory, but the writing here is clumsy, the Bourne character is ridiculous, the dialogue is straight out Ayn Ra... cough, I mean, it's terrible.
Blackwater - not necessarily bad, but more concerned with the leadership of Blackwater than I hoped. I wanted to read about its operations and the results/fallout from them, not what a wackjob the owner is (which I just took for granted).
Post by: tyme on September 17, 2007, 11:57:20 AM
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I've got some Dawkins
Have you read The Selfish Gene, or only some of his more recent, abrasively anti-religious books?http://www.amazon.com/Godel-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/book.html
http://www.amazon.com/Thermodynamics-Enrico-Fermi/dp/048660361X
http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152
http://www.amazon.com/Acquiring-Genomes-Theory-Origins-Species/dp/0465043925
http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Trust-Evolutionary-Landscape-Evolution/dp/0195178033
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphic_principle
And if you didn't like my explanation, which I think is better than Wikipedia's, you can try its article on the Scientific Method. My reason for not recommending a book on the scientific method was that there's not enough tied up in the scientific method alone to turn an explanation of it into a book, so if you find one you'll be wasting your money.
Post by: jeepmor on September 18, 2007, 12:29:14 AM