Author: Maureen McNeil
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719014925
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400078997
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Get Book Here

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities. • Now an acclaimed FX limited series streaming on HULU. “Fantastic.... Right up there with In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song.” —San Francisco Chronicle Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Author: Andrew Jewett
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674987918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Get Book Here

Book Description
Americans have long been suspicious of experts and elites. This new history explains why so many have believed that science has the power to corrupt American culture. Americans today are often skeptical of scientific authority. Many conservatives dismiss climate change and Darwinism as liberal fictions, arguing that “tenured radicals” have coopted the sciences and other disciplines. Some progressives, especially in the universities, worry that science’s celebration of objectivity and neutrality masks its attachment to Eurocentric and patriarchal values. As we grapple with the implications of climate change and revolutions in fields from biotechnology to robotics to computing, it is crucial to understand how scientific authority functions—and where it has run up against political and cultural barriers. Science under Fire reconstructs a century of battles over the cultural implications of science in the United States. Andrew Jewett reveals a persistent current of criticism which maintains that scientists have injected faulty social philosophies into the nation’s bloodstream under the cover of neutrality. This charge of corruption has taken many forms and appeared among critics with a wide range of social, political, and theological views, but common to all is the argument that an ideologically compromised science has produced an array of social ills. Jewett shows that this suspicion of science has been a major force in American politics and culture by tracking its development, varied expressions, and potent consequences since the 1920s. Looking at today’s battles over science, Jewett argues that citizens and leaders must steer a course between, on the one hand, the naïve image of science as a pristine, value-neutral form of knowledge, and, on the other, the assumption that scientists’ claims are merely ideologies masquerading as truths.

Author: Mario Livio
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501194747
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
An “intriguing and accessible” (Publishers Weekly) interpretation of the life of Galileo Galilei, one of history’s greatest and most fascinating scientists, that sheds new light on his discoveries and how he was challenged by science deniers. “We really need this story now, because we’re living through the next chapter of science denial” (Bill McKibben). Galileo’s story may be more relevant today than ever before. At present, we face enormous crises—such as minimizing the dangers of climate change—because the science behind these threats is erroneously questioned or ignored. Galileo encountered this problem 400 years ago. His discoveries, based on careful observations and ingenious experiments, contradicted conventional wisdom and the teachings of the church at the time. Consequently, in a blatant assault on freedom of thought, his books were forbidden by church authorities. Astrophysicist and bestselling author Mario Livio draws on his own scientific expertise and uses his “gifts as a great storyteller” (The Washington Post) to provide a “refreshing perspective” (Booklist) into how Galileo reached his bold new conclusions about the cosmos and the laws of nature. A freethinker who followed the evidence wherever it led him, Galileo was one of the most significant figures behind the scientific revolution. He believed that every educated person should know science as well as literature, and insisted on reaching the widest audience possible, publishing his books in Italian rather than Latin. Galileo was put on trial with his life in the balance for refusing to renounce his scientific convictions. He remains a hero and inspiration to scientists and all of those who respect science—which, as Livio reminds us in this “admirably clear and concise” (The Times, London) book, remains threatened everyday.

Author: Bruno Latour
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674792913
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
From weaker to stronger rhetoric : literature - Laboratories - From weak points to strongholds : machines - Insiders out - From short to longer networks : tribunals of reason - Centres of calculation.

Author: Guy G. Stroumsa
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674048607
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
Guy Stroumsa offers an innovative and powerful argument that the comparative study of religion finds its origin in early modern Europe. --from publisher description.

Author: Herman Philipse
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 0199697531
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Get Book Here

Book Description
Herman Philipse puts forward a powerful new critique of belief in God. He examines the strategies that have been used for the philosophical defence of religious belief, and by careful reasoning casts doubt on the legitimacy of relying on faith instead of evidence, and on probabilistic arguments for the existence of God.

Author: Declan Fahy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442233435
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
A new cultural icon strode the world stage at the turn of the twenty-first century: the celebrity scientist, as comfortable in Vanity Fair and Vogue as Smithsonian. Declan Fahy profiles eight of these eloquent, controversial, and compelling sellers of science to investigate how they achieved celebrity in the United States and internationally—and explores how their ideas influence our understanding of the world. Fahy traces the career trajectories of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Stephen Jay Gould, Susan Greenfield, and James Lovelock. He demonstrates how each scientist embraced the power of promotion and popularization to stimulate thinking, impact policy, influence research, drive controversies, and mobilize social movements. He also considers critical claims that they speak beyond their expertise and for personal gain. The result is a fascinating look into how celebrity scientists help determine what it means to be human, the nature of reality, and how to prepare for society’s uncertain future.

Author: Mireille Hildebrandt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198860870
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book introduces law to computer scientists and other folk. Computer scientists develop, protect, and maintain computing systems in the broad sense of that term, whether hardware (a smartphone, a driverless car, a smart energy meter, a laptop, or a server), software (a program, an application programming interface or API, a module, code), or data (captured via cookies, sensors, APIs, or manual input). Computer scientists may be focused on security (e.g. cryptography), or on embedded systems (e.g. the Internet of Things), or on data science (e.g. machine learning). They may be closer to mathematicians or to electrical or electronic engineers, or they may work on the cusp of hardware and software, mathematical proofs and empirical testing. This book conveys the internal logic of legal practice, offering a hands-on introduction to the relevant domains of law, while firmly grounded in legal theory. It bridges the gap between two scientific practices, by presenting a coherent picture of the grammar and vocabulary of law and the rule of law, geared to those with no wish to become lawyers but nevertheless required to consider the salience of legal rights and obligations. Simultaneously, this book will help lawyers to review their own trade. It is a volume on law in an onlife world, presenting a grounded argument of what law does (speech act theory), how it emerged in the context of printed text (philosophy of technology), and how it confronts its new, data-driven environment. Book jacket.

Author: Michael C. Banner
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780198240198
Category : Foi et raison
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Get Book Here

Book Description
The author examines the nature of scientific theories and of religious belief, and argues that religious belief can receive a defence as compelling as that given to the best scientific theories.