Uncertain Science ... Uncertain World

ISBN-13: 9780521619103 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 256 str.

Henry N. Pollack

Opis

Scientific uncertainty puzzles many people. The confusion arises when scientists have more than one answer, and disagree among themselves. By acquainting readers with the ways that uncertainty arises in science, how scientists accommodate and make use of uncertainty, and how they reach conclusions in the face of uncertainty, this book enables them to confidently evaluate uncertainty from their own perspectives, in terms of their experiences. Henry N. Pollack is a professor of Geology in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Michigan. He has published extensively in the field of geophysics. This is his first popular science book.

Recenzje

'One of the strong points of this book is the author's fusion of his extensive scientific experience and broadly based professional judgment with a keen sense of intellectual propriety and of ethics - not just scientific ethics in the narrow sense, but the ethics of the use of science in support of the broader human enterprise.' Palaios

Spis treści

Acknowledgments; About the author; 1. Setting the stage; 2. Uncertain about science; 3. Can the media help?; 4. Unfamiliarity breeds uncertainty; 5. Fever or chill?; 6. A fifty-fifty chance; 7. How does this work?; 8. Let's see what happens if...; 9. Reconstructing the past; 10. Predicting the future; 11. Out of the blue; 12. A climate of uncertainty; Index.