Failure: Why Science Is So Successful

Stuart Firestein

ISBN 10: 019939010X / ISBN 13: 9780199390106

Verlag: Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 2015

Beschreibung

The book has just two tiny blemishes: the top right corner of the front cover and the top left corner of the back cover are each bumped just an 1/8" or so at the tip. The rest of the book is spotless and undamaged. The dust jacket is completely clean and free of wear or damage. Book and dust jacket will be bubble-wrapped and carefully packed in a sturdy box to ensure safe transit. "With Failure, biologist Stuart Firestein joins the ranks of Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Freeman Dyson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Brian Greene as great expositors of the wonders of science, the the way it is actually done. Firestein cuts through mythology, and discusses with great lucidity and compelling examples how science is propelled forward by paradoxes: the more we learn, the more ignorance we produce: the more we produce scientific triumphs, the more they are built on failure. In this wonderfully lucid and accessible book, we discover how science depends invariably on failure, and how even its successes represent a form of failure. Anyone interested in the art of science, its social features, and how scientists make discoveries should read this book." -- Jonathan R. Cole, Columbia University.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers ABH6040

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: Failure: Why Science Is So Successful
• Verlag: Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 019939010X
• ISBN-13: 9780199390106
• Einband: Hardcover
• Auflage: 1st Edition
• Zustand: Near Fine
• Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Fine

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

The pursuit of science by professional scientists every day bears less and less resemblance to the perception of science by the general public. It is not the rule-based, methodical system for accumulating facts that dominates the public view. Rather it is the idiosyncratic, often bumbling search for understanding in mostly uncharted places. It is full of wrong turns, cul-de-sacs, mistaken identities, false findings, errors of fact and judgment--and the occasional remarkable success.

The widespread but distorted view of science as infallible originates in an education system that teaches nothing but facts using very large, very frightening textbooks, and is spread by media that report on discoveries but almost never on process. It is further reinforced by politicians who "pay for it" and want to use it to determine policy and therefore want it "right" and, worst of all, sometimes by scientists who learn early on that talking too much about failures and not enough about successes can harm their careers. Failure, then, is a book that seeks to make science more appealing by exposing its faults. In this sequel to Ignorance, Stuart Firestein shows us that scientific enterprise is riddled with failures, and that this is not only necessary but good.

Failure reveals how science got its start, when humans began to use a process--trial and error--as a kind of recipe that includes a hefty dose of failure. It gives the non-scientifically trained public an insider's view of how science is actually done, with the aim of making it accessible, comprehensible, and entertaining.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stuart Firestein is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where his highly popular course on ignorance invites working scientists to come talk to students each week about what they don't know. Dedicated to promoting science to a public audience, he serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program for the Public Understanding of Science and was awarded the 2011 Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship and teaching. He was also recently named an AAAS Fellow.