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The Scientific Attitude
- Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
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Publisher's summary
Attacks on science have become commonplace. Claims that climate change isn't settled science, that evolution is “only a theory”, and that scientists are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the public are staples of some politicians' rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of science often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without explaining exactly why scientific claims are superior. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls "the scientific attitude" - caring about evidence and being willing to change theories on the basis of new evidence. The history of science is littered with theories that were scientific but turned out to be wrong; the scientific attitude reveals why even a failed theory can help us to understand what is special about science.
McIntyre offers examples that illustrate both scientific success and failure. He describes the transformation of medicine from a practice based largely on hunches into a science based on evidence; considers scientific fraud; examines the positions of ideology-driven denialists, pseudoscientists, and "skeptics" who reject scientific findings; and argues that social science, no less than natural science, should embrace the scientific attitude.
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What is history, and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.
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Excellent Book!
- By Billy on 09-15-18
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Where the Conflict Really Lies
- Science, Religion, & Naturalism
- By: Alvin Plantinga
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates - the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
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The reader makes or breaks an audiobook.
- By Alec on 02-16-15
By: Alvin Plantinga
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Expert Political Judgment
- How Good is it? How can We Know?
- By: Philip E. Tetlock
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This audiobook fills that need. Here, Philip E. Tetlock explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events, and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future.
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Five-star book, one-star reading
- By Christian Tarsney on 01-23-19
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In Defense of History
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard J. Evans shows us how historians manage to extract meaning from the recalcitrant past. To materials that are frustratingly meager, or overwhelmingly profuse, they bring an array of tools that range from agreed-upon rules of documentation to the critical application of social and economic theory, all employed with the aim of reconstructing a verifiable, usable past. Evans defends this commitment to historical knowledge from the attacks of postmodernist critics who deny the possibility of achieving any kind of certain knowledge about the past.
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Enlightening
- By David A on 07-03-18
By: Richard J. Evans
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Noise
- A Flaw in Human Judgment
- By: Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the co-author of Nudge, and the author of You Are About to Make a Terrible Mistake! comes Noise, a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments, and how to control both noise and cognitive bias.
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Disappointing
- By Z28 on 05-31-21
By: Daniel Kahneman, and others
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The Great Mental Models
- General Thinking Concepts
- By: Shane Parrish
- Narrated by: Shane Parrish
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts is the first book in The Great Mental Models series designed to upgrade your thinking with the best, most useful and powerful tools so you always have the right one on hand. This volume details nine of the most versatile all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making, your productivity, and how clearly you see the world.
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A dissapointing debut
- By Peter on 04-14-19
By: Shane Parrish
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Mindware
- Tools for Smart Thinking
- By: Richard E. Nisbett
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Many scientific and philosophical ideas are so powerful that they can be applied to our lives at home, work, and school to help us think smarter and more effectively about our behavior and the world around us. Surprisingly, many of these ideas remain unknown to most of us. In Mindware, the world-renowned psychologist Richard Nisbett presents these ideas in clear and accessible detail, offering a tool kit for better thinking and wiser decisions.
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Sound scientific advice on how to live your life
- By Neuron on 08-26-15
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Undeniable
- How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed
- By: Douglas Axe
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the "design intuition" - the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge.
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Seductively Challenge what are consider facts
- By Rafael Vila on 10-08-16
By: Douglas Axe
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The Devil's Delusion
- Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
- By: David Berlinski
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Militant atheism is on the rise. In recent years, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have produced a steady stream of best-selling books denigrating religious belief. These authors are merely the leading edge of a larger movement that includes much of the scientific community. In response, mathematician David Berlinski, himself a secular Jew, delivers a biting defense of religious thought.
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Riddled With Problems
- By Ben on 11-01-13
By: David Berlinski
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Why Darwin Matters
- The Case for Evolution and Against Intelligent Design
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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Columnist and publisher Michael Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents invoke a combination of ad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology in their new brand of creationism. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
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TOTAL MISREPRENTATION: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?
- By Theo Tsourdalakis on 09-04-11
By: Michael Shermer
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The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire
- By: Richard Carrier
- Narrated by: Richard Carrier
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In this extensive sequel to Science Education in the Early Roman Empire, Dr. Richard Carrier explores the social history of scientists in the Roman era. Was science in decline or experiencing a revival under the Romans? What was an ancient scientist thought to be and do? Who were they, and who funded their research? And how did pagans differ from their Christian peers in their views toward science and scientists?
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This Book is a Bombshell
- By James on 06-15-18
By: Richard Carrier
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In Defense of Troublemakers
- The Power of Dissent in Life and Business
- By: Charlan Nemeth
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making.
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A Good Review of Group Thinking
- By J. Justice on 03-20-24
By: Charlan Nemeth
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Excellent resource and strategy for rescuing a friend from conspiracy thinking
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What listeners say about The Scientific Attitude
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rafael Polidoro
- 04-06-24
evidence evidence evidence
PhD here. Scientist in training since 2005. This book proposal is superior to almost all other courses and books in the subject and clearly distinct what is science, pseudoscience and not science at all. enjoy
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- Paul Beck
- 07-10-22
A Must Listen and Read
Outstanding insight into what is science - not steps - not tests - but attitude and truth seeking.
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- Cade Campbell
- 06-20-19
The Ghost in The Scientific Machinery
McIntyre’s book will probably be one I refer back to often in conversation with others about the nature of science and its superior approach to deep understanding. The shift away from methodological demarcation and towards a clarification of the attitudinal dimension that colors scientific inquiry was a breath of fresh air. The discussion of the social sciences in the context of the scientific attitude and the history and evolution of medicine was also something I’d never considered before. Moreover, this book has accomplished one more thing, besides the clearly stated purpose of defending science from pretenders and charlatans, and that is it makes me want to learn how to defend science better myself and share with others the uniqueness of science and the privileged status it deserves. McIntyre’s book is a masterpiece. I recommend everyone and their mother read it.
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4 people found this helpful
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- chris boutte
- 05-20-21
One of my new favorite books
Before picking up this book, I had never even heard of the philosophy of science, but that’s exactly what Lee McIntyre does. I can’t even express how important I think it is that all of us (yes, even us non-scientists) know how to separate good vs. bad science. We saw crazy conspiracies and whacky theories during the COVID pandemic and anyone with a lab coat was trying to speak as an authority. Social media has made it easier for people to push their pseudoscientific remedies to people looking for some type of physical or psychological relief. And worst of all, we have Big Pharma pushing all sorts of medications on us, and as a recovering prescription drug addict, this is a topic that I care about deeply. All of this seems like it’s too much too grasp and dissect, but Lee McIntyre brings it all down to one simple philosophy, and that’s the scientific attitude.
In this book, Lee presents one of the most nuanced conversations about scientific research that I’ve ever read. He lays out his thesis that scientists and researchers from all fields must adopt a simply scientific attitude, which will help science do what it does better, which is to get us closer to the truth. The scientific attitude discusses the importance of being aware of your own possible biases and why scrutiny through peer review is so important.
What I thought was really cool about Lee and his own way of thinking and analyzing issues is that he gives people the benefit of the doubt. When discussing scientific fraud, he helps the reader realize that scientists are human, and sometimes they make mistakes just like the rest of us. He also recognizes that some people may be critical of his view of what the scientific attitude is because some people are gatekeepers and make really strict boundaries for what is or isn’t science. At the end of the day, Lee wants us to keep progressing and making discoveries about all aspects of life and the universe, and this means being ethical, skeptical, and humble in order to achieve this by using the scientific attitude.
So, even though you’re probably like me and aren’t a scientist, everyone should read this book because we can all benefit from the scientific attitude.
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- Michael
- 04-10-24
Essential, Clearly Argued
The author clearly describes the scientific attitude, following empirical evidence, forming hypotheses to fit that evidence, and changing hypotheses in light of subsequent evidence. The author then shows the consequences of the scientific attitude being upheld and flouted alike, making the case for its necessity. Best to get the message directly from the author. Highest recommendation.
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- Vampymissk
- 10-16-19
Could not get through book
I am struggling to get through this audiobook which is too academic to listen to while driving! it is like listening to a research paper which is fine to read, skim redundancies but the repetition of words were grating on my ears. Hearing sentences use the phrases scientific method, unscientific research, pseudoscience multiple times in a sentence was maddening! The narrator doesn't help make it more engaging either! I heard the author on a podcast talk about his approach in talking to science deniers in a way they feel listened to & that he's turned them around to science. I really wanted this advice in how to be considerate & create a thoughtful case for them to see science as not threatening their beliefs. Halfway through the jargon & dry academia, I need to move on! The one positive of the book was a story of medical science that was interesting.
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