Book It
A glance at what’s in my library at the moment
Currently Reading
Daniel Dennett - Freedom Evolves - With libertarian free will obviously not viable Dennett attemps to argue that we do have the type of free will and moral responsibility worth wanting and that it evolved
Next Up
TBD
Recently Finished
Massimo Pigliucci - Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk - It’s harder than most realize to establish what constitutes science, as opposed to pseudoscience, and this book does that very well while also illuminating how the layperson should go about judging legitimate scientific debates and manufactured controversies in science
Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained- An attempt to explain one of humanity’s greatest mysteries by taking the lessons of (then) modern science combined with philosophy to argue there is no one central “seat” of consciousness
Highly Recommended
Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - There’s a reason this book is usually the first cited by skeptics when asked what book they would recommend to a lay person. Sagan clearly and thoroughly explains the scientific method and critical thinking in an easily comprehensible way while enticing the reader with many useful anecdotes and clear examples.
Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow - If you intend to try to be objective in evaluating evidence you need to know how you think and this work does just that. The difference in our intuitive and effortful modes of thinking, the way cognitive biases and heuristic effect our choices, our failure to comprehend randomness and the difference between our experiencing self and remembering self may all seem like abstract concepts but Kahneman shows that these all have significant impact on everything from our daily lives to our most broad philosophical assumptions.
Michael and Ellen Kaplan - Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human - Everyone knows humans make mistakes but the Kaplans help show why and just how pervasive these errors are in all aspects of our lives with this expose on heuristics, cognitive biases and reasoning quirks.
Massimo Pigliucci - Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk - It’s harder than most realize to establish what constitutes science, as opposed to pseudoscience, and this book does that very well while also illuminating how the layperson should go about judging legitimate scientific debates and manufactured controversies in science
Theodore Schick & Lewis Vaughn - How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age - A very clear book on applied epistemology which both shows how to examine evidence for theories about the world and why you need to take precautions. This is a book you can give to a child but which can be equally valuable to an adult explaining the basics of critical thinking through examples of the paranormal, new age and just plain weird claims.
