Ebook Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar
Obtaining the publications Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar now is not kind of hard way. You could not simply going for e-book store or library or loaning from your friends to review them. This is a quite simple means to precisely get guide by on-line. This on the internet e-book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar could be one of the options to accompany you when having extra time. It will certainly not lose your time. Believe me, guide will reveal you brand-new point to review. Just spend little time to open this on-line book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar and review them anywhere you are now.
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar
Ebook Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar
Picture that you obtain such specific spectacular experience and also expertise by simply reading a publication Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar. Exactly how can? It seems to be better when a publication can be the most effective point to discover. E-books now will show up in printed as well as soft documents collection. Among them is this book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar It is so usual with the printed books. Nonetheless, numerous individuals often have no space to bring the publication for them; this is why they can not read guide wherever they really want.
It is not secret when linking the writing abilities to reading. Reading Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar will make you get even more sources and sources. It is a way that could boost how you forget and also understand the life. By reading this Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar, you can greater than exactly what you obtain from other publication Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar This is a popular publication that is released from famous publisher. Seen kind the writer, it can be trusted that this book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar will certainly provide lots of motivations, concerning the life as well as experience and also everything within.
You could not need to be question concerning this Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar It is easy way to get this book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar You can simply check out the set with the web link that we offer. Right here, you could acquire the book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar by on-line. By downloading and install Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar, you can discover the soft data of this publication. This is the local time for you to start reading. Also this is not published book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar; it will exactly provide more advantages. Why? You may not bring the published publication Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar or only pile the book in your house or the workplace.
You could carefully include the soft file Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar to the device or every computer hardware in your workplace or house. It will certainly assist you to consistently proceed reviewing Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar every single time you have downtime. This is why, reading this Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar doesn't offer you issues. It will certainly give you essential sources for you who want to begin writing, covering the similar book Introducing Science Studies, By Ziauddin Sardar are different book industry.
How do we reconcile the advantages of science with its perils? What do scientists actually do? Is science 'value-free'? How has science evolved through history? Where is science leading us? We now begin to see that uncertainty and ignorance tend to increase with changes in the production of knowledge. We have arrived at the threshold of post-normal science. Introducing Science is a clear and incisively illustrated anatomy of science. It is essential reading for students, ordinary citizens and scientists themselves.
- Sales Rank: #3302350 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Icon Books
- Published on: 1998-05-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x .46" w x 5.58" l, .56 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 176 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
About the Author
Ziauddin Sardar is a renowned cultural and science critic. He has written guides to Islam, Cultural Studies, Chaos, Media Studies, Learning and Memory and with Jerry Ravetz, Mathematics, in the Introducing series. Borin Van Loon is a well-known graphic artist who has as illustrated Darwin and Evolution, Genetics, Buddha, Eastern Philosophy, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Mathematics, Media Studies and Critical Theory in the Introducing series.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Yes, Introducing Science
By Fredrik Deboer
I have the great fortune of having the other customer review posted here on Amazon to show just exactly why this book, and post-normal science studies, are so important.
The writer of the preceding review (Introducing Science???) demonstrates perfectly just the kind of fear, knee-jerk reactionism and intentional misunderstanding that permeate the commentary of the conservative "science is king" crowd. To begin, before we go any further: Ziauddin Sardar is one of the most influential and highly respected scholars of post-normal science in the world. His work is has been published and cited constantly, and he has lectured and taught throughout the world. The previous reviewer's ignorance of Sardar's stature and brilliance should not give anyone perusing this listing on Amazon an incorrect idea of the book's worth.
A few more pointed criticisms of the previous review: the first several pages of this book are a parody; Sardar certainly doesn't actually believe that "[almost every benefit of life - from antibiotics to computers, our understanding of human evolution to our ability to land a satellite on Saturn - is a product of science". In the context of this farcical opening section (which is openly and obviously satirical), landing a satellite on Saturn is not a mistake but an intentional gloss on the typical "wonders of science" that are recounted by those who worship science. And, though it might be a "sound bite" criticism, Isaac Newton was, in fact, more of an alchemist than a scientist. He certainly spent more time in his life attempting to change iron to gold than he did on physics. His plagiarism and ethical lapses are well documented.
What the previous review demonstrates perfectly is the fear that scientists demonstrate towards the postmodern critic; fearful of a loss of their media acclaim, their wealth, their culturally imbued sense if superiority. In our society, science is the new religion; any scientific edict must be accepted wholly by everyone or they risk being marginialized as a religious nut or a crazy. Science is never expected to withstand a comprehensive review of itself. We are merely to accept science as sacrosanct.
But this attitude ignores the reality of science. Science, like every other human construct, is the product of conjecture, assumption, prejudice, and greed. Scientists frequently ignore data which does not fit their hypothesis, or worse, fabricate data which does. Scientists frequently Scientist are often close-minded, rash, self-obsessed and defensive. Everyday, old scientific notions are replaced. And yet we still do not learn the lesson that science is fequently wrong; we cling to the notion that science is infallible, continuing the current worship of the unreal notion of "objective fact" with scientists as our new high priests.
None of this is to argue that science is unimportant or unnecessary. Science is a powerfull and important tool that, when used appropriately and responsibly, can improve our lives. Understand that scientists would never offer a similar equivication to science studies or postmodern criticism in general; science is a dogma, and as such, science can extend no respect to any disciplince which does not toe its line. A scientist has no respect for an opinion which is not his own.
What ultimately must be done--as Sardar, and Science Studies, have pointed out-- is to move from questions of truth to questions of use. Does science have use? Of course; the world needs asprin and radios. But is science the truth? No. It is a man made viewpoint, a system-- often very useful-- for organizing the symbols we have created in the world. It is a part of human consciousness, a perspective. It is not a perfect and correct view on an objective and static world. What this book accomplishes is to provide an introduction to anyone who wishes to learn why.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Introducing Science???
By Keith
This book also goes under the name, "Introducing Science" but as far as its attempt to 'introduce' science, it is a travesty. Virtually no actual science content is discussed and what is, is invariably wrong or we get straw man arguments--if at all. As far as I can tell, this book is more concerned with misconstruals, false statements and bald assertions made by those in science and technology studies.
Here is just a small sampling of quotes with my commentary:
Page3: "Almost every benefit of life - from antibiotics to computers, our understanding of human evolution to our ability to land a satellite on Saturn - is a product of science."
Land a satellite on Saturn?? This is news to me as from what I saw on TV, the Cassini orbiter is presently orbiting Saturn and the Huygens probe landed on Saturn's moon, Titan, on January 2005. (Not surprisingly, the comment about a satellite `landing' on Saturn preceded Cassini arriving at Saturn.
Page101 "Certain laws of science, as Indian physicists have begun to demonstrate, are formulated in an ethnocentric and racist way. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, so central to classical physics, is a case in point. Due to its industrial origins, the Second Law presents a definition of efficiency that favours high temperatures and the allocation of resources to big industry. Work done at ordinary temperatures is by definition inefficient. Both nature and the non-Western world become losers in this new definition. For example, the monsoon--transporting millions of tons of water across a subcontinent--is "inefficient" since it does its work at ordinary temperatures. Similarly, traditional crafts and technologies are designated as inefficient and marginalized."
It is stated here that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is formulated in an ethnocentric and racist way!! because it defines efficiency by favoring high temperatures and also in its allocating of resources to big industry?? So, the conclusion here is that work (people laboring) done at ordinary temperatures is deemed inefficient. The authors have completely misconstrued what 'work' means and what the 2nd law is. The 2nd law basically states 3 things: a) heat spontaneously flows from a hot body to a cooler one; b) one cannot completely convert heat into work or into other forms of energy and; c) the amount of disorder of an isolated system--entropy--increases over time. Statement 'b' can refer to a heat engine where efficiency is defined by the temperature differential used by the engine to do work. `Work' is defined in physics as a force acting upon an object causing a displacement. It is different than the economic notion of work, but it does apply. The 2nd law states that if people are working (creating forces to displace objects), then in the total amount of energy expended, some will always be lost due to heat. That is why we sweat when we engage in vigorous physical activity: to get rid of excess heat. So the error here is in equating people with heat engines. They are the opposite. They convert chemical energy into work and waste heat.
One actual example in the book--the Woburn case of Massachusetts from the early 80s--is touted as an example of "post-normal science" (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1992) where the community gets involved in policy-based scientific research. (In post-normal science, "facts are uncertain," "values are in dispute," "stakes are high," "truth is replaced by quality," "the expert is replaced by an extended peer community," "scientific certainty is replaced by extended dialogue," etc.) Specifically, the case involved a mother who suspected that the local water supply was the cause behind her son contracting and dying of leukemia. After getting no cooperation from the local health authorities, she got the town to initiate epidemiological research (using scientists) where they were able to establish a causal connection between a local company's carcinogenic waste and a clustering of leukemia cases that appeared in the town. A successful civil suit was eventually launched against the company. But note that this example runs completely counter to the notion of post-normal science: facts *aren't* uncertain, truth *is* established, values *weren't* in dispute (people are dying), the dialogue on who was responsible *ended*, the experts, the scientists *did* the research, etc. In short, the standard canons of science were used to empirically establish a causal connection between a carcinogen and a group of leukemia cases. WHAT gets researched is a completely different question from HOW research is done. And saying that the public should be scientifically involved doesn't address whether, in this case, they will be able to assess the complexities of disease clustering in epidemiological research or not.
In the brief mention of Alan Sokal's hoax (who submitted a spoof article in the trendy Social Text journal in 1994) and other scientists who have counter-critiqued most of this critical nonsense--the discussion basically reduces to political name-calling. The scientists who decided to take on the science studies pretenses are branded "conservatives;" or there is a conservative backlash afloat in academe that will have no truck with these trendy, rad notions. But no mention is made in the book as to how the scientists exposed all of this silliness. (See; Fashionable Nonsense by Sokal and Bricmont)
A major error that virtually all science studies authors commit is a failure to distinguish between basic science, curiosity-driven research and its application or technology. Facts are continually conflated with values. Science then gets blamed for all the technological disasters where the real blame lies in the *application* of scientific knowledge. E=mc2 does not entail the atom bomb anymore than Christ entails the inquisition. As Paul Gross and Norman Levitt put it in their hard-hitting counter-critical book, Higher Superstition; "For every bomb there is a vaccine; for every ICBM, a CAT scanner."
Consequently, I don't see how obnoxious sound bite diatribes ("Newton was mean and vindictive. He was more into alchemy than science. He plagiarized Muslim scientists." p42) supposedly has anything to do with introducing science.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Turgid and disappointing
By ItalyTraveler
Not a fun or easy read. It's disappointing both because it's an interesting topic that fails to be well written and organized, and because the snappy graphics make it seem like more fun than it is. Note that I'm giving it 2 stars on its own merits, as if I (an adult with a PhD) had picked it up to read for my own interest. I'm only reading it because my 14-year old was assigned it for summer reading -- think I'll give her science teacher zero stars!
See all 4 customer reviews...
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar PDF
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar EPub
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Doc
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar iBooks
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar rtf
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Mobipocket
Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Kindle
[Q980.Ebook] Ebook Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Doc
[Q980.Ebook] Ebook Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Doc
[Q980.Ebook] Ebook Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Doc
[Q980.Ebook] Ebook Introducing Science Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar Doc
