Lies, Damned Lies, and Science: How to Sort Through the Noise Around Global Warming, the Latest Health Claims, and Other Scientific Controvers
What's healthy? What's unhealthy? What's safe? What's dangerous? Watch the news, and it's easy to be overwhelmed by snippets of badly presented science: information that's incomplete, confusing, contradictory, out-of-context, wrong, or flat-out dishonest. In this book, Dr. Sherry... read full description below.
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Full details for this title
| Interest Age |
Young Adults |
| Reading Age |
Young Adults |
| Library of Congress |
Global warming, Communication in science, Information resources - Reviews, Information resources |
| NBS Text |
Popular Science |
| ONIX Text |
General/trade |
|
| Number of Pages |
224 |
| Dimensions |
Width: 152mm
Height: 229mm
Spine: 25mm |
| Weight |
408g |
|
| Dewey Code |
500 |
| Catalogue Code |
47907 |
Description of this Book
What's healthy? What's unhealthy? What's safe? What's dangerous? Watch the news, and it's easy to be overwhelmed by snippets of badly presented science: information that's incomplete, confusing, contradictory, out-of-context, wrong, or flat-out dishonest. In this book, Dr. Sherry Seethaler provides a "bag of tricks" for making sense of science in the news. You'll learn how to think more sensibly about everything from mad cow disease to global warming and make better science-related decisions in both your personal life and as a citizen. You'll begin by understanding how science really works and progresses, and why scientists sometimes disagree. Seethaler helps you assess the possible biases of those who make scientific claims in the media, and place scientific issues in appropriate context, so you can intelligently assess tradeoffs. You'll learn how to determine whether a new study is really meaningful; uncover the difference between cause and mere coincidence; figure out which statistics mean something, and which don't.Finally, drawing on her extensive experience as a science journalist, she reveals the tricks self-interested players use to mislead and confuse you, and points you to sources of information you can actually rely upon. Seethaler's many examples range from genetic engineering of crops to drug treatments for depression, but the techniques she teaches you will be invaluable in understanding any scientific controversy, in any area of science or health.
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Author's Bio
Sherry Seethaler, a science writer and educator at University of California, San Diego, works with scientists to explain their discoveries to the public. She writes a column for the San Diego Union Tribune answering reader's questions about science. Seethaler holds an M.S. and Master of Philosophy in biology from Yale, and a Ph.D. in science and math education from UC Berkeley. Her dissertation examined how students are taught to make sense of scientific controversy. She designed and taught the innovative university course Teaching Contemporary Scientific Controversies, and helped design UCSD's California Teach program, which prepares science and math students to teach.
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