Science for Life: A manual for better living

by Brian Clegg

In Science for Life acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg cuts through the vested interests and confusing contradictory statements that litter the media and the internet, to give a clear picture of what science is telling us right now about changing our lives for the better.

Discover the much-advertised antioxidants that aren’t good for you, the truth about fat and sugar and why one of the healthiest foods contains carcinogens and 21 E-numbers. Find out what does and what doesn’t enhance brainpower – from the failure of playing Mozart to babies to the surprising abilities of caffeine and nicotine. Understand the tools that advertisers use to persuade us and how to turn the psychological pressure back on them.

From the shortcomings of the five second rule to the truth about phone masts and nuclear power, kept up-to-date on a partnering website, Science for Life is your guide to surviving and thriving in the modern world.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Popular Science, Self Help

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 8, 2015

About the author

Brian's latest books, Ten Billion Tomorrows and How Many Moons does the Earth Have are now available to pre-order. He has written a range of other science titles, including the bestselling Inflight Science, The God Effect, Before the Big Bang, A Brief History of Infinity, Build Your Own Time Machine and Dice World.

Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.

Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.

Reviews

[Lyndon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I scanned a few pages on bookstore and loved it. But when reading the whole thing it starts to wear thin. The tone comes across as condescending. There are no references so its hard to ascertain what is opinion and what is scientific fact e.g in his section about cycling he says "most people who ride regularly on the road have stories of near misses and potential disasters". Sounds anecdotal with no data on actual stats about cycling safety on roads. I like concept of this book to disprove a lot of rubbish that is out there as fact but I feel it fails in execution.

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

A guide showing the current scientific research behind the subjects that make newspaper headlines and how to apply that scientific thinking to making sensible lifestyle choices. Organised A-Z by topic.

Brian Clegg is clearly from the Ben Goldacre school of scientific writing – not a bad thing at all - and indeed he name drops Mr. Goldacre several times. This book is both useful and informative but perhaps falls a bit short of the mark at times. The explanations given of the research behind the topics covered aren't perhaps as detailed as they could be, for example. This is no more apparent than when the author dismisses renewable fuels as well-meaning but ultimately frivolous and firmly nails his colours to the pro-nuclear lobby. Whether you agree with him or not isn't the point here, what matters is that he does not give one single argument or piece of research to justify his position and instead seems to assume that the logic of his stance should be apparent to all. This sadly undermines his oft stated position within the book that no claim should be accepted without first examining the evidence behind it, which should ideally be presented by the person making the claim.

Otherwise, an enjoyable and helpful read but one which could have benefited by more diligence from its author.

[Nicola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great disabuser of misinformation, superstition, marketing nonsense and quackery in general.

[Artem Fedorov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a stack of stories about the myths and rumours in our everyday life. A lot of commonplace information. This book is a waste of time.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Если писать коротко - это отличная книга. Если более подробно, то читайте далее. Эта книга для всех, кто хочет проверить насколько он ошибался или наоборот был прав в отношении распространенных фактов о нашем здоровье, нашей планете и тд. Читается довольно легко, интересно. Факты сгруппированы в отдельные разделы книги по тематикам, что очень удобно и вы можете начать с любого, наиболее любопытного раздела для вас, а что-то так и вообще пропустить. Также наверняка вы узнаете и что-то новое для себя и поймете, как важно критически мыслить и проверять ту или иную информацию через достоверные источники. И самое главное, что я поняла для себя - это то, что во всем важна мера и здравый смысл! И в очередной раз убедилась, что книги МИФа как всегда хороши!

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any handy quick reference to a whole host of topics that badly need a scientific light shined on them. Although it’s understandable that references aren’t given for space reasons, it is still a serious shortcoming for anyone wanting more background. The book loses its way rather towards the end when the topics become a bit more random and less focused, and the author seems also to have a tendency to minimise the impacts of climate change, rather against the scientific consensus I suspect. Still, its an easy and informative read, and a good starting point for anyone trying to shake off a whole host of misconceptions and pseudoscientific nonsense.

[Kabir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok read with encouraging formatting and facts. Slightly misleading with its big claims of disproving scientific studies and beliefs of today. Book gets very repetitive very quick with constant disagreements about claims made today about food and lifestyle without backing it up with any specific scientific evidence or trackable studies. Missing depth and too simplistic to justify as a science non fiction in my opinion.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this were interesting, but it wasn't as impartial as I was hoping for - too much of the authors opinion got through.

[Alphared Chadstick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could be better, found it hard to read at times and a tiny bit opinionated in some areas. Just minor details though, other than that, it was a fine book about everyday science.

[5/12]

[Andy]

DNF. Outdated. For example, there's a chapter on artifical sweeteners that says they're safe, but the WHO just said to avoid them. The author does mention up front a website with updated info to deal with this sort of thing, but I didn't check that out.

[Joseph Cope · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book I think suffers from over ambition. A guide to the balanced scientific consensus on a wide range of subjects - 'a manual for better living', sounds like a worthy aim. Is it ever that simple though? The author includes few hard facts or figures, and doesn't reference any studies, so this comes across more as broad summaries filtered inevitably through opinion. I don't doubt that the conclusions here are generally well-balanced sensible advice, but I think the book would have been a lot more interesting, and actually more useful, with more background information.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brillaint. I loved it.

[Woranart · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[Pranav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science for life is a books that provides descriptions for the straight facts that we might do wrong in our daily life. Brian Clegg is that author for the book.