Science and Inquiry discussion

Please post a comment below to nominate a book for the group to read for August 2020.

Please use the "add book/author" link just above the comment box to insert a link to the Goodreads book page for the book you are nominating, so other members can more easily assess it. Apparently this only works on the desktop version of the site; if you use the app, the link is not available yet, so just be sure to put the full title and author.

You may nominate a book which has been suggested previously and did not win. You may nominate more than one book, but we might not include all of your nominations in the voting.

Please do not nominate a book which is unlikely to be available to all members, such as one which was just published within the last three months or which is only available on Kindle in the U.S.

Nominations will close on June 22 or when we have about 10 good nominations, whichever occurs first.

I'll nominate Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World

Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology please

I nominate Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.

I'll nominate The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

I'll again put forward Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

I’ll nominate The Coming Plague by Laurie Garret

I nominate In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall. Published in '71, about her studies of wild chimpanzees.

Paul wrote: "I'll nominate Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World"

This is a very good book! But we read it back in April, 2016. Here is our discussion.

David wrote: "Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology please"

This was an excellent book. However, we read it back in October, 2015. Here is our discussion.

Candice wrote: "I nominate Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach."

This is an entertaining book. But we read it a while ago, in July, 2015. Here is our discussion.

Shubham wrote: "I'll nominate The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood"

This is a wonderful book. However, we read it back in May, 2011. Here is our discussion.

I’ll nominate The Coming Age of Quantum biology

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Gustavo wrote: "I’ll nominate The Coming Age of Quantum biology

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..."

See message #10 above.

Looks like we have three valid nominations so far:

Superior: The Return of Race Science

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

In the Shadow of Man

Lots of time to nominate more.

I'll nominate The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson and Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America by Craig Childs.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful
by Sean B. Carroll

I nominate The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

I'll nominate 2:

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker (in fact, I can't believe we haven't covered this one yet, it being such a classic)


and

The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston

Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal about Our World--And Ourselves

This will take everybody's minds off Covid and riots. What a freaking wicked world we live in, especially if you're a caterpillar and somebody decides to lay an egg in your brain or something....

I'll nominate Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

An exhilarating meditation on nature and its seasons—a personal narrative highlighting one year's exploration on foot in the author's own neighborhood in Tinker Creek, Virginia. In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays 'King of the Meadow' with a field of grasshoppers.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, 1975.

John Von Neumann
there are some amazing lessons into his childhood and the crave for knowledge that have through his entire life.

I will nominate 'Animal Viruses and Humans, a Narrow Divide: How Lethal Zoonotic Viruses Spill Over and Threaten Us' by Warren A. Andiman.

Animal Viruses and Humans, a Narrow Divide: How Lethal Zoonotic Viruses Spill Over and Threaten Us https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

Nominations are now closed. I'll post a poll shortly.

Please vote for your preference, at the following poll:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

which will be open through June 23.