Literate Scientist

This book I bought some time ago to learn more about biology. I’ve just finished it and found it very good explaining what the science is, what is the difference between physical and life sciences. It also provides great overview of the subject, its history and philosophy, including taxonomy, evolution, ecology and ethics. I now adapt some ideas from biology to the science of memory dump analysis. There are some structural book organization deficiencies that would have made the book better. There are notes and the end of the book but I would prefer to have them to be footnotes. Also there is a very useful glossary at the end of the book too but for the beginner in any science it is useful to have definitions in footnotes ready to read when they are first encountered.

This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

These two volumes I bought a few years ago, started reading the first chapter and then other books got reading priority, for example, Rosen’s “Life Itself”. A few weeks ago I picked up the first volume again and started reading from the beginning. I’m was really amazed how I understand it better after reading Rosen’s books. These volumes are highly recommended to learn about models of reality and mathematical modeling itself. The first chapter that discusses the relationship of models to observation is awesome. The book requires an undergraduate engineering level of mathematics: linear algebra, calculus and a bit of mathematical analysis. You will also learn about catastrophe-theoretic models, chaos, cellular automata, geometry of human affairs, patterns, fractals, and many other things. There is even a discussion about controversies in catastrophe theory involving Rene Thom. I think the first volume of this book set is a prerequisite reading before starting with classic Structural Stability And Morphogenesis.

Reality Rules, 2 Volume Set

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

OpenTask plans to publish the extended and edited version of this blog as a book:

Literate Scientists and Their Books: An Independent Guide to Understanding Reality (ISBN: 978-1906717520)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I remember from my school days during Soviet Union times about pollution in dying capitalist societies. I came upon this book a few years ago while preparing for my environmental study assignment in University. Being curious about diverse reviews I bought this book. I started reading it a few months ago during my lunch time and I would recommend it to everyone to learn how to do statistics right.

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

After reading The Hundred-Year Lie I proceeded to a more balanced book:

Is it Safe to Eat?: Enjoy Eating and Minimize Food Risks

The author advocates risk vs. benefit approach throughout the book and now I started to apply the definition of risk as “hazard * exposure” to other areas as well. Explanation about how and why GM food was developed as well as the story of BSE (mad cow disease) was very interesting because I knew very little about them. I studied chemistry in university and liked that the author included organic formulae to illustrate important chemicals and their mechanisms, for example, estrogen disrupters.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is the very important book that warns about synergy between different chemicals that enter our bodies. It also shows the failure of reductionism in pharmacology and mainstream medicine and the danger of the so called synthetic paradigm. The book depicts various food and drug related fallacies. Highly recommended for reading and not to be paranoid but at least to be informed. At the time of this writing I’ve have finished 183 pages out of 257 pages of the main text. This is my lunch time reading these days

The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -