The life of the man who studied astronomy, theoretical physics, contributed to genetics, molecular biology, sensory behavior, and evolution and shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine

"Books on thinking": pages 248-251.

This unique text for undergraduate courses teaches students to apply critical thinking skills across all academic disciplines by examining popular pseudoscientific claims through a multidisciplinary lens. Rather than merely focusing on critical thinking grounded in philosophy and psychology, the text incorporates the perspectives of biology, physics, medicine, and other disciplines to reinforce different categories of rational explanation. The book is also distinguished by its respectful approach to individuals whose ideas are, according to the authors, deeply flawed. Accessible and engaging, it describes what critical thinking is, why it is important, and how to learn and apply skillsóusing scientific methods--that promote it. The text also examines why critical thinking can be difficult to engage in and explores the psychological and social reasons why people are drawn to and find credence in extraordinary claims. From alien abductions and psychic phenomena to strange creatures and unsupported alternative medical treatments, the text uses examples from a wide range of pseudoscience fields and brings evidence from diverse disciplines to critically examine these erroneous claims. Particularly timely is the text's examination of how, using the narrative of today's "culture wars," religion and culture impact science. The authors focus on how the human brain, rife with natural biases, does not process information in a rational fashion, and the social factors that prevent individuals from gaining an unbiased, critical perspective on information. Authored by a psychologist and a philosopher who have extensive experience teaching and writing on critical thinking and skeptical inquiry, this work will help students to strengthen their skills in reasoning and debate, become intelligent consumers of research, and make well-informed choices as citizens. Key Features: Addresses the foundations of critical thinking and how to apply it through the popular activity of examining pseudoscience Explains why humans are vulnerable to pseudoscientific claims and how critical thinking can overcome fallacies and biases Reinforces critical thinking through multidisciplinary analyses of pseudoscience Examines how religion and culture impact science Enlightens using an engaging, entertaining approach Written by experienced and innovative scholar/educators well known in the skeptic community Features teaching resources including an Instructor's Guide and Powepoint slides

Teach your students how to think like scientists. This book shows you practical ways to incorporate science thinking in your classroom using simple "Thinking Tasks" that you can insert into any lesson. What is science thinking and how can you possibly teach and assess it? How is science thinking incorporated into the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and how can it be weaved into your curriculum? This book answers these questions. This practical book provides a clear, research-verified framework for helping students develop scientific thinking as required by the NGSS. Your students will not be memorizing content but will become engaged in the real work scientists do, using critical thinking patterns such as: Recognizing patterns, Inventing new hypotheses based on observations, Separating causes from correlations, Determining relevant variables and isolating them, Testing hypotheses, and Thinking about their own thinking and the relative value of evidence. The book includes a variety of sample classroom activities and rubrics, as well as frameworks for creating your own tools. Designed for the busy teacher, this book also shows you quick and simple ways to add deep science thinking to existing lessons.

Stories give life and substance to scientific methods and provide an inside look at scientists in action. Case studies deepen scientific understanding, sharpen critical-thinking skills, and help students see how science relates to their lives. In Science Stories, Clyde Freeman Herreid, Nancy Schiller, and Ky Herreid have organized case studies into categories such as historical cases, science and the media, and ethics and the scientific process. Each case study comprises a story, classroom discussion questions, teaching notes and background information, objectives, and common misconceptions about the topic, as well as helpful references. College-level educators and high school teachers will find that this compilation of case studies will allow students to make connections between the classroom and everyday life.

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to maintain a 'line' to demarcate them. The view persists that there is a one-way communication flow from science to society - with scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates with science. The authors argue that changes in society now make such communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is transforming science not only in its research practices and the institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science. The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated society from science is regularly transgressed and that the resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis on which a new social contract between science and society might be constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the elements that would comprise this new social contract.

An accessible introduction to some of the cognitive issues important for thinking and learning in scientific or other complex domains (such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, or expository writing), with practical educational applications and implementation methods. Many students find it difficult to learn the kind of knowledge and thinking required by college or high school courses in mathematics, science, or other complex domains. Thus they often emerge with significant misconceptions, fragmented knowledge, and inadequate problem-solving skills. Most instructors or textbook authors approach their teaching efforts with a good knowledge of their field of expertise but little awareness of the underlying thought processes and kinds of knowledge required for learning in scientific domains. In this book, Frederick Reif presents an accessible coherent introduction to some of the cognitive issues important for thinking and learning in scientific or other complex domains (such as mathematics, science, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, or expository writing). Reif, whose experience teaching physics at the University of California led him to explore the relevance of cognitive science to education, examines with some care the kinds of knowledge and thought processes needed for good performance; discusses the difficulties faced by students trying to deal with unfamiliar scientific domains; describes some explicit teaching methods that can help students learn the requisite knowledge and thinking skills; and indicates how such methods can be implemented by instructors or textbook authors. Writing from a practically applied rather than predominantly theoretical perspective, Reif shows how findings from recent research in cognitive science can be applied to education. He discusses cognitive issues related to the kind of knowledge and thinking skills that are needed for science or mathematics courses in high school or colleges and that are essential prerequisites for more advanced intellectual performance. In particular, he argues that a better understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanisms should help to achieve a more scientific approach to science education.