The Antlion Pit Bookstore
Science and Nature: History of Science

"Through his rich exploration of Einstein's thought, Gerald Holton shows how the best science depends on great intuitive leaps of imagination, and how science is indeed the creative expression of the traditions of Western civilization."

"In this book, Jan Golinski reviews recent writing on the history of science and shows how it has been dramatically reshaped by a new understanding of science itself. In the last few years, scientific knowledge has come to be seen as a product of human culture. This new approach has challenged the tradition of the history of science as a story of steady and autonomous progress. Golinski has written a sympathetic but critical survey of this exciting field of research, at a level that can be appreciated by students or anyone who wants an introduction to contemporary thinking on the development of the sciences."

"Most people don't think about how a mile became a mile or a foot a foot, but Alder here presents a fascinating account of how the meter the standard measure of distance for over 95 percent of the world's population became the meter. We live in an era when standard measures for objects and time have become so common that we would have difficulty imagining a world without them. Alder takes us back to revolutionary France, when it is estimated that 250,000 different units of weights and measures were in use. Written in the vein of Dava Sobel's Longitude and reading much like a historical thriller, his book follows the seven-year effort of two accomplished astronomers to measure the meridian and the curvature of the earth from Dunkirk to Barcelona." [James Olson, for Library Journal]

"When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. And yet the idea of innate limits—of biology as destiny—dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined. In this edition Dr. Gould has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general."

"Responding to their experience teaching at Stevens Institute of Technology, McClellan and Dorn introduce undergraduates and lay readers to the history of science and technology. Their treatment starts with the first use of tools and treads through agriculture, the classical world, a brief tour of everywhere but Europe, the middle ages, and the industrial revolution to the modern world." [Book News]

"Science Teaching argues that science teaching and science teacher education can be improved if teachers know something of the history and philosophy of science and if these topics are included in the science curriculum. The history and philosophy of science have important roles in many of the theoretical issues that science educators need to address: what constitutes an appropriate science curriculum for all students; how science should be taught in traditional cultures; how scientific literacy can be promoted; and the conflict which can occur between science curriculum and deep-seated religious or cultural values and knowledge."

"Gould's subject is nothing less than geology's signal contribution to human thought—the discovery of 'deep time,' a history so ancient that we can best comprehend it as metaphor."