検索キーワード： 歴史・哲学

After the extinction of the dodo and Carolina parakeet and the collapse of the American bison population, naturalists expected many more vulnerable species to die out with spread of industrialization. This triggered a race to collect rare species of animals expected soon to be lost forever. Established in 1893, Chicago's Field Museum aimed to become a global center of study. Zoologist Daniel Giraud Elliot persuaded museum patrons to fund an immediate expedition to British Somaliland (contemporary Somalia). There, his team hunted and killed hundreds of animals for the growing collection.

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments - using such low-tech tools such as cotton swabs, glasses of water, and dime-store mirrors.

In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.

Brought to you by Penguin. From the best-selling author of How to Change Your Mind, a pioneering search for consciousness in the brain and beyond. A World Appears is the story of the quest to solve the greatest mystery in nature: consciousness. How does it feel to be you with your own personal...

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

Interweaving her vast knowledge of neurology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy with fascinating down-to-earth examples and lively personal anecdotes, developmental psychologist, neuroscientist, and dyslexia expert Wolf probes the question, "How do we learn to read and write?" This ambitious and provocative new book offers an impassioned look at reading, its effect on our lives, and explains why it matters so greatly in a digital era.

Want to know how AT&T's Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology - and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work - and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place. 

Today's "machine-learning" systems, trained by data, are so effective that we've invited them to see and hear for us - and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole - and appear to assess black and white defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And autonomous vehicles on our streets can injure or kill.

Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world, yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognised and described, yet it is the least understood. It is a 'force' that keeps your feet on the ground, yet no such force actually exists. Gravity, to steal the words of Winston Churchill, is 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma'. And penetrating that enigma promises to answer the biggest questions in science: what is space? What is time? What is the universe? And where did it all come from?

Among the estimated 100 billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere.

Is it possible to venture beyond daily living and experience heightened states of awareness? Deepak Chopra says that higher consciousness is available here and now. “Metahuman helps us harvest peak experiences so we can see our truth and mold the universe’s chaos into a form that brings...

"L'art de la guerre" est le premier traité de stratégie militaire écrit au monde. Son auteur, Sun Tzu développe des thèses originales qui s'inspirent de la philosophie chinoise ancienne.

How does the physics we know today - a highly professionalized enterprise, inextricably linked to government and industry - link back to its origins as a liberal art in Ancient Greece? What is the path that leads from the old philosophy of nature and its concern with humankind's place in the universe to modern massive international projects that hunt down fundamental particles and industrial laboratories that manufacture marvels? This audiobook introduces us to Islamic astronomers and mathematicians calculating the size of the Earth while their caliphs conquered much of it and more.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the...

The unmissable account of how science can help us live better and longer - loved by Bill Bryson, Stephen Fry, Siddhartha Mukherjee and more 'Changed my perspective on the whole living world' - Chris Van Tulleken We are living through an exciting revolution in biology. Giant strides are being...

A groundbreaking tour of the human mind that illuminates the biological nature of our inner worlds and emotions, through gripping, moving—and, at times, harrowing—clinical stories “[A] scintillating and moving analysis of the human brain and emotions.”—Nature “Beautifully connects...

Using academic, comprehensive, logical, and, at times, mathematical approaches, The Science of Weird Shit convincingly debunks ESP, communicating with the dead, and alien abduction claims, among other phenomena. All the while, however, French maintains that our belief in such phenomena is neither ridiculous nor trivial; if anything, such claims can tell us a great deal about the human mind if we pay them the attention they are due.

Sometimes our understanding of our universe is given a huge boost by one insightful thinker. Such a boost came in the first half of the 20th century, when an obscure Belgian priest put his mind to deciphering the nature of the cosmos. The Day Without Yesterday covers the modern history of an evolving universe, and how Georges Lemaître convinced a generation of thinkers to embrace the notion of cosmic expansion and the theory that this expansion could be traced backward to the cosmic origins, a starting point for space and time that Lemaître called "the day without yesterday".

Everyone has heard of the term "pseudoscience," typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. Given the virulence of contemporary disputes over the denial of climate change and anti-vaccination movements—both of which display allegations of "pseudoscience" on all sides—there is a clear need to better understand issues of scientific demarcation. Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation.

Brought to you by Penguin. Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred and irrationality. Yet, as Steven Pinker shows, if you follow...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado...

In the fall of 1980, Genentech, Inc., a little-known California genetic engineering company, became the overnight darling of Wall Street, raising over $38 million in its initial public stock offering. Lacking marketed products or substantial profit, the firm nonetheless saw its share price escalate from $35 to $89 in the first few minutes of trading. Coming at a time of economic recession and declining technological competitiveness in the United States, the event ignited a period of speculative frenzy over biotechnology.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery “Finding the Mother Tree reminds us that the world...

Merchants of Doubt has been praised—and attacked—around the world, for reasons easy to understand. This book tells, with “brutal clarity” (Huffington Post), the disquieting story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades.

Always help, or at least do no harm." Following this simple yet revolutionary idea, Hippocrates laid the foundation for modern medicine over two millennia ago. From the Hippocratic Oath to the human genome, from Pasteur's germ theory to the worldwide eradication of smallpox, Medical Firsts brings to life 2,500 years of medical advances and discoveries. Organized chronologically, the book describes each milestone in a vivid capsule history, making it a fascinating and wonderfully listenable resource for anyone interested in medicine's past progress and future promise.

Something has gone wrong with the world—and deep down, we all feel it. Science describes how the universe works, but it cannot explain why it was made or what it was meant to be. From the first words of Genesis to the mysteries of modern physics, this audiobook uncovers the hidden order behind existence—a design that has been forgotten, distorted, and denied.

Brought to you by Penguin. Featuring a special introduction written for the audiobook edition and read by the author A Radio 4 Book Club Selection. The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the...

An all-encompassing guide to skeptical thinking from podcast host and academic neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine Steven Novella and his SGU co-hosts, which Richard Wiseman calls "the perfect primer for anyone who wants to separate fact from fiction." It is intimidating to realize...

James Gleick's groundbreaking bestseller introduces to a whole new audience the story of one of the most significant waves of scientific knowledge in our time. By focusing on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science, Gleick makes the story of chaos...

We're used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self exists. The conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain - an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is "a virtual self in a virtual reality." But if the self is not "real," why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct it?

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science - a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.

"Eagleman renders the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling page-turner.” —Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner “Livewired reads wonderfully like what a book would be if it were written by Oliver Sacks and William Gibson, sitting on Carl Sagan’s front lawn...

Brought to you by Penguin. Journey through time and space with Bill Bryson in the best-selling popular science book of the 21st century, exploring the history of the Earth, the universe, and everything in between. NOW FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED IN THIS NEW ABRIDGED EDITION, READ BY THE AUTHOR...

From one of the world’s most celebrated intellectuals, a “fascinating” (Financial Times), brilliantly insightful work that explains how we think about each other’s thoughts about each other’s thoughts, ad infinitum. It sounds impossible, but “superlatively gifted science writer”...

How have our emotions shaped the course of human history? And how have our experience and understanding of emotions evolved with us? We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important...

Discover how Galileo worked out his scientific theories of motion and inertia, why Isaac Newton gets the credit for them, and what the discovery of DNA meant. All the big scientific ideas are brought to life with pithy quotes and step-by-step 'mind maps' - from evolution and continental drift to black holes and genetic engineering, showing how the ideas of famous scientists have affected our understanding of the world.