Why a NonScientific Person Reads Science Books

  When i was in 2nd grade, our science text was a big picture book. Look at the animals!  Look at the trees!  Wow!
  i wanted to be a scientist.
  In the 3rd grade,
the book was as big as the dictionary.  It scared me with talk of teeny cells and molecules, and the vastness of space and time.
  Science was horrible.  i wanted nothing to do with it.

  But it seems that other people who don't want to deal with science - don't simply not deal with it.  People fight over it.

Changing Times, Changing Science

  i've come to terms with science being uncomfortable.  The whole point is to find out as much as humanly possible about the world, using the means currently available to humans.
  Sometimes that means reevaluating what we've known.
  We like being comfortable.
  But the way i figure it this:  If something is true, it is from God.  It is God's truth.  People are always misunderstanding things, whether they call themselves scientists or people of faith or whatever.
  i don't have to be afraid to look at God's world. 
  i want my faith, and my worldview, to be based on truth, not handed down misinformation.  Listen to everyone, begin with a bias, but

Think Critically for Myself, and Make up my Own Mind.

  Should i believe people telling me that process in question is safe when they're making millions from it?  If the company claims to give me the news with the political bias i want (and everyone DOES have their own editorial viewpoint, after all), why is the same company unable to make entertainment that does not offend me?  Maybe they're doing the news to fill a niche, another business decision?

Big Questions

  So, these books.
  Do i believe evolution happened?  Do i care?
  In recent historical memory (since 1800), large dogs have been bred into teeny Pomeranians.  Within my lifetime, scientists in Russia have bred critters who more resemble dogs than the foxes they began with, by selecting for friendliness to humans.
  Is either of this evolution?
  But what about dismissing concerns about health from smoking?  From extraction of natural gas?
  If thinking critically leads us to reexamine our faith, will we automatically abandon it or find deeper meaning & firmer faith? 

critical thinking + science + ?attitude

Controversy and Paradox

  When i checked out the book Discarded Science last fall, the Teach to the Controversy idea was in the news.
  To me, this seems unnecessarily combative.
  Let's understand how science works.  Yeah, no one likes to accept new stuff.  But people of faith should not be standing in the way of the truth.  Observations of the world around us will not contradict what IS, though they might SEEM to for a time.  And our own observations might not be too accurate either.

Same Crater, Four Different Views

Books

  So, in  Discarded Science, i hoped to find a history of science, as well as an outline of scientific method and process.  How scientists stay honest, if you will.
  There is a ton of fascinating stuff in this book.  John Grant is obviously a highly educated man.  However, i found myself constantly getting angry with him.  He has no patience with those who do not ardently believe in Science; Sir Isaac Newton, for example, is widely acknowledged as a giant of scientific hstory, but we can accept him only by "forgiving" him his faith.
  You see, people didn't know any better then.
  Grant tends toward tirades about uneducated people attempting science, yet feels there is no problem with leaving such people in the dark about why their ideas are scientifically unacceptable.  i also had problems with his page-long sentences, filled with multiple colons and semicolons.  (Yes, *i* had problems with those!)

Too biased & obtuse!

    How to Fake a Moon Landing did not, at first, seem to my taste either, but ultimately, i believe this is the book i was looking for.
  First of all, it wasn't written TO me.  Darryl Cunningham was writing to younger people, in a comic book format.  It's not as annoying (to me) as some comic book types i've come across - in  this one, i always knew where to go next. He doesn't often stray from his main point: think for yourself. It is readable, and points out logical flaws in popular views of controversial issues.

The comic book format reads well.

  This would be a great text or supplemental in middle and high schools.  Both books include additional sources for more information.

Reading Science Books

  i read science books so that i will not be among the uninformed naysayers.  The nature of science is to examine evidence and change.  We should expect that.  The nature of Scripture is to poetically explain God's love relationship with humans, not to tell us the mechanics of the world's workings.
  Indeed, the accuracy of our ancient Scripture in that regard, even as far as it goes, is awesome.

  It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.
  Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.  Richard Feynman, 1918-1988, theoretical physicist & Nobel laureate