The best Scientific Research books: Reddit reviews

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The book "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan is a less aggressive introduction to the type of thinking that leads to atheism.

I cannot recommend Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark enough. Some parts of it may be a bit dated, but the chapter entitled "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" is timeless and it may be exactly what you're looking for.

I'm a humble practitioner of an alternative form of witchcraft. One of the highest archmaesters in my field wrote a treatise on miracles, reading the future, etc which is a good read.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W0I00Q

Using this type of witchcraft, you may divine the motions of the planets in the sky, even millions of years hence. It also answers important questions, like "Is it a good idea to go driving on a snowy day".

Take your time and don't feel like you have to rush this. No one can tell you what you should believe, only you can decide what's right for you.

As for book recommendations I always recommend Demon-Haunted World as a good place to begin. It serves as a kind of primer for learning to distinguish what's true from what we only think to be true.

As a scientist myself, I can tell you that it is difficult but not impossible to reach a scientific consensus.

Since it seems like you want practice good skepticism, I have a good book and podcast recommendation for you.

Seconded. This is a fun little book!

u/Sarmancat, you may also want to check out the Granddaddy of them all, The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. If you haven't read Demon-Haunted World, I would highly, highly recommend it. It's the book I recommend more than any other book, and it's right up your alley.

You can buy direct from the publisher: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034919.do

But it's a bit cheaper on Amazon

Would like to know about your paper. I am a neuro optometrist who treats patients with this condition and also lectures to other doctors about it. While it has a number of names, we now like to call it unilateral spatial inattention (USI) as it's not purposeful neglect. It can also present in systems other than visual processing. Check out Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran. He's been researching this for at least 30 years.

I’m not just making this up to make you feel bad. What I’m talking about, the personal gratification, the superiority complex, the lack of education in science and history...all of it...it’s studied psychology. It’s a type of thing a human brain typically does under certain specific conditions.

I don’t know how old you are, hopefully young enough to grow up. If you’re older you’re fucked, it’s probably too late. The mindset you have is a liability for you in life. You need to learn how to learn. You need to be better at detecting bullshit. It takes effort but it’s worthwhile for a million reasons, and being smarter and more analytical and intellectually curious never hurt anyone.

There’s a great book by Carl Sagan called The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. He talks about exactly this stuff and I promise if you start reading you won’t want to put it down, it’s good. I’m sure there is an audiobook version too.

You can do better.

Agree about Carl Sagan. This book is especially designed to help people develop a healthy, knowledgeable skepticism. It's also everywhere in PDF form as well, I believe.

You may wish to consider some science podcasts too. Bill Nye has a podcast, as does Neil Degrasse Tyson. Those are good for people less knowledgeable about science. Plus you can listen on the go.

If you’re serious about this and want to do real research outside of jw approved literature, give The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan a read.

If you’re too scared to read it (I’m being serious, I was once like you), here’s the Wikipidea article that explains it a bit.

Your goal is not to win an argument. Your goal is to convey feedback.

Be professional. You're dealing with a coworker. Doesn't matter what team they are from. You're all working on the same software, and should want to get along to achieve the same goals. Behave as a team, don't put blame on others, don't elevate your opinion or position.

Discuss the bug, not the developer. But before you do, test it to the extreme. Reproduce it a few times, memorize the steps, know the workarounds, grab logs, screenshots. You need evidence. Compare that evidence with any available documentation. Use the evidence and documentation in the discussion. When lacking documentation, try to argue for consistency, compare to a working product, etc.

Learn how to deal with confirmation bias and other logical fallacies. There's plenty of texts on the topic online. I strongly recommend The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe in book form and their podcast.

Use principle of charity. Interpret what the developer with the most benevolence. Assume they are rational and their arguments are sound. This way you might just see something you couldn't before like a new interpretation of the test results, or a new reason for the developers opposing stance.

Religion is a part of the "supernatural". I put that in quotes because there is no evidence for the supernatural, whether we're speaking of gods, witchcraft, spirits, ghosts, or otherwise.

You are right in that they seem to go hand in hand. Why? Because both concepts rely on accepting things without evidence. There are Christians here in the West that are terrified of witchcraft, but they believe in it because they accept supernatural claims in the first place. It is true that belief in witchcraft here isn't as prevalent as in Africa, but those that believe in it share the same types of thought processes as those that live in Africa. Likewise, Christians here are leaving their churches because they are starting to fall for the newest rage, "Q" conspiracy theories. Why? Again because they share the same mindset. None of them stress critical thinking, standards of evidence, or media literacy. They accept ideas on faith, on the word of others, and readily give their belief to such things.

One thing many former Christians here struggle with after they walk away from Christianity is that they still have a fear of hell for some time, even as they do not believe any longer in God. When you are surrounded by many people that believe and tell you something is true, it becomes harder to challenge and harder to break out of such a belief. Such fears do fade with time, however. Some even seek therapy or counseling for help with it. It does take courage, especially when your entire peer group believes in such things.

I hope you find your way out of things, and I hope you find peace. One book I always recommend for critical thinking is by Carl Sagan.

I know my advice is not from an especially African point of view, nevertheless I wish you peace.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

It saddens me that there are adults in this world that believe in demons.

God I loved The Hot Zone. As a microbiologist I know that it’s sensationalised and personalises the virus to a substantial extent, but that all works for the narrative. Highly recommend this book.

I studied Neuropsychology in college and there is a great book I'd recommend about this very topic. It's one of those books that is a classic in the field; some would say its the unofficial sequel to The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks (I've never read it but heard great things). The book I recommend is Phantoms of the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran. It's a little dated as far as psychological trends go, but since Neuroscience changes more slowly, a lot of the topics are still relevant.

As for your exact question, the final chapter (Chapter 12: 'Do Martians See Red?') should satisfy your question/appetite. It's one of those that still impacts me today and how I view and question my world around me.

So the two most applicable books in my mind are Python Data Science Handbook and Python for Data Analysis. They are both good for the quirks of handling data in pandas and numpy or using machine learning (although not deep learning) through SKLearn. I’ll like the Amazon pages, but I’m sure you can find them elsewhere.

https://www.amazon.com/Python-Data-Science-Handbook-Essential-dp-1491912057/dp/1491912057

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491957662

> How do I separate the real from the fake these days?

You need to develop your epistemic toolbox. Read some on skepticism, and critical thinking.

Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a good place to start.

Also, here is a good website to get you going: 7 Ways to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills.

Like we have failed half the population, thanks to the rise of anti intellectualism on the right in the religious nationalism movement they are so dumb and delusional at this point they won't even be be getting vaccinated for Covid. Carl Sagan predicted this in his 1995 book "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"

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“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

you are in luck - here is the perfect book for you: The Skeptics‘ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake

If you are seriously interested in this subject (and are not trolling), I highly suggest reading this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle/dp/0345409469

If anything, the historical background on witches and UFOs is highly interesting. If you finish this book, you won't regret it...

Gibt sicher wissenschaftlichere Textbücher wenn sie sich wirklich mit Statistik und Studiendesign auseinandersetzen will, aber es hört sich so an, als ob du sie erstmal auf eine wissenschaftliche Denkweise leiten willst.

Da empfehle ich The Demon-Haunted World von Carl Sagan. In Deutscher Übersetzung habe ich leider nur alte Versionen gefunden, "Der Drache in meiner Garage. Oder die Kunst der Wissenschaft, Unsinn zu entlarven".

Kannst dir aber auch selber Bücher raussuchen die deiner Meinung nach ihrer Situation besser helfen. Du suchst nämlich nach "Scientific Literacy" wie es auf English heißt, aber leider keine gute Deutsche Übersetzung hat.

> Should I read the bible before I start questioning?

Before you start questioning Christianity in general? No. You don't need to read the Bible to ask questions about it or the things people purport to teach about it.

I also wouldn't force yourself through a long, boring, depressing book if your already in a depressive state. IMO your time is better spent doing something you enjoy. If you feel the need, come back to the Bible when you're in a better place emotionally.

If you're intent on arguing / discussing things with people in the church then reading the Bible is probably worth your time. Otherwise they're my start citing scripture and talking about people or stories you've never heard of and aren't prepared to discuss.

> most of the time it's just flat out boring at best

Holy crap is it ever, especially in the beginning and especially KJV. The material is already exhausting to read and the wording of KJV makes it that much harder.

If you want a book that can help you figure out what you believe and why you believe it, I recommend a classic: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Sagan doesn't tell you what to believe, instead he makes the best case a person can for approaching all things with skepticism and making sure that what you do believe is founded on actual evidence. He explains why those things are important does an fantastic job debunking a lot of pseudoscience along the way.

The whole preface and first chapter are available on Amazon.

>The Holy Bible

"We are enjoined in Micah to do justly and love mercy; in Exodus we are forbidden to commit murder; in Leviticus we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves; in the Gospels we are urged to love our enemies.

Yet think of the rivers of blood spilled by fervent followers of the books in which these well-meaning exhortations are embedded.

In Joshua and in the second half of Numbers is celebrated the mass murder of men, women, children, down to the domestic animals in city after city across the whole land of Canaan. Jericho is obliterated in a ‘kherem’, a ‘holy war’.

The only justification offered for this slaughter is the mass murderers’ claim that, in exchange for circumcising their sons and adopting a particular set of rituals, their ancestors were long before promised that this land was their land.

Not a hint of self-reproach, not a muttering of patriarchal or divine disquiet at these campaigns of extermination can be dug out of holy scripture.

Instead, Joshua ‘destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded’ (Joshua, x, 40). And these events are not incidental, but central to the main narrative thrust of the Old Testament.

Similar stories of mass murder (and in the case of the Amalekites, genocide) can be found in the book of Saul, Esther, and elsewhere in the Bible, with hardly a pang of moral doubt."

—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

I'm highly recommending this book for you OP https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-s/dp/0061452068

"We are enjoined in Micah to do justly and love mercy; in Exodus we are forbidden to commit murder; in Leviticus we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves; in the Gospels we are urged to love our enemies.

Yet think of the rivers of blood spilled by fervent followers of the books in which these well-meaning exhortations are embedded.

In Joshua and in the second half of Numbers is celebrated the mass murder of men, women, children, down to the domestic animals in city after city across the whole land of Canaan.

Jericho is obliterated in a ‘kherem’, a ‘holy war’.

The only justification offered for this slaughter is the mass murderers’ claim that, in exchange for circumcising their sons and adopting a particular set of rituals, their ancestors were long before promised that this land was their land.

Not a hint of self-reproach, not a muttering of patriarchal or divine disquiet at these campaigns of extermination can be dug out of holy scripture. Instead, Joshua ‘destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded’ (Joshua, x, 40).

And these events are not incidental, but central to the main narrative thrust of the Old Testament. Similar stories of mass murder (and in the case of the Amalekites, genocide) can be found in the book of Saul, Esther, and elsewhere in the Bible, with hardly a pang of moral doubt."

—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Check out any books/lectures by V.S. Ramachandran

Would just like to add that if you’re going down the data science pathway it’s pretty competitive for entry level jobs.

I’ve a Bachelors in physics, and a personal project in python on my GitHub and it took me 8 months to get a job in data science. From what I’ve seen, a lot of companys hire placement students and keep them on once they’ve finished their degree. I found it hard to get hired with no professional experience regardless of my grades or project.

So while it’s not impossible, your GitHub will have to be very impressive for a company to take a chance on you, and one of the issues I found was it’s hard to make a project that will be relevant to what youd be doing in the job without a real understanding of what issues data scientists usually solve.

Also, most of the people that will read your cv will work in HR, won’t be able to read code, and will disregard your cv because it has no degree and no professional experience.

If this hasn’t discouraged you, I’d recommend this book. Free pdf is available online somewhere

https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469

I can’t recommend this book enough. If you like to read and have a thirst for what is true and exciting about our world I would love if you’d consider reading it.

All young people should read Carl Sagan's A Demon-Haunted World and apply those principles to your own thoughts and beliefs (old people too).