Introducing Science

Ziauddin Sardar
Borin Van Loon

UK £9.99,Canada $16.99,USA $11.95,
UK Publication May 1998
ISBN 9781840463583
Paperback

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Our world is inconceivable without science. Its discoveries benefit us - antibiotics, computers, space travel, gene-mapping - and reveal the secrets of human evolution, the cosmos and our place in it. Science also threatens us with the risks of nuclear holocaust, eugenics and the pollution of our ecosystem. How do we reconcile the advantages of science with its perils? What do scientists actually do? Is science 'value-free'? How has science evolved through history? Where is science leading us?

Introducing Science explores these troubling questions. It reveals how science itself and our approach to studying science have changed radically over the last few decades. The development of Science Studies is traced from the origins in the ideas of Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Paul Feyerabend and others. Sociological, feminist and postcolonial criticisms have transformed our views on science. We now begin to see that uncertainty and ignorance tend to increase with changes in the production of knowledge. We have arrived at the threshold of post-normal science.

Introducing Science is a clear and incisively illustrated anatomy of science. It is essential reading for students, ordinary citizens and scientists themselves.

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Ziauddin Sardar is a prominent journalist and author. Prolific and polymathic, he is a regular contributor to the New Statesman and The Observer. He presented The Battle for Islam on BBC Two in September 2005. His most recent books are Desperately Seeking Paradise and Balti Britain (Granta).

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Borin Van Loon has worked on numerous Introducing titles. He is a freelance illustrator, surrealist painter and collagist who produces the comic strip 'The Severed Head' for The Chap magazine.

See more books by: Borin Van Loon