Steven L. Goldman has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 9 ratings. The most-rated is Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It.
Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It
Summary
Choose one: (A) Science gives us objective knowledge of an independently existing reality, or (B) Scientific knowledge is always provisional and tells us nothing that is universal, necessary, or certain about the world. Made your choice? Welcome to the science wars. This long-running battle over the status of scientific knowledge began in ancient Greece, raged furiously among scientists, social scientists, and humanists during the 1990s, and has reemerged in today's conflict between science and religion over issues like evolution. This series of 24 lectures explores the history of competing conceptions of scientific knowledge and their implications for science and society, beginning with the onset of the Scientific Revolution in the 1600s up until today. It will provide you with an understanding of how science works that is as important as ever. Though it may seem that the accelerating pace of discoveries, inventions, and unexpected insights into nature over the centuries should secure foundations of scientific inquiry, that is far from true, as every day's headlines demonstrate. By the end of these lectures, you will understand what science is, and you will be enlightened about a fascinating problem you might not even have known existed. "There have been a raft of popular books about what scientists know," says Professor Goldman, "but to the best of my knowledge, there is not a single one of these popular books that focuses centrally on the question of how scientists know what they know." These lectures are an answer to that critical need. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses
Great Scientific Ideas That Changed the World
Summary
What is the greatest scientific idea of all? Because science has so dramatically altered how we live and how we think about ourselves, the answer may well be the very idea of science itself, because - just like science's most important achievements - it, too, needed to be thought about, perfected, and invented. This 36-lecture series explores the ideas that have helped form the foundation of modern life - when society has been willing to pursue them. The lectures interpret the term "scientific idea" broadly, to include the ideas that made science possible at all, as well as the ideas that make it so immensely powerful. The result will be new insights into how science shapes society, as well as the way in which society, in turn, affects the directions taken by science. You'll learn that there is no sharp distinction between ideas that are classified as scientific and those that are classified as philosophical or mathematical, or even between scientific ideas and political, religious, or aesthetic ideas. And how for 200 years, it has been the interaction of science and technology with society that has been the primary driver of social and cultural change, first in the West, then globally, and at an accelerating rate, affecting social and personal values and relationships; social, political, and economic institutions; and cultural values and activities in ways beyond anything our great-grandparents (or sometimes even parents) would recognize. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2007 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2007 The Great Courses
Science in the Twentieth Century: A Social-Intellectual Survey
Summary
As the 19th century drew to a close, the age-old quest to understand the physical world appeared to be complete, except for a few minor details. In fact, Albert Michelson, the first American to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences, noted that, "It seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established." And he was far from alone among his peers. Scientists in 1900 had no inkling of the other mind-boggling developments that lay in wait: plate tectonics, genetic engineering, space probes, nanotechnology, big bang theory, electronic computers, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, and many other astounding products of the human mind. Indeed, by the end of the 20th century, nearly every 19th-century theory of natural and social phenomena would be overthrown or superseded. This dynamic transformation has not been a matter of revolution, but of evolution, as you'll learn in this fascinating 36-lecture exploration of scientific growth filled with ideas, anecdotes, and insights. You'll see how 20th-century scientists have built on crucial 19th-century concepts such as energy, natural selection, atoms, fields, and waves to assemble a body of knowledge to stun even the most farsighted scientific thinkers of that not-too-distant past. You'll come away with a new appreciation of how scientific knowledge expands, as Professor Goldman addresses a tremendous range of scientific and technological topics, including science and society, physics, mathematics, psychology, cosmology, telecommunications, meteorology, and archaeology.
©2004 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2004 The Great Courses