Stephen Gould

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Pennsylvania

Essays on Natural History

A collection of essays by scientist Stephen Jay Gould about how humans learned to study and understand nature.

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

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Reader's Digest Editors

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Earth's Mysterious Places

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Ghosts and Hauntings

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Man and Beast

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Secrets of the Natural World

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John E. Costa

Victor R. Baker

Building with the Earth

Surficial Geology

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Charles H. Shultz

Huge Hardcover (6 to 8 lbs)

The Geology of Pennsylvania

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Alan Irwin

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology

Misunderstanding Science?

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Brian Regal

A Critical Encyclopedia

More than just a collection of factual entries, this rich resource explores the difference between scientific and pseudoscientific pursuits in a way that spurs readers to ask questions and formulate answers. What makes science science? How do we tell which assertions, beliefs, and methods are scientifically sound, and which are not? Brian Regal's authoritative, entertaining new reference, Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia gets at the heart of these questions by helping readers understand how the scientific method works, how to critically analyze all kinds of "evidence," and how to sort through long-running myths and current pseudoscience controversies. Ranging from the dawn of history to the present and across world cultures, Pseudoscience uses a field of endless fascination as a means of driving home the importance of solid scientific reasoning. The encyclopedia spans the full spectrum of scientific and nonscientific pursuits, from chemistry, biology, psychology, and medicine to eugenics, religion, cryptozoology, the occult, and paranormal activities. Specific entries focus on general concepts of science, the lives of individuals, and claims of abilities. Throughout, these entries go beyond simply stating facts by constantly engaging readers in a discussion about the very nature of true scientific discovery.

Pseudoscience

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Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.

Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making

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Robert Klee

Readings in the Philosophy of Science

An anthology of contemporary and classical readings in the philosophy of science aimed at undergraduates in philosophy and science. Focuses on the main issues in philosophy of science: the structure of theories, models of scientific explanation, reductionism, the objectivity of science, and the proper interpretation of mature scientific theories.

Scientific Inquiry

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Reflections in Natural History

Eight Little Piggies

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Stephen Jay Gould

Contains thirty of the author's essays from monthly columns in Natural History Magazine.

The Flamingo's Smile

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Essays about Books and ideas

An Urchin in the Storm

The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin

Few would question the truism that humankind is the crowning achievement of evolution; that the defining thrust of life's history yields progress over time from the primitive and simple to the more advanced and complex; that the disappearance of .400 hitting in baseball is a fact to be bemoaned; or that identifying an existing trend can be helpful in making important life decisions. Few, that is, except Stephen Jay Gould who, in his new book Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, proves that all of these intuitive truths are, in fact, wrong. "All of these mistaken beliefs arise out of the same analytical flaw in our reasoning, our Platonic tendency to reduce a broad spectrum to a single, pinpointed essence," says Gould. "This way of thinking allows us to confirm our most ingrained biases that humans are the supreme being on this planet; that all things are inherently driven to become more complex; and that almost any subject can be expressed and understood in terms of an average." In Full House, Gould shows why a more accurate way of understanding our world (and the history of life) is to look at a given subject within its own context, to see it as a part of a spectrum of variation rather than as an isolated "thing" and then to reconceptualize trends as expansion or contraction of this "full house" of variation, and not as the progress or degeneration of an average value, or single thing. When approached in such a way, the disappearance of .400 hitting becomes a cause for celebration, signaling not a decline in greatness but instead an improvement in the overall level of play in baseball; trends become subject to suspicion, and too often, only a tool of those seeking to advance a particular agenda; and the "Age of Man" (a claim rooted in hubris, not in fact) more accurately becomes the "Age of Bacteria." "The traditional mode of thinking has led us to draw many conclusions that don't make satisfying sense," says Gould. "It tells us that .400 hitting has disappeared because batters have gotten worse, but how can that be true when record performances have improved in almost any athletic activity?" In a personal eureka!, Gould realized that we were looking at the picture backward, and that a simple conceptual inversion would resolve a number of the paradoxes of the conventional view. While Full House deftly reveals the shortcomings of the popular reasoning we apply to everyday life situations, Gould also explores his beloved realm of natural history as well. Whether debunking the myth of the successful evolution of the horse (he grants that the story still deserves distinction, but as the icon of evolutionary failure); presenting evidence that the vaunted "progress of life" is really random motion away from simple beginnings, not directed impetus toward complexity; or relegating the kingdoms of Animalai and Plantae to their proper positions on the genealogical chart for all of life (as mere twigs on one of the three bushes), Full House asks nothing less than that we reconceptualize our view of life in a fundamental way. From the Hardcover edition.

Full House

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Further Reflections in Natural History

Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

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Gino Pugnetti

Full-color photographs of aquatic plants, freshwater and marine fishes and invertebrates, amphibians, and reptiles and descriptions of their characteristics and environmental needs are prefaced by information on aquarium management

Simon and Schuster's Guide to Dogs

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Martha Davis

Navigating Scientific Communication in Today's World

Scientific Papers and Presentations

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Daniel C. Taylor

The Ecology of a Mystery

"Equipped with an abundant knowledge of the Himalaya, Taylor tells a story that is captivating and full of surprises. He looks back at his exploration of the 2,000-mile wide Himalaya and talks about bioresilience as a parallel dynamic to biodiversity, this widening the scope of our understanding of ecology."--Page 2 of cover.

Yeti

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Thom Powell

A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon

Bigfoots ARE The Locals. They live here. They were here before we humans showed up on the continent and they will likely outlast us. This is a bigfoot book yet it probes much deeper than a simple treatment of the hackneyed question of Does Bigfoot Exist? This book delves into such questions as why bigfoots exist, why they behave as they do, and why they have not yet been, and may never be dragged into the spotlight of science and the media. And don't look to science for answers, because science is currently unequipped to shed any light on this profound anthropological mystery. The author's personal experiences in investigation and experimentation of the bigfoot hypothesis are chronicled. Frightening and humorous personal experiences are detailed in the manner of the genre we know of as the bigfoot book. We have a lot to learn about The Locals and there is even more we could learn from The Locals.

The Locals

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Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

Phantoms and the National Imagination

From essays about the Salem witch trials to literary uses of ghosts by Twain, Wharton, and Bierce to the cinematic blockbuster The Sixth Sense, this book is the first to survey the importance of ghosts and hauntings in American culture across time. From the Puritans' conviction that a thousand preternatural beings appear every day before our eyes, to today's resurgence of spirits in fiction and film, the culture of the United States has been obsessed with ghosts. In each generation, these phantoms in popular culture reflect human anxieties about religion, science, politics, and social issues. Spectral America asserts that ghosts, whether in oral tradition, literature, or such modern forms as cinema have always been constructions embedded in specific historical contexts and invoked for explicit purposes, often political in nature. The essays address the role of "spectral evidence" during the Salem witch trials, the Puritan belief in good spirits, the convergence of American Spiritualism and technological development in the nineteenth century, the use of the supernatural as a tool of political critique in twentieth-century magic realism, and the "ghosting" of persons living with AIDS. They also discuss ghostly themes in the work of Ambrose Bierce, Edith Wharton, Gloria Naylor, and Stephen King.

Spectral America

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Thomas Gilovich

The fallibility of human reason in everyday life

Thomas Gilovich offers a wise and readable guide to the fallacy of the obvious in everyday life. When can we trust what we believe—that "teams and players have winning streaks," that "flattery works," or that "the more people who agree, the more likely they are to be right"—and when are such beliefs suspect? Thomas Gilovich offers a guide to the fallacy of the obvious in everyday life. Illustrating his points with examples, and supporting them with the latest research findings, he documents the cognitive, social, and motivational processes that distort our thoughts, beliefs, judgments and decisions. In a rapidly changing world, the biases and stereotypes that help us process an overload of complex information inevitably distort what we would like to believe is reality. Awareness of our propensity to make these systematic errors, Gilovich argues, is the first step to more effective analysis and action.

How We Know What Isn't So

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Hiroko Yoda

Matt Alt

The Japanese Monster Survival Guide

Yokai Attack! is a nightmare-inducing one-stop guide to Japan's traditional monsters and creepy-crawlies. Yokai are ethereal sorts of beings, like ghosts, nearly always encountered at night; everyone has their own take on how they might look in real life and what sorts of specific characteristics and abilities they might have. This book is the result of long hours spent poring over data and descriptions from a variety of sources, including microfilms of eighteenth-century illustrations from the National Diet Library in Tokyo, in order to bring you detailed information on almost 50 of these amazing creatures for the first time in English. Illustrations, created by the talented Tatsuya Morino, detail the potential appearance of each yokai. Alongside each illustration is a series of "data points," with each yokai's significant features at a glance—especially handy for any potential close encounters. Yokai Attack! will surely convince you that Japan's tradition of fascinating monsters is a long one—yet far from being history. Together with Yurei Attack! and Ninja Attack!, Yokai Attack! is the last guidebook to Japan you'll ever need.

Yokai Attack!

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The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide

Yurei Attack! is a nightmare-inducing one-stop guide to Japan's traditional ghosts and spirits.

Surviving encounters with angry ghosts and sexy specters. Haunted places. Dangerous games and how to play them. And more importantly, a guided tour of what awaits in the world of the dead.

Yurei is the Japanese word for "ghost." It's as simple as that. They are the souls of dead people, unable--or unwilling--to shuffle off this mortal coil. Yurei are many things, but "friendly" isn't the first word that comes to mind. Not every yurei is dangerous, but they are all driven by emotions so uncontrollably powerful that they have taken on a life of their own: rage, sadness, devotion, a desire for revenge, or even the firm belief that they are still alive.

This book, the third in the authors' bestselling Attack! series, after Yokai Attack! and Ninja Attack! gives detailed information on 39 of the creepiest yurei stalking Japan, along with detailed histories and defensive tactics should you have the misfortune to encounter one.

Japanese ghosts include:
 * Oiwa, The Horror of Yotsuya
 * Otsuyu, The Tale of the Peony Lantern
 * The Lady Rokujo, The Tale of Genji
 * Isora, Tales of Moonlight and Rain
 * Orui, The Depths of Kasane


Book 3 of 3 in the Yokai Attack! series. Others include Ninja Attack! and Yokai Attack!.

Yurei Attack!

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Sharon’s Strange Times Books

Browse by categories

Stephen Gould

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

Reader's Digest Editors

Earth's Mysterious Places

Reader's Digest Editors

Ghosts and Hauntings

Reader's Digest Editors

Man and Beast

Reader's Digest Editors

Secrets of the Natural World

John E. Costa; Victor R. Baker

Surficial Geology

Charles H. Shultz

The Geology of Pennsylvania

Alan Irwin

Misunderstanding Science?

Brian Regal

Pseudoscience

Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee

Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making

Robert Klee

Scientific Inquiry

Stephen Gould

Eight Little Piggies

Stephen Jay Gould

The Flamingo's Smile

Stephen Jay Gould

An Urchin in the Storm

Stephen Jay Gould

Full House

Stephen Gould

Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

Gino Pugnetti

Simon and Schuster's Guide to Dogs

Martha Davis

Scientific Papers and Presentations

Daniel C. Taylor

Yeti

Thom Powell

The Locals

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

Spectral America

Thomas Gilovich

How We Know What Isn't So

Hiroko Yoda; Matt Alt

Yokai Attack!

Hiroko Yoda; Matt Alt

Yurei Attack!

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