What Is This Thing Called Science?

By Alan F. Chalmers,

Book cover of What Is This Thing Called Science?

Book description

Co-published with the University of Queensland Press. HPC holds rights in North America and U. S. Dependencies.

Since its first publication in 1976, Alan Chalmers's highly regarded and widely read work--translated into eighteen languages--has become a classic introduction to the scientific method, known for its accessibility to beginners and its…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked What Is This Thing Called Science? as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Bookshelves groan under the weight of highly skilled science communicators, and through them those of us with no specialist knowledge can learn about evolution, quantum mechanics, neuroscience et al, and then bore people to death with our newfound knowledge. There is, however, a world of difference between the things science discovers and the stories we tell about these discoveries. I love this book because it makes the reader do the hard yards, thinking not just about the breathless new discoveries, but also the very nature of this knowledge, and hence its limits.

From Bernard's list on get your head around consciousness.

Want books like What Is This Thing Called Science??

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like What Is This Thing Called Science?.

Browse books like What Is This Thing Called Science?

Book cover of Freedom Evolves
Book cover of The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
Book cover of The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,388

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in philosophy, quantum physics, and the scientific method?

Philosophy 1,784 books
Quantum Physics 104 books