There’s Something for Everybody in Good Science

Good Science explores the impact of science on the making of the modern world. In the process of seeking truth, scientists–from Galileo to Stephen J. Hawking–have often made discoveries that have revolutionized reality.
Good Science examines the way that science has transformed fantasies–such as Jules Verne’s Nautilus and JFK’s lunar ambitions–into reality. Although scientific discovery is often imperfect and unpredictable, nevertheless, Good Science argues that the path of science represents the surest route to the brightest possible future.

Good Science offers an accessible introduction to many of the most important personalities and discoveries in the history of science
Good Science avoids jargon and uses examples that should be familiar to most undergraduates
Good Science emphasizes the important contributions that scientists have made in building the modern world–and the ongoing role that scientists will have in creating a very different world of tomorrow

Good Science sifts through the ashes of the Science Wars and reasserts the importance of truth-seeking as a central scientific endeavor
Though postmodernism was influential in the 1990s, postmodernism met its Waterloo in the work of Alan Sokal. Good Science reviews the key debates that threatened to destroy science during the darkest hours of the science wars and advances a new definition of truth that avoids the extremes of both postmodernism and scientism

Good Science argues that there is no trouble-free path into the future. Indeed, crisis is endemic to the human condition. The demise of great civilizations is a reminder that humans have often succumbed to the overwhelming problems that Homo sapiens has a penchant for creating. Nevertheless, those very same problems also represent the path to progress. Although science has created more than a few problems, science has also proven to be the most effective problem-solving enterprise that humans have ever invented.
Good Science concludes that the future is problematic. Nevertheless, science has demonstrated again and again that even the most difficult problems can be solved. Indeed, the more difficult the problem (e.g., landing on the moon, artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, etc.), the greater the benefits of finding a solution. Although I agree that there will always be intellectual challenges that exceed the existing capacity of human intellectual inquiry, those unknowns merely represent a new threshold of problems that humans must endeavor to resolve by expanding the frontiers of science.