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The following review was posted on the (old) message board:
For anyone who's interested in a good book about how science works and doesn't work, check out The Unnatural Nature of Science by British embryologist Lewis Wolpert. It's an easy read, but not simplistic; and short (<200 pages). He doesn't stray much into debunking territory, so believers of this or that shouldn't be offended.
Basically, Wolpert's thesis is that science is not common sense. Common sense is misleading--it tells you that a seashell on the top of a mountain is proof of a global flood. Technology is not science. Artistic creativity is not the same as scientific creativity (for me, that was the best chapter). Competition and cooperation have unique roles in science. Paradigms and falsifiabity do not adequately define science. Religion is not science (obviously). It is not for scientists to make moral and ethical decisions on their own--that is the public's responsibility as a whole.
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