Important science books to go along with a 'humanities' list of "must read" books

In no particular order.  Have fun.

*Gregory Bateson, "Mind and Nature"
What processes does a mechanical system need to have to act like a mind? to evolve? are they the same?  concrete vocabulary to ask and answer.


*Alberts et. el. "Molecular Biology of the Cell"
You are a confederation of a TRILLION living amoeba, each amoeba is a dance of more nanotransformer robots than there are bricks in all of NYC


*Charles A. Sorrel and George F. Sandstrom, "Minerals of the World"
How does the chemistry of merely 2 dozen elements create the 1000s of wildly different minerals?  this is one book i learned chemistry from


*John Janovy, "Yellowlegs"
One biologist's journey to follow and enter the life of of a single migrating bird, or maybe it's a journey into his own mind as a biologist



*David Rindos, "Symbiosis and instability in Agriculture"
We were nomadic hunter gatherers for 100,000s of years and then in a flash, agriculture took us by surprise and spread like wildfire, how?

How did agriculture take over the human world so quickly? because it is unstable, always collapses, we disperse, and start it again

(this was a paper in a journal, or made into a book.  Never saw the book)


*Charles Darwin, "The Origin Of Species", 1st edition.
Darwin spent a life of exploring every nook and cranny of the living world and asked penetrating questions we are still trying to answer today


*Vernon Amadjian and Surindar Paracer?, "Symbiosis: An Introduction to Biological Associations"

Detailed examples of intimate connections between critters from deadly parasitic to mutually beneficial symbioses. do organisms have boundaries?

all the different stories of creatures living inside each other

worms that travel between snail and raccoon, fungi that


*Lynn Margulis and Karlene Schwartz, "Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth"

The 100 groups of critters on Earth that are more different from each other than plants are from animals, by lifecycle and molecular mechanics


*E. C. Pielou, "After the Ice Age: the return of life to glaciated north america"
Lush details of how our landscape and ecosystem grew back together as the Glaciers retreated over 10,000 years. Stability is not the norm



*Walter Tschinkel: "The Fire Ants"
30 years of experiments and measurements to tease apart and put back together the life stories of fire ant colonies. Step into the life of an alien species! We are no match for them!  


*Borror and White, "Peterson's Field Guide to Insects",
There may be a dozen kinds of mammals lurking 'round your back yard, but you can find at least 500 kinds of insects living there.


*Jack Harlan, "Crops and Man"
The complex ecology and evolution of weeds, humans and crops. how it all got started in multiple places in multiple ways.



*Holling Clancy Holling, "Pagoo"
Follow the story of a young hermit crab growing up in the sea. jam packed with lush illustrations of all kinds of sea critters and biology


*John C. Kricher and Gordon Morrison, "Field Guide to Eastern Forests",
Go out and see how your landscape is knit together by the myriad creatures, get to know some of them.  great details of ecological processes


*"Golden Guide to Pond Life",
Stick it in your back pocket and get to know what's happening at a pond near you.  from microscopic anamalcules to turtles and raccoons



*Donald Kroodsma, "The Singing Life of Birds"
Only 50 years ago we start LISTENING to birds.  they are singing elaborate creative patterns with rules.  we don't yet know what they are saying


*L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani, "Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation"
Wolves are the most geographically and ecologically widespread mammals besides us.  they are also more civilized. we've hated them throughout history



*William Morton Wheeler, "The Fungus Growing Ants of North America"
How one ant sized mother eventually raises up a city of a million children the size of your living room. in south america, they are in charge.



*Paul Colinvaux, "Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare",
2 dozen tales of how our world is knit together at the biological and chemical scale



*Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell",
These little biology essays got me started in highschool on lifelong expeditions of the biological world. They introduced me to the works of Harold J. Morowitz and Lynn Margulis.


Steven M. Stanley, "Earth System History"
The whole earth is similar to a self regulating organism with feedback loops between rock atmosphere and life.  It has an eventful history.  Learn how many processes and events have taken place.


*Frank Shu, "The Physical Universe: an Introduction to Astronomy"

Read about, do the physics of the grand drama between gravity and the 2nd law of thermodynamics which creates all the structures of our universe

Calculate how much energy the pulsar looses to glow of the crab nebula, then how far back in time it began in an explosion. yes one was recorded there 1000 years ago!


or a simpler text like:
Michael A. Seeds, "Horizons: Exploring the Universe"

or

James Binney "Astrophysics: a very short introduction"


*John Janovy, "On Becoming a Biologist"
Biology is a unique science half way between chemistry and geology, @ the human scale, ready to teach us if we listen to the critters.


*Gerald Holton and Stephen Brush, "Introduction to the Concepts and Theories in Phyiscs"

Why trust science?  each theory takes a 100 years of exacting observation, brutally honest constructive criticism, back and forth before being woven into a stable edifice

Learn how hard, how long, with what back and forth confusion to wrest basic facts of science: heat is the motion of atoms that make up matter


Jim Baggott, "Perfect Symmetry: The Accidental Discovery of Buckmisterfullerene"

Chemists dreamed about soccer ball shaped carbon compounds but Astronomers making actual observations found them.  How laboratory practices and personal interactions work in science.


*Philip Davis and Reuben Hersh, "The Mathematical Experience"
History and exercizes of the mathematician's art. details. what IS mathematics? whimsical creation of the human mind or bedrock of reality?


*Guy Alexander, "Silica and Me"
Thin. easy read. how does a scientist make sense of puzzling experiments? beautiful details. learn some chemistry. geology is silica.



*Duncan C. Blanchard, "From Raindrops to Volcanoes"
A delightful romp through observation and experiment.  how to collect microscopic water drops in sea spray? have a baby spider build you a net...

one scientists experimental journey to understand rain. how to collect microscopic water drops in sea spray? have a baby spider build you a net...


*Richard Feynman, "The Meaning of it All",
*Richard Feynman, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out",

Science as a way of life of exploration, being able to live without certainty, striving for brutal honesty, is it valuble for human society?


*Richard feynman: six easy pieces
Master physicist introduces you to his craft.  what is matter, energy? gravity?  one experiment that describes the alien quantum world.




*Wilson: 4 colors suffice: how the map problem was solved
Math is weird: 5 color theorem takes only 9 pages to go over 5 cases, you can learn it! but 4 color theorem takes a computer to go over 1400 cases!



*rebecca stott: darwin and the barnacle
Get inside the very human world of Charles Darwin as he spends 20 years to hone his craft as a naturalist before daring to explain his world shattering theory of Evolution.



*Almost Any Freshman Biology Textbook,

*Garrett Hardin, "Biology: Its Principles and Implications" 2nd edition


I can't remember if any of Ilya Prigogne's books are well written or accessible enough to be on this list or whether I pieced together an understanding of his ideas from him and Morowitz.

I can't remember in which book I learned of Morowitz's characterization of life as a cyclic phenomenon running on energy flow.  Or his cycling theorem that states that energy flowing through a finite system induces chemical cycles.