What Makes Science A Science?

This is an alphabetical version.  For a subjective ranked version see: Ranked: What Makes Science A Science?


Science, a never ending quest of trial after trial.  This is a list of books that describe how do go about doing and thinking about science.


  • The Arch of Knowledge: An Introductory Study of the History of the Philosophy and Methodology of Science by David Oldroyd
  • Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal
  • The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch
  • [Upcoming] The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll
  • Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
  • The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society by Debra Soh
  • Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math by Joseph Mazur
  • The Evolution of Physics: From Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta by Albert Einstein, Leopold Infeld
  • If Ignorance Is Bliss, We Should All Be Ecstatic by Fred Leavitt
  • In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality by John Gribbin
  • The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper
  • The Meaning of Human Existence by Edward O. Wilson
  • Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker
  • Science Fictions: The Epidemic of Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science by Stuart Ritchie
  • Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith
  • Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society by Jim Manzi
  • Understanding Knowledge by Michael Huemer


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