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 Reviews The Philosopher's ApprenticeNovember 2008
James Morrow's previous novel, The Last Witchfinder, was a massively ambitious, and widely praised, picaresque dramatisation of the struggle between science and superstition in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be PredictedNovember 2008
The frighteningly well-qualified Ian Ayres – a professor at Yale University, both in the Law School and in the School of Management – is boundlessly enthusiastic about the wonders of statistical analysis.  WeaverNovember 2008
Alternative history in the guise of a view (through palls of smoke) of Britain under partial Nazi control might be a sound basis for a thriller; but add a little tinkering with time's arrow through the medium of dreams and you've leapt to the loopier end of the science fiction spectrum.  The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the World's Poorest PatientsNovember 2008
The subtitle of this confronting volume, Testing new drugs on the world's poorest patients, might serve as a warning to the squeamish reader. In this, her second book, Sonia Shah retells some of the darkest and most troubled chapters in the history of medical research and makes painful observations about the apparent incompatibility of the industry's commercial success with a credible morality.  Lies, Deep Fries & StatisticsNovember 2008
Robyn Williams is a science journalist, but Ockham's Razor, his weekly radio program, is more than a science program. It's a show about anything you can think of: science, politics, culture, technology, sociology, sustainability. Ockham's Razor lets guests argue whatever they want without interruptions from interviewers or contradictions from those who hold opposing views.  The Never-Ending Days of Being DeadNovember 2008
Somewhere in the universe is an exact copy of you. But don't expect to meet up with your double any time soon. You would have to travel about 101028 metres. That's ten followed by a billion times a billion times a billion zeroes – far beyond the edge of the observable universe.  The Comet-Sweeper: Caroline Herschel's Astronomical AmbitionNovember 2008
Caroline Herschel is usually thought of as a relatively unimportant appendage to her more famous brother William, whose revolutionary astronomical work included discovering the planet Uranus, hypothesising that nebulae are composed of stars and developing a theory of stellar evolution.  Darwin's Gift to Science and ReligionNovember 2008
Francisco J. Ayala argues that Darwinian evolutionary theory is a gift not only to science, but also to theology. According to Ayala, it absolves God of responsibility for the cruelty, misery, destruction and poor functional design in the natural world.  Very Special Relativity: An Illustrated GuideNovember 2008
Does anyone really believe the clock on the wall of a spaceship will stop if it reaches the speed of light? If it really is so, it would be nice to know why. When Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, time and space were turned upside down.  Future PerfectNovember 2008
Here we are, poised at the brink of the future, as we have always been, about to enter heaven or hell. Which will it be? Most commentators relish the latter, probably because hell sells, but many of history's bold predictions of doom are today jolly japes for the optimists. We haven't starved or blown ourselves up. Maybe time won't shake off climate change so easily.  The Man Who Knew Too MuchNovember 2008
At the Adelaide Writers' Festival, celebrated novelist Ian McEwan noted on ABC Radio's Conversation Hour that Alan Turing might well have received a Nobel Prize had he lived. Almost certainly: Turing is widely regarded as the father of the modern computer, and can reasonably be said to have shortened World War II in Europe by perhaps a year.  Halting StateNovember 2008
Charlie Stross' latest novel Halting State is an off-beat high-tech thriller built around computer games of many kinds.  The TelescopeNovember 2008
Galileo invented the telescope, right? Nope. He stole the idea and then improved on it to produce an instrument far superior to anything else available at the time. With his superior instrument, he went on to make discoveries that heralded the beginnings of modern astronomy.  Simplexity: The Simple Rules of a Complex WorldNovember 2008
When battling with the instruction manual of your new digital camera it is common to ask yourself through gritted teeth: why are things that should be simple sometimes so darned complex?  Outside the Gates of Science: Why It's Time for the Paranormal to Come in from the ColdNovember 2008
The latest book by Cosmos fiction editor, Damien Broderick, is a scrupulous study of parapsychology and the alleged phenomena commonly grouped as 'psi': paranormal links between individuals and the external world, including other people. 
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