What does Veeky Forums think about this list Veeky Forums came up with?

I find it all very hard to believe now being a part time Veeky Forumsizen and reading his beyond bullshit doctor squats story.

The stories are interesting but take them with a large grain of salt I think.

Michio Kaku and even Stephen Hawking are suspicious. As is Diamond or anything even vaguely like it.

Add this bad boy

>singularity

pls no
pls
no
I don't like to be reminded of how scientifically illiterate my Veeky Forums fellows all are

Not too bad, though I think some fiction should have been included. Possibly some good hard-scifi like hitchhikers guide or tau zero

They're memeing

You all know that right?
I can't speak to tegmark and bostrom, but

jared diamond? That should have given it away instantly. Sagan was neat and all, but the book listed is fedora. Same with Harris. Kaku should have been a quick giveaway as well.

A brief history of time is neat, but is too-oft cited by dude weed lmao-tier pseuds who haven't taken high school physics.

Sacks is also cool, but as the other poster said not very scientific, and Veeky Forums isn't really into practicing medicine.

Dawkins should have been a giveaway to Veeky Forums of all places. You all know that his works on religion are not bad, but very entry-level, and that in conjunction with his fanbase should make the meme qualities of this list evident.

Dawkins is a very legit scientist though, he made some big strides in his field. I do recommend the selfish gene.

Man I should have read all the replies before posting in a bait thread. I really hope this doesn't become more common.

It's a good list. All very rigorous and essential to expanding one's mind in benefit to mankind.

whether the fucknuts on here or on Veeky Forums like it or not, selfish gene is one of the most influential science books of the 20th century

Semi related, but can Scientists please stop trying to write philosophy and calling it indisputable scientific fact?

>indisputable scientific fact?

in science nothing is indisputable
go ahead, dispute away
better have some good evidence to back up your disputes tho

Philosophy simply describes science. Philosophy which does not is not, indeed, philosophy.

Gene centric thinking is considered p shit in biology now bro.

>Harris
I don't know whether it's a meme or a sad reality.

stephen jay gould you're supposed to be dead

As someone who spends too much time lurking on Veeky Forums, I can confidently say the majority of Veeky Forums hate those books with a passion. They have a very strong disdain for pop-science (ie. watered-down science for the uneducated masses).

What did you vote for then?

the majority of Veeky Forums, like the majority of Veeky Forums, are shrieking ignorant simpletons who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes

Hasn't Diamond been pretty thoroughly discredited at this point?

I don't even recall there being a vote, though it may have happened while I was at uni. Actual recommended reading on Veeky Forums consists almost entirely of textbooks.

>the revolution won't be controlled opposition that gets us where we're already going, but faster.

>non-fiction only
>no actual art that involves human emotions

so basically Veeky Forums is exactly like Veeky Forums

...

>guns, germs, and steel.

Just remember that Veeky Forums isn't Veeky Forums. Their reading lists have a different objective than ours would.

If this is what they came up with as a collective than who are we to say it's bad?

>guns, germs and steel
bait/10

Agreed it is. But the idea of selfish genes is wrong. Genes do not work in isolation. There's numerous critique of it in evolutionary biology. Also see Yaneer Bar Yam.
>I do recommend the selfish gene.
I do not.

what's the problem with this book?

Seriously asking, not trying to defend it or anything.

yes.

It presupposes that there are no biological differences between groups of people isolated in varying geographic regions for tens of thousands of years. It essentially ignores any part that race had to play with how civilisations developed and instead assumes outright that it must be purely environmental differences that account for it, rather than weighing up all the evidence together and then making a judgement.

Also, it contains many inaccuracies. I enjoyed reading it because I enjoy reading 'primer' style books, but it is ultimately overreaching and poorly executed.

It is popular and has inaccuracies. That makes it a popular trigger amongst historians and the like.
Think of it as the Ayn Rand of history.
Diamond went too far, the idea that the environment determines stuff isn't wrong.

I know it's not really serious but I'll play along anyway. Definitely a lowest-common-denominator list. If it's actually a result of a vote on Veeky Forums, they have large numbers of voters with not much depth. It's sort of okay as a Starter Kit list, but even there it's a mixed bag

>Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World
Sagan really should be read, and this is a good title
>Kaku - Physics of the Future
This one is an embarrassment. Kaku in general is more a brand than anything, like Neal DeGrasse Tyson. The long-range speculation in that title in particular is mostly worthless. At least it's not Physics of the Impossible
>Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
A significant title and writer, like Sagan
>Tegmark - Our Mathematical Universe
No idea; it's an important topic, though. At least it's not Mario Livio
>Bostrom - Super Intelligence
Don't know; my initial response is Meh
>Hawking - A Brief History of Time
another important Starter Kit-tier title
>Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
ditto
>Diamond - Guns, Germs, and Steel
this again
>Harris - Free Will
him again

my changes:
Definitely lose Kaku, and I say replace with The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
If Tegmark doesn't belong, I'd be inclined to replace with James Gleick, either Chaos: Making a New Science or The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. The quintessential Veeky Forums suggest here would be Everything and More: A Compact History of ∞ by Wallace (although [a] next tobody on Veeky Forums or Veeky Forums has read it and [b] Wallace messes up in places)
Bostrom? People need to at least interact with Feynman; I'd put him here
Maybe Diamond belongs simply because he's so ubiquitous that you're left out otherwise. One alternate might be The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
One title that's bafflingly missing is
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hoffstadter; I would include it in place of Harris

I think in actuality Veeky Forums hate pop-science books and to learn science we should all read textbooks and do all the exercises instead.

In general I think yes.
That and reading scientific papers.

Also nice.

>by which time sub-Saharan Africa and America lagged far behind Europe and China in terms of technology and higher cultural attainment
>The Inca created a complex civilization

Which one is it

I will agree in general with all of that. One thing I will say for pop-science books is that they do better than a textbook at getting the general public engaged about why various scientific concepts are so significant, exciting, and so on

>third time I've seen "Guns, Germs, and Steel" in a week

Guess it's an omen to make that my next non-fiction read.

complex civilisation doesn't mean that they weren't behind in terms of technological and cultural development

You can't blame them since there was no cultural and technological exchange as there was in the Old World.
But I feel, prove me wrong, that you are not willing to change your view so replying to you is fruitless.

How exactly can you measure a civilization's cultural development? That seems pretty subjective.
To say Europe was more culturally advanced just sounds ignorant and Eurocentric

Are you seriously saying that Rome of Tang dynasty China aren't more advanced in terms of civilization than peoples who never had a written language or lived in cities whose tallest building was a 20 foot tall building made of sticks and hay?

Inb4 reddit. reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wd6jt/what_do_you_think_of_guns_germs_and_steel/

He is universally hated among historians for this book.

Kurzweil may be worth reading, not the for 'science' but for the nightmarish hell he has subjected himself to.

Taking dozens (Hundreds at one point) pills and undergoing increasinly bizarre medical procedures to extend your lifespan, because you were born twenty years too early for what is essentially the Rapture

>He is universally hated among historians for this book.
Yep because he simplifies things and some of his stuff is just wrong. That wouldn't be such an issue if he wasn't so popular. Now this book is responsible for a lot of misconceptions.

I can see how frustrating that is. I know a one or two about psychology and I get a similar reaction when I see the Myers-Briggs stuff. Something which is still very popular, especially in the bussiness world, but just isn't science.

But really, the same is true for the Selfish Gene. It is also responsible for misconceptions about evolutionary theory, and once you read more into the field of evolutionary biology, you'll come across this often.

I guess that's why Veeky Forums has such a distaste for popular science, because it can so easily simplify things and spread misconceptions.