science - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM

By Scott J. Pearson | July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Recent research has made it clear that mentorship plays an incredibly strong role in launching careers in STEMM. However, much of education remains organized around traditional missional axes of teaching, research, and service. Mentorship plays a determining factor in all three aspects. It accelerates and perpetuates careers. The National Academies, filled with the most outstanding scholars in America, supplied this consensus statement about the research around this topic. Based on evidence, they summarize findings and…

Biography-Memoir Science

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character

By Scott J. Pearson | May 7, 2024May 7, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Dick Feynman was a Nobel laureate and professor of theoretical physics at Cornell and Cal Tech. Like many accomplished people, he had a unique reputation and a magnanimous spirit. In the classroom, his students revered him for his interesting stories. This memoir, written towards the end of his life, records his reflections on his life with the same zeal that won his students’ hearts. To be frank, some of his stories tend towards the anti-feminist…

Presentation Science Writing-Communication

The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed & Critical Errors to Avoid

By Scott J. Pearson | September 3, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Many scientists and engineers first learn to present by watching others present and mimicking these teachers. This technique helps to convey the basics, but how do collective bad habits get rooted out? Indeed, many weaknesses get passed on from mentor to mentee and from lab to lab. Instead of just floating aimlessly with the masses, those who aspire to greatness can benefit from reading critical commentary from scientific communicators like Michael Alley. This book, first…

Religion-Philosophy Research-Education Science

On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research

By Scott J. Pearson | July 16, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Ethics in scientific research is an issue appearing periodically in the news… and often not in a good way. Perhaps some ethical lapse has led to a field’s struggles with millions of dollars worth of effort lost. Or perhaps someone falsified results and misled the public. Or governments might exploit research that was supposed to benefit humanity and redirected it to harming people. All these fall under the headline of “Responsible Conduct in Research,” more…

Science

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us & a Grander View of Life

By Scott J. Pearson | April 13, 2023April 13, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Humanity has known about the microbial world of bacteria for centuries. Ever since technology for optical lenses progressed to a certain point, we’ve known that there is a super-small world that populates almost every region on this planet’s surface. What we didn’t know what how well it worked with animal bodies to promote life. The relatively recent development of microbiology taught us that, and ongoing research into the microbiome spills forth clues into how human…

Presentation Science Writing-Communication

The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science

By Scott J. Pearson | January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

A popular impression about science is that scientists do not know how to write well; that is, they only write in highly technical jargon that’s, well, boring. Scientists spend so much of their training, the story goes, learning about facts that they do not master the art and craft of communication. Montgomery, in this work, seeks to counter that argument by teaching scientists how to communicate well. In so doing, he harkens to a centuries-long…

Religion-Philosophy Science

Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science & Belief

By Scott J. Pearson | December 31, 2022December 31, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

John Polkinghorne is a Cambridge physicist who decided, mid-career, to become an Anglican priest. Like a good scientist working out a theory, he worked out how his orthodox Christian beliefs were essentially compatible with modern physics. He has won international acclaim and awards for his insights about religion and science. Especially central to his contributions is the idea that both disciplines require a certain amount of belief and faith. This book, compiled with his collaborator…

Religion-Philosophy

The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker

By Scott J. Pearson | April 5, 2022April 5, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

John Polkinghorne is a respected professor of physics at Cambridge University who became an Anglican priest. The President Emeritus of Queen’s College, he is well-known for his understanding of common terrain between science and religion. This book contains the text of the 1993-94 Gifford Lectures and describes his theological belief system. This belief system roughly aligns with Christian orthodoxy. This text explains how he studiously came to these beliefs as he explains why he eschewed…

Religion-Philosophy Science

Belief in God in an Age of Science

By Scott J. Pearson | December 27, 2021December 27, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

Religious belief and science are often put at odds with each other in contemporary society and popular culture. One needs only to listen to fundamentalist preachers or read newspapers about anti-vaccine protestors to think that these groups are forever at odds. Further, the histories of religious wars and persecutions turn many educated, reality-based citizens off of the religious path. To this situation, Polkinghorne offers a detente by suggesting that the two fields are cousins in…

Religion-Philosophy Software-Technology

The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger

By Scott J. Pearson | September 26, 2021October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be as much of a problem as a help. As an instrument, it can make mass killing much easier. Indeed, nuclear bombs enable the world to potentially destroy itself in less than an hour. Yet technology can enable human flourishing as well. For instance, I develop software professionally that I hope will help my domain (medical research) advance. How are we to understand technology, a concept as…