Pittsburgh Freethought Community

Pittsburgh Freethought Community
Promoting Science, Reason and Secular Humanist Values
in the Greater Pittsburgh Area.

Science and Skeptics Book Club

The following is a list of books that the Science and Skeptics Book Club has discussed:
(click on the year to expand the list)

2019

September: Enlightment Now and the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Steven Pinker.
July: Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us. Sam Kean.
February: Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore.
January: Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky.

2018

December: Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions by Richard Harris.
October: Breaking the Spell. Daniel C. Dennett.
September: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World. Michael Pollan.
August: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendance. Michael Pollan.
June: In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer's. Joseph Jebelli.
May: Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve or Ruin Everything. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.
April: The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Carl Sagan. (Repeat of March 2011!)
February: Origin: a Novel. Dan Brown
January: The Hidden Life of Trees. What They Feel, How They Communicate – Secrets from a Hidden World. Peter Wohlleben.

2017

November / December: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Steven Pinker.
October: Einstein's Heros: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics. Robyn Arianrhod.
September: Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine. Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh. (Also suggested: Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine. R. Barker Bausell.)
August: Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Mary Roach.
July: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Siddhartha Mukherjee.
June: The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird's Egg. Tim Birkhead.
May: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World. Andrea Wolf.
April: Five Equations that Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics. Michael Guillen.
March: I Contain Multitudes: the microbes within us and a grander view of life. Ed Yong.
February: The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science. Richard Holmes.
January: The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future. Gretchen Bakke.

2016

December: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? Frans De Waal.
November: Free Will. Sam Harris.
October: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jared Diamond.
September: Stumbling on Happiness. Daniel Gilbert.
August: Thinking, Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman.
July: The Upright Thinkers. The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos. Leonard Mlodinow.
June: The Social Conquest of Earth. Edward O. Wilson.
May: Why Evolution is True. Jerry Coyne.
April: Five Billion Years of Solitude. The Search for Life Among the Stars. Lee Billings.
March: The Wright Brothers. David McCullough.
February: Storms of My Grandchildren. The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. James Hansen.
January: Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World. Mark Mlodownik.

2015

December: The Drunkard's Walk. How Randomness Rules our Lives. Leonard Mlodinow.
November: How We Got To Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World. Steven Johnson.
October: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari. Parts III and IV.
September: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari. Parts I and II.
August: Weed the People. The Future of Legal Marijuana in America. Bruce Barcott.
July: Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You. A Lively Tour Through the Dark Side of the Natural World. Dan Riskin.
June: Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. Nick Lane.
May: Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History. Florence Williams.
April: The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature. David George Haskell.
March: Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable. Bruce M. Hood.
February: The Planets. Dana Sobel.
January: Longitude: The Story of a True Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Times. Dana Sobel.

2014

November: How Not to Be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking. Jordan Ellenberg.
October: The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. Simon Winchester.
September: The First Americans: ... Archaeology's Greatest Mystery. (The story of Meadowcroft Shelter in Avella, PA.) James Adovasio.
August: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Mary Roach.
July: Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.
June: Do You Believe in Magic: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine. Paul Offit, MD
May: The Atheist and the Bonobo: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates. Frans de Waal.
April: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. Elizabeth Kolbert.
March: Sweet Heaven When I Die. Jeff Sharlett.
February: Origins. Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
January: Attack of the Theocrats. Sean Faircloth.

2013

December: Abominable Science, Daniel Loxton
November: Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker
October: 1) Masters of the Planet, Ian Tattersall and 2) Last Ape Standing, Chip Walter
September: Origins of the Modern World, Robert B Marks
August: Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine
July: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
June: Letter to a Christian Nation and Lying, Sam Harris.
May: Portable Atheist, Christopher Hitchens.
April: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. Stephen Greenblatt.
March: The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
February: The Information, James Gleike
January: Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, Greta Christina.

2012

November: American Genesis: Evolution Controversies from Scopes to Creation Science, Jeffrey P Moran
October: Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes
September: Perfect Soldiers, Terry McDermott
August: Your Inner Fish, Neil Shubin
July: The Righteous Mind, Jonathon Haidt
June: A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence Krauss
May: Genius in All of Us, David Shenk
April: What Is This Thing Called Science, A.F. Chalmers
March: Plastic Ocean, Cpt. Charles Moore and Cassandra Phillips
February: Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi
January: Seven Daughters of Eve, Bryan Sykes

2011