Well, I’ve been to the library again. Usually I start by browsing through the new arrivals to see what is timely. Our library uses the Dewey Decimal system so if I start at the left side on the new arrivals, it is philosophy and religion working through to science in the middle and biographies etc. on the right. The library committee or whoever selects the new books to purchase seems to do a good job of capturing what the reading public wants, and that can be discouraging.

If you have read many of these columns, you know I respect people on a spiritual search subject to not contradicting observations in the physical world. Sadly, the new books often include things like astrology, crystal healing, and arguments for creative design. I think this is in part because of a mistaken belief that there are always two valid sides to every controversy. That is certainly true of issues such as abortion and immigration, but astrology? Would you buy a book defending a geocentric universe?

Nevertheless, occasionally — and only occasionally — I find a new book that presents the concepts of scientific and ration thought for the reading public. Finding such a thing can make a bleak day happy. This last visit went even further by presenting me with two books that discuss both rational thought and probability. They are Chances Are… Adventures in Probability by Michael and Ellen Kaplan and Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer.

Shermer started life as a Fundamentalist defender of creationism, but is now more widely known for his monthly column in the Scientific American and his association with skeptics in general. That is his background unless you happen to be a bicycle enthusiast; for then you would know he has participated with honor in five races across America on bicycle. I will review his book next week.

The other book was more of a pleasant surprise. The authors live in Scotland and write with an easy, but learned style. You get the flavor of the book right at the start by the chapter titles:

• Thinking
• Discovering
• Elaborating
• Gambling
• Securing
• Figuring
• Healing
• Judging
• Predicting
• Fighting
• Being

How appropriate to start such a book with an overview of what thinking is all about. Some of the other headings seem self-explanatory and expected. In fact, I would have been tempted to start with Gambling just to hook the reader starting on the first page, but their organization works quite well. I strongly recommend this book, but I equally strongly recommend against cheating and jumping to the last chapter first simply because you think it looks interesting. It is. But it builds on all that came before, so be patient and work your way through the book to it. A quick glance will convince you that it has no formidable equations beyond the simple Bayesian formulation and some Venn diagrams. The rest is simply informative prose that is easily accessible to anyone who normally reads Lockergnome.

In response to the interest my original tutorial generated, I have completely rewritten and expanded it. Check out the tutorial availability through Lockergnome. The new version is over 100 pages long with chapters that alternate between discussion of the theoretical aspects and puzzles just for the fun of it. Puzzle lovers will be glad to know that I included an answers section that includes discussions as to why the answer is correct and how it was obtained. Most of the material has appeared in these columns, but some is new. Most of the discussions are expanded compared to what they were in the original column format.

[tags]intelligent design, creationism, astrology, darwin, evolution, Michael Shermer, probability, pseudoscience[/tags]