Discerning Experts: The Practices of Scientific Assessment for Environmental Policy

Discerning Experts assesses the assessments that many governments rely on to help guide environmental policy and action. Through their close look at environmental assessments involving acid rain, ozone depletion, and sea level rise, the authors explore how experts deliberate and decide on the scientific facts about problems like climate change. They also seek to understand how the scientists involved make the judgments they do, how the organization and management of assessment activities affects those judgments, and how expertise is identified and constructed. Discerning Experts uncovers factors that can generate systematic bias and error, and recommends how the process can be improved. As the first study of the internal workings of large environmental assessments, this book reveals their strengths and weaknesses, and explains what assessments can—and cannot—be expected to contribute to public policy and the common good.

Science & Math

Oreskes, Naomi

Jamieson, Dale

Oppenheimer, Michael

Brysse, Keynyn

O’Reilly, Jessica

Shindell, Matthew

Wazeck, Milena

Earth Sciences

University of Chicago Press

Discerning Experts assesses the assessments that many governments rely on to help guide environmental policy and action. Through their close look at environmental assessments involving acid rain, ozone depletion, and sea level rise, the authors explore how experts deliberate and decide on the scientific facts about problems like climate change. They also seek to understand how the scientists involved make the judgments they do, how the organization and management of assessment activities affects those judgments, and how expertise is identified and constructed. Discerning Experts uncovers factors that can generate systematic bias and error, and recommends how the process can be improved. As the first study of the internal workings of large environmental assessments, this book reveals their strengths and weaknesses, and explains what assessments can—and cannot—be expected to contribute to public policy and the common good.

Harold C. Urey (1893–1981), whose discoveries lie at the foundation of modern science, was one of the most famous American scientists of the twentieth century. Born in rural Indiana, his evolution from small-town farm boy to scientific celebrity made him a symbol and spokesman for American scientific authority. Because he rose to fame alongside the prestige of American science, the story of his life reflects broader changes in the social and intellectual landscape of twentieth-century America. In this, the first ever biography of the chemist, Matthew Shindell shines new light on Urey’s struggles and achievements in a thoughtful exploration of the science, politics, and society of the Cold War era. From Urey’s orthodox religious upbringing to his death in 1981, Shindell follows the scientist through nearly a century of American history: his discovery of deuterium and heavy water earned him the Nobel Prize in 1934, his work on the Manhattan Project helped usher in the atomic age, he initiated a generation of American scientists into the world of quantum physics and chemistry, and he took on the origin of the Moon in NASA’s lunar exploration program. Despite his success, however, Urey had difficulty navigating the nuclear age. In later years he lived in the shadow of the bomb he helped create, plagued by the uncertainties unleashed by the rise of American science and unable to reconcile the consequences of scientific progress with the morality of religion. Tracing Urey’s life through two world wars and the Cold War not only conveys the complex historical relationship between science and religion in the twentieth century, but it also illustrates how these complexities spilled over into the early days of space science. More than a life story, this book immerses readers in the trials and triumphs of an extraordinary man and his extraordinary times.

The Life and Science of Harold C. Urey (Synthesis)

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet

A tour of Mars in the human imagination, from ancient astrologers to modern explorers. Mars and its secrets have fascinated and mystified humans since ancient times. Due to its vivid color and visibility, its geologic kinship with Earth, and its potential as our best hope for settlement, Mars embodies everything that inspires us about space and exploration. For the Love of Mars surveys the red planet's place in the human imagination, beginning with ancient astrologers and skywatchers and ending in our present moment of exploration and virtual engagement. &nbsp; National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell describes how historical figures across eras and around the world have made sense of this mysterious planet. We meet Mayan astrologer priests who incorporated Mars into seasonal calendars and religious ceremonies; Babylonian astrologers who discerned bad omens; figures of the Scientific Revolution who struggled to comprehend it as a world; Victorian astronomers who sought signs of intelligent life; and twentieth- and twenty-first-century scientists who have established a technological presence on its surface. Along the way, we encounter writers and artists from each of these periods who take readers and viewers along on imagined journeys to Mars. &nbsp; By focusing on the diverse human stories behind the telescopes and behind the robots we know and love, Shindell shows how Mars exploration has evolved in ways that have also expanded knowledge about other facets of the universe. Captained by an engaging and erudite expert, For the Love of Mars is a captivating voyage through time and space for anyone curious about Curiosity and the red planet.

Astronomy & Space Science

A tour of Mars in the human imagination, from ancient astrologers to modern explorers. Mars and its secrets have fascinated and mystified humans since ancient times. For the Love of Mars surveys the red planet's place in the human imagination, beginning with ancient astrologers and skywatchers and ending in our present moment of exploration and virtual engagement. &nbsp; National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell describes how historical figures across eras and around the world have made sense of this mysterious planet. We meet Mayan astrologer priests who incorporated Mars into seasonal calendars and religious ceremonies, Babylonian astrologers who discerned bad omens, figures of the Scientific Revolution who struggled to comprehend Mars as a world, Victorian astronomers who sought signs of intelligent life, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century scientists who have established a technological presence on the planet's surface. Along the way, we encounter writers and artists from each of these periods who took readers and viewers along on imagined journeys to Mars. &nbsp; By focusing on the diverse human stories behind the telescopes and behind the robots we know and love, Shindell shows how Mars exploration has evolved in ways that have also expanded knowledge about other facets of the universe. Captained by an engaging and erudite expert, For the Love of Mars is a captivating voyage through time and space for anyone curious about Curiosity and the red planet.

Poetry. IN ANOTHER CASTLE introduces a unique American voice to poetry. Matthew Shindell, whose publications include American Letters and Commentary, The American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, FENCE, Hayden's Ferry Review, and others, mixes the intellectual with the absurd to create a world that both parallels and penetrates our own. Dean Young writes, "Let us praise Matt Shindell for offering us another castle where the ferocity of the imagination bedazzles." Shindell's fearless book offers a view of our world through the same darkly comic and pioneering lens as Kafka. Norman Dubie echoes this observation: "There is sadness here and the brittle music of Kafka's decisions in language." Indeed, the centerpiece poem, "Two Jokes About Bears," reveals the enormous breadth and scope of Shindell's powers and places him into the pantheon of important new poets to watch.

In Another Castle

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Three Candles Press

This revised and expanded second edition of Spaceships includes&nbsp;sixty-four pages worth of the newest developments in space technology Spaceships: An Illustrated History of the Real and the Imagined explores how art and science have merged in the creation of real and fictional spaceships, from Mercury and Apollo spacecraft to Millennium Falcon and Starship Enterprise. This second edition is thoroughly updated to offer a complete history of spaceships. It builds off the original book with new information and developments in topics that include:&nbsp; &nbsp; <ul> <li>Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne</li> <li>Paul Allen's Stratolaunch Systems</li> <li>Bigelow Aerospace's B330 inflatable space stations</li> <li>SpaceX's Falcon 9</li> <li>Future Mars exploration, moon landers, and interstellar ships</li> <li>New foreword from Bobak Ferdowsi,&nbsp;an American Flight engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory</li> <li style="list-style: none">&nbsp; Award-winning author Ron Miller and new Smithsonian coauthors Matthew Shindell and Margaret Weitekamp take readers on a visual journey through the history of the spaceship, both in our collective imagination and in reality.&nbsp;Vivid illustrations trace spaceships through their conception, engineering, and building. The exquisitely detailed book charts the ubiquity of spaceships in the golden age of space travel (1950s and '60s) and their broad influence in popular art, television, film, and literature. Spaceships is a vibrant and visual book on&nbsp;the history of spaceships, past, present, and future.</li> </ul>

Spaceships 2nd Edition: An Illustrated History of the Real and the Imagined

Humor & Entertainment

Miller, Ron

Weitekamp, Margaret A.

Pop Culture

Smithsonian Books

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