by Graeme Simsion (2014)
THE ART OF LOVE IS NEVER A SCIENCE MEET DON TILLMAN, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. Rosie Jarman is all these things. She also is strangely beguiling, fiery, and intelligent. And while Don quickly disqualifies her as a candidate for the Wife Project, as a DNA expert Don is particularly suited to help Rosie on her own quest: identifying her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on the Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you. Arrestingly endearing and entirely unconventional, Graeme Simsion’s distinctive debut will resonate with anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of great challenges. The Rosie Project is a rare find: a book that restores our optimism in the power of human connection.
Cornelia Dean
Cornelia Dean draws on her 30 years as a science journalist with the New York Times to expose the flawed reasoning and knowledge gaps that handicap readers when they try to make sense of science. She calls attention to conflicts of interest in research and the price society pays when science journalism declines and funding dries up.--
Joy Ashe
"This fast-paced genetic thriller with a strong political undertow begins with a phone call plea for help to Boston-based attorney Paeton Weaver by her sister, Casey Bell, after the discovery of her philanthropist husband's bloodied body, supposedly, by his own hand ... His death comes in the year 2013, post the U.S. presidential inauguration ... Paeton Weaver takes the reader on a disturbing journey to examine the social, psychological and legal ramifications of genetic social engineering when under new US leadership, citizens become valued based on genetic characteristics ..."--Publisher's website.
Rein Taagepera
"In his challenging new book Rein Taagepera argues that society needs more from social sciences than they have delivered. One reason for falling short is that social sciences have depended excessively on regression and other statistical approaches, neglecting logical model building. Science is not only about the empirical 'What is?' but also very much about the conceptual 'How should it be on logical grounds?' Statistical approaches are essentially descriptive, while quantitatively formulated logical models are predictive in an explanatory way. Making Social Sciences More Scientific contrasts the predominance of statistics in today's social sciences and predominance of quantitatively predictive logical models in physics. It shows how to construct predictive models and gives social science examples. Making Social Sciences More Scientific is useful to students who wish to learn the basics of the scientific method and to all those researchers who look for ways to do better social science."--Jacket.
G.D. Falksen
The year is 1908. Seventeen-year-old Rosalind Wallace s blissful stay in England with her best friend, Cecily de Vere, has come to an abrupt end, which is fine with Rosalind. She was getting tired of being high society Cecily s American pet. Her industrialist father is unveiling his fabulous new Transatlantic Express, the world s first underwater railway. As a publicity stunt he has booked her on the maiden voyage without asking. Rosalind is furious. But lucky for her, Cecily and her handsome older brother, Charles, volunteer to accompany her home.