Science Nature Books

It is very sad that certain groups who proclaim themselves Christians have decided that people are to believe in either God or in science, but one cannot believe both. As a Christian, this book insults my intelligence as it requires me to ignore basic scientific principles and explore and question the nature of things around me. We go to school to learn, to create questions and support our decisions with facts. This book won't allow for critical thinking.
On a more basic level, this book attacks evolution rather than providing an explanation for creationism so at the end of the book the reader "knows" that evolution is supposedly wrong, but doesn't know why creationism is right.
Christians can believe in both evolution and God, the two are not mutually exclusive and this book creates more confusion and questions then it clarifies.

I was given this book when I was a kid: thus began my early indoctrination into Creationism and, eventually, my slow crawl out of it. It's full of shallow or incorrect arguments against Evolution, and does much to create a foundation of pseudo-science for your child. It teaches hostility against other beliefs rather than sound reasoning for oneself.

It's hard to figure out whom to trust in this world, and I can understand the fear of many Christian parents that anything teaching Evolution is going to be no less biased or dogmatic than a Creationist text.

I'd urge you, then, to try a curriculum based on an exploration of science's origins. Read Francis Bacon together, or Galileo himself. Even Darwin. There are good and approachable ways to tackle these great books together with your kids, jointly discussing what the scientific method is, what its limitations are, and what its merits are.

Discuss this and, by all means, discuss what you believe about the origin of the Universe. But if you do it this way, you'll be preparing your child to honestly and ably evaluate truth through his whole life, rather than teaching him a flimsy, antagonistic, and divisive platform of propaganda.

Other reviewers have commented enough on the content of the book. I reccomend it to parents, encourage them to sift through it, do further study, and to teach their children the errors of The Theory of Evelution, using this book as a tool. To Evelotionists, all I have to say is this: When scientists discovered that the Universe is expandinding (early 1900's), this proved that the Universe was not eternal, but had a beginning. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that things go from order to disorder - NOT from chaos to order, as The Thoery of Evelution requires.

Although this book is written on probably a junior high/high school level, as an adult who has never really tackled this subject, this is a great place to begin if you've wanted to explore the whole issue of creation vs. evolution.

This book takes you through the evidence found in astrology, biology, geology and paleontology to show that the Theory of Evolution is just that - a theory. The author discusses the origin of the universe, earth's uniqueness in our solar system, dinosaurs, the Great Flood, the fossil record and much more. This is not a contentious book by any means. Lawrence Richards simply takes you through the evidence piece by piece to show that "it couldn't just happen." Though he obviously believes in creation, he approaches each piece of evidence in an objective manner and lets you come to the natural conclusion based on the evidence at hand.

I did not give this book 5 stars as the repetition at the end of each chapter gets a little old after a while, but that would be a good thing for students reading it. Also, he doesn't give any footnotes to support his argument. I find his arguments to be logical and convincing, but I would be more convinced with footnotes showing me where he came up with his facts.

Still, I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to explore the real facts of creation vs. evolution. Parents should read this so that they know how to combat the theories that their kids are being taught as fact in public schools. I'm really not sure how anyone could read this book from cover to cover and still believe in evolution. It certainly would require a lot of faith.

In order for a book to be trustworthy, it has to be based on solid facts. However, this book starts off with blatant errors in even the most basic science and then goes downhill from there. At some point, your children will become educated enough to see those errors. And then what will happen? Will they start to question the conclusion that God and His Son do indeed exist? Find a better book. :)

Some errors in this book:

Page 8 - There are exactly 1029 visible stars.
answer - With good eyesight, as many as 6000 stars are visible.

Page 8 - Galileo's 1609 work was done "about 300 years ago."
answer - This book was copyrighted nearly 400 years after 1609.

Page 8 - Galileo invented the telescope in 1609.
answer - Hans Lippershey invented the telescope in 1608.

Page 8 - Galileo saw exactly 3,310 stars.
answer - Galileo saw many more than 6,000 stars.

Page 9 - Alpha Centauri is the nearest star.
answer - Proxima Centauri is the nearest star.

Page 14 - The "bouncing universe" theory was not even a theory.
answer - It was a theory, even though it was proven false.

Page 15 - Pulsars send out bursts of energy.
answer - Pulsars send out steady streams of energy.

Page 17 - The planetary orbits are circles.
answer - The planetary orbits are ellipses.

Page 22 - The law of entropy tells us the planets are dead.
answer - Only by sending probes can we know what is happening.

Page 27 - The Earth isn't going to lose her moon.
answer - The Moon is moving 4 cm farther away each year.

Page 28 - Tjeered van Andel is an oceanographer.
answer - His first name is spelled "Tjeerd."

Page 31 - Two parts oxygen with one part hydrogen yields water.
answer - One part oxygen with two parts hydrogen yield water.

Do I really need to continue?

Our school recently upgraded to this chemistry book for the honorslevel. personally, i like it a lot. all the math examples have clear instructions, and the pictures really helped. a few chapters were a bit fuzzy, but more intense topics (ie, subatomic particles & thermo) made up for any lack of information. i would definitely recommend purchasing a SAT II review book, as it contains valuable information that goes along nicely with the book itself. the book covers nearly everything one would find in a college-prep chemistry course, so i would definitely recommend taking the SAT II in may.

Our school recently upgraded to this chemistry book for the honors level. personally, i like it a lot. all the math examples have clear instructions, and the pictures really helped. a few chapters were a bit fuzzy, but more intense topics (ie, subatomic particles & thermo) made up for any lack of information. ... . i would definitely recommend purchasing a SAT II review book, as it contains valuable information that goes along nicely with the book itself. the book covers nearly everything one would find in a college-prep chemistry course, so i would definitely recommend taking the SAT II in may.

Well, I can honestly say that I haven't enjoyed this book much. After all, who would want to wake up at 5:30 in the morning, drive 1/2 an hour to school, just to make it to an Honors Chemisty class using this book? But overall, the book is pretty nice...I've gotten numerous paper cuts from the edges of the paper, and it sure does weigh a lot for its size...

Confusing explainations, and poor overall graphics and coloring. Not straight-forward enough. The beginning chemistry student may find it hard to understand. Gives too many extraneous details that do not help the reader understand the necessary concepts of basic chemistry.

If you want a good introductory chemistry book, then I strongly recommend "Foundations of College Chemistry" (11th ed.), by Hein and Arena. It tells you what you need to know in an easy-to-comprehend style.

We have two copies of this book. Each has less than the guaranteed 210 pages. Caveat emptor.

McPhee can do it all: explain a complex scientific concept in clean, clear prose; perfectly divine and express the poetic nature underlying seemingly mundane geologic features; conjure up vivid panoramas of worlds lost deep in geologic time; and, no less amazingly, make us actually believe that we even personally like the brilliant, but crass, Doctor Anita Harris! Like Basin and Range, and La Place de la Concorde Suisse, very well written and wonderfully told.

This book is filled with scientific terms straining the general reader's capacity to follow the narrative. Wonderful, clear-speaking John McPhee's lurching off into geology is analogous to Doris Lessing losing her readers in science fiction yarns. Fortunately most of us have been to New York City or have spent time traveling Route 80. Changes do not come in a slow steady march in geology. Geologic time is punctuated by catastrophes. Geology repeats itself. Geology is named for Gaea, daughter of Chaos says McPhee's informant, Anita Harris. The right bedrock, the right angle of deep caused the pond of boulders in Hickory State Park, Pennsylvania to be formed. Geologists are detectives. Road cuts are incredibly useful to them. Without them they are reduced to drilling holes straight down and studying streams. Streams and rivers form later than rock. The limit of glaciation in New York City is reflected in the subway system. The book is rich and informative. It is organized around the career of and the author's travels with Anita Harris, a wholly reasonable focus for the study.

This is an excellent book, in which McPhee follows an original and stolid geologist on her job and records her musings and concerns with her science. It is written in absolutely luminous prose, with a clarity that can only be called perfect. As he travels with the geologist, ideas keep cropping up that are explained and examined, sometimes adding historical context, such as the long passages on Agassiz. I enjoyed the flow of the narrative and it held my interest completely, indeed I was in awe of his writing talent.

In my reading, there were two principal scientific ideas. First, McPhee lets the geologist question the pervasive acceptance of plate tectonics, that is, how it is now the first explanation that geologists seek to advance, which may mean that they do not seek alternative explanations when appropriate. More specifically, the geologist accepts the theory for oceanic plates, but not the land/continental versions. She chafes against the preference of many young geologists to create micro-plates for every new unexplained phenomenon, a kind of reductionism that may be similar to that used by proponents of "heavenly spheres" to explain the motions of the planets prior to Kepler and Newton. Second, McPhee goes over the notion of glacial ice flows and what they explain about the current landscapes. As I was quite ignorent of these theories except in the crudest outline, I learned a lot from this. What I cannot do is evaluate whether, after 20 years, this book is outdated, which it almost certainly is.

Beyond those 2 issues, the reader also gets to know how geologists work and think, which was equally fascinating and pleasurable for me. THere are long passages on a technique that the geologist developed - using the teeth of long-disappeared marine worms to date and evaluate the conditions of the sediments in which they appear - that are clearly explained. Nonetheless, the level of the reasoning and vocabulary can at times be technical and was sometimes beyond my level: those "teeth" above are called conodonts, which I happened to know about from a Gould essay; otherwise, I would have found use of that word confusing, as I did many others that are explained perhaps once. THat made the book quite dense and necessary to re-read in certain sections, which is not a criticism so much as an indication of the experience the reader should expect.

Warmly recommended.

In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee details the geology of Interstate 80 from the Delaware Water Gap to the state of Indiana. Primarily concerned with the formation of the Appalachians, the intrusion and withdrawal of vast inland seas, and the impact of widespread glaciation, the book introduces us to Anita Harris, a geologist who is less enamored of plate tectonic theory than most. Though far from discounting the theory altogether, Harris, through McPhee, displays for the reader several "tectonic" inconsistencies prevalent in the Appalachian region.

As in Basin and Range, a previous work, McPhee brings a traveler's commentary and an historian's insight to the scientific discussion making geology, perhaps, more enticing to the layman than anyone who has come before him. Indeed, were all science so artfully presented us commonfolk might have a better grasp of that which can often confuse and intimidate. I thoroughly enjoyed In Suspect Terrain and look eagerly forward to other McPhee efforts.

If the tech writers for Panasonic and Canon could write as clearly as Mark Maslin, I could probably program all my electronics without asking my teenage son for help! In 148 pages, he provides as much fair and balanced insight into the science and the politics of "global warming" as any five other books I've looked at, and as much information as most of us might need to behave as responsible citizens. Although the book is already "out of date" in view of the recent release of the 2007 IPCC report, none of its main points, either of science or of societal concern, have been supplanted.
Maslin is clearly convinced that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, and that it would be proper to take precautionary steps to deal with its possible effects. But he gives the skeptics their due, dispassionately summarizing their objections and responding respectfully when a response is available. He is NOT an alarmist, though he plainly thinks that some alarm is a reasonable reaction to the best-case scenarios as well as the worst.
I don't usually squeal that such-and-such book is a MUST-READ for everyone's sewing circle, Sunday School class, and dog-walker. If I had the means, however, I'd send every household in the USA a copy of this book along with the seasonal catalogues. My thanks to Jay, the only previous reviewer, for bringing this useful little book to my attention.

The information contained in these 148 pages is worth more than the bloviating and obfuscating in "Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths," "Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming," and all the other books whose mission it is to "refute" global warming for a simple reason: the aim of the book is to explain a phenomenon with evidence, not to refute something based on a pre-determined conclusion.

Maslin gives an explanation of what global warming is, discusses the history of contemporary scientific concerns about global warming, the models for the future, the impacts of climate change, possible surprises, the political solutions offered, some possible technical alternatives that will help, and then gives his conclusion. The author is not optimistic about the political solutions thus far offered, and believes that alternative energy sources are the best solution. He says, "Though great strides forward have been made in alternative energies, it seems unlikely that these will produce energy on the scale we require in the next few decades. As I am a great believer in humanity's adaptability, I am sure these will be available by the end of the century. But a considerable increase in investment is required if we are to convert the renewable energy by the end of the century." In essence, if the global community acts now, argues Maslin, then the effects of climate change can be mitigated, but this will require long-term planning. "So global warming challenges the very way we organize our society." Buy the book and educate yourself about these vital issues.

My 9YO son wants to be aeronautical engineer and decided he wanted to start studying NOW! He needs to study Physics and Chemistry. I searched everywhere for age appropriate books for him and these were the only ones I could find. When we received them, I was thrilled to see they were exactly what we needed. He loves reading them, they are entertaining and easily understood. It's been great revision for me, and I'm learning new things too! It's wonderful to have books from which to teach your kids that are fun. I highly recommend them for kids 7-12.

I ordered this book after finding the Pre-level 1 Chemistry book to basic for my Homeschooled 1st grader. This book introduces important concepts in short chapters and the concepts are very well explained. My son enjoys the book and we find ideas on the internet for weekly experiments to help him understand the concepts better. My only complaint is that there are too few equations and too few math equations introduced in this book. If my 1st grader is learning multiplication and division, 4th - 6th graders (which is what this book is geared toward) should be able to handle a little as well.

...first, there is nothing special in the presentation of the information -- not particularly entertaining, interesting or inspirational and not possessing any didactic advantage...second, the illustrations are quite primitive compared to other texts...third, the price is quite high -- teacher's manual plus student text plus lab book is about 200 pages total and altogether cost about $70...and note that still doesn't represent the total cost...the author is also developing what she terms "kogs" -- other study units linked to art, history, language, etc...finally, there are multiple "errata" whose correction requires periodic checking of the "gravitashomeschool.wordpress.com/category/errata" website...I believe there are better alternatives...for high school I recommend Padilla's "Science Explorer" series frm Prentice-Hall...this series of books covers a broad range of topics that allow sequencing to taste...they are well written and well illustrated...they also offer a variety of supplements -- workbooks, lesson plans, lab activities, videos, tests, etc -- plus a well designed companion website...for elementary school, Prentice-Hall's "Science" series is well done and has all the supplentary benefits of "Science Explorer."

The content is very thorough, maybe too much so. I decided to use this for my 9 yo's science this year. I like the simplicity of the definitions, but they are drawn out for too long. I think less would be more here. I can tell my student is a little bored at times because the subject is not moving along fast enough. Having said that, when we reinforce what we have learned through extra discussion - she recalls the majority of the information (it was not sooooo slow that she tuned out). She does love the sometimes silly cartoon like illustrations. I WOULD and might try another branch of science in this same series, but it is not my favorite.

I found the Physics, Level 1 book very well written and illustrated. My students really liked the book, too.
I used the textbook for my student's weekly assigned reading.
I also used the Teacher's Manuel that contains excellent additional information and the directions for instructing the students on how to set up one of the 10 different experiments each week. My students used the Real Science 4 Kids lab notes to make their notes which took them through the steps of the Scientific method. EXCELLENT material.

My 15 month old loves these cards. They hold his attention well. The pictures are colorful, real and beautiful. I definately prefer them to cartoony depictions of trees, planets and stars. A great product for the money.

Dissapointed!!!

Images are not the best ones for kids... I expected some animals and some toys...
The quality of the cards itself is good

I've been showing these to my daughter since she was just a few weeks old. Now, she has some 'favorites'. A good friend of mine used these with her son and when he was only two, we took him to the zoo and he pointed out "wetlands" and "meadow". Great to teach diversity of the outdoors. Great pictures.

Wonderful photography, easy to hold and durable for my 19 mos old's hands.

I wondered about explaining the subtle differences too but these cards are great. Just review them with your child and the differences can be made clearer as they grow older. In the meantime the kids really enjoy them and are armed with knowledge when you take outdoor trips. I am really happy with this purchase.

This book is filled with so much knowledge. I am a nurse and my daughter which is 9, said she wants to be a doctor. I thought this book was a great introduction of the anatomy and physiology. It goes in to great detail about what each body part does. It is NOT just a picture book.
AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!