RUWAIDIX / RECOMMENDATIONS

A shelf for curiosity.

Books, essays and screen stories that reward curiosity. Some ask how science works; others examine how we think, write, heal and live.

A CURATED STARTING POINT

Read widely. Watch attentively.

I have kept the notes short and the links direct. Recommendations are invitations to think with a work, not endorsements of every assertion it contains.

01 / THE BOOKSIdeas to live and work with.Five books spanning scientific fiction, cognitive bias, attention and medieval Arabic philosophy.Explore five books ↗ 02 / THE ESSAYSArguments worth examining.Twenty-nine essays on scientific integrity, research history, creative work, clinical uncertainty, identity and mortality.Explore twenty-nine essays ↗ 03 / ON SCREENStories that stay with us.Eight films and series about science, language, mortality and ethics, led by Lessons in Chemistry.Explore films & series ↗

THE ESSAYS / 29

The first question: intellectual integrity

A reading to revisit whenever a method looks convincing but the experiment has not been designed to challenge its own conclusion.

01 / ESSAY

Scientific integrity / essay

Cargo Cult Science

Richard P. Feynman · 1974

Feynman’s Caltech commencement address is a compact lesson in the difference between the appearance of research and the discipline of honest inquiry. The decisive test is whether an investigator discloses the evidence, uncertainties and experimental defects that might weaken their preferred explanation.

Read at Caltech ↗Original publication record ↗

Continue with Medawar: Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud? examines the scientific paper’s deceptively orderly story of discovery. Flexner then makes the case for curiosity-driven research.

Three paths into the expanded collection: Daston and Harrison on science and history; Laurel Schwulst on the living personal website; and Kurosawa’s Ikiru on useful work and the finite life.