What Science Is and How It Really Works

James C. Zimring is a Professor of Pathology at the University of Virginia where he pursues basic and translational research in the field of transfusion medicine and blood biology. He has an M.D. and also a Ph.D. in Immunology, both awarded from Emory University, Atlanta, and has published over 120 research articles in his field of study. Professor Zimring is the recipient of multiple awards for his research and teaching, and he is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

'We live in a world where the discoveries of well-done science are rapidly improving the lives of millions; but at the same time poorly done inquiry that fails to meet the foundational principles of science, even when carried out with all good intentions, can result in harmful false conclusions resulting in wasting of resources, bad results for individuals and bad public policy for nations. Dr Zimring has produced a marvelously cogent and eminently readable book that explains how to recognize good science and know when to question poor 'scientific' conclusions. Reading this book places scientists and non-scientists on the same playing field when discussing critical issues and making important decisions. I would feel much better going to the polls if every voter understood the lessons that Zimring effortlessly communicates.' Brian R. Smith, Yale University, Connecticut

• Introduction; Part I: 1. The knowledge problem, or what can we really 'know'?; 2. Adding more building blocks of human reasoning to the knowledge problem; 3. Holistic coherence in thinking, or describing a system of how humans reason and think; Part II: 4. How scientific reasoning differs from other reasoning; 5. Natural properties of a rule-governed world, or why scientists study certain types of things and not others; 6. How human observation of the natural world can differ from what the world really is; 7. Detection of patterns and associations, or how human perceptions and reasoning complicate understanding of real-world information; 8. The association of ideas and causes, or how science figures out what causes what; Part III: 9. Remedies that science uses to compensate for how humans tend to make errors; 10. The analysis of a phantom apparition, or has science really been studied yet?; 11. The societal factor, or how social dynamics affect science; 12. A holistic world of scientific entities, or considering the forest and the trees together; 13. Putting it all together to describe 'what science is and how it really works'.