Some Interesting Books

I don't know the reading habits of others here, but here are some personal favorites.

The Blank Slate, by Steven Pinker. This work is the culmination of several fields, most importantly evolutionary psychology. Pinker is a heavy-hitter in Humanistic circles, and his insights on universal grammar and human nature are useful, in my view, for adequately accounting for a naturalistic ethics.

The following books also fall roughly into the category of evolutionary psychology. I take a particular interest in how EP turns on the question of human morality and human nature. Seems to me that if we can establish certain broad moral universals (and yes, I think we can), we have a rough starting point for naturalism.

Human Universals by Donald Brown
The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer
The Moral Animal by Robin Wright
Darwinian Natural Right by Larry Arnhart
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan
Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism by Paul Kurtz

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene is one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years. An excellent layman's account of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, string theory, and M theory.

Evolution versus Creationism by the National Center for Science Education. This works as a current analysis of issues in the long-standing debate between evolution and creation (obviously in favor of the science of evolution) as well as between evolution and so-called "Intelligent Design."

The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs's brand new book outlines a real-world means by which we could end abject world poverty within 20 years. Some of the statistics are mind-blowing.

An Antropologist on Mars and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. Brilliant case studies of wildly strange psychological and neurological disorders.

The Mind of a Mnemonist by A.R. Luria. Famous Russian psychologist studies a man with a nearly perfect memory.

Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond. Original interdisciplinary lucidations of what makes civilizations rise and fall.

Rob