Showing results for "Understanding Science" in All Categories

In Understanding Cognitive Biases, you will learn how to recognize biases for what they are, counteract them when necessary, and even use them to your advantage in some instances. In 24 fascinating lectures, Dr. Alexander B. Swan uses examples from psychology experiments, history, politics, movies, TV, comics, social media, and more to illustrate dozens of cognitive biases that affect us all.

Join the award-winning professor who literally wrote the textbook on nutrition. In this course, Jamie Pope—a New York Times bestselling author, leading nutritionist, registered dietitian, and professor at Vanderbilt—answers your questions and clears up misconceptions. Food fuels and...

Consider these commonly held scientific beliefs: Planetary orbits are fixed ellipses; we only use 10 percent of our brains; nothing travels faster than light; a thrown object’s trajectory is a parabola. They seem correct, but they’re all misconceptions that aren’t entirely accurate. There’s much more to the story than you think. These magnificent 24 lectures are devoted to busting myths, clearing up confusion, and giving you scientific epiphanies that could change how you think about your everyday world.

Rory's in a tight spot. Technically, she's in a lab refrigerator, hiding for her life. Who just stormed the primate facility with a gun, leaving the lab tech Andy shot through the neck, dead in a pool of his own blood? For Rory, survival consists of folding herself into the only hiding place available to live another day, affording her the opportunity to search for answers to the violence raging around her. And of course, the mystery of her missing research primate.

Recent years have seen the introduction of concepts from the new and exciting field of complexity science that have captivated the attention of economists, sociologists, engineers, businesspeople, and many others. These include tipping points, the wisdom of crowds, six degrees of separation (or Kevin Bacon), and emergence. Complexity science can shed light on why businesses or economies succeed and fail, how epidemics spread and can be stopped, and what causes ecological systems to rebalance themselves after a disaster.

What if everything you thought you knew about yourself was an illusion? For more than twenty years, University of Chicago professor J. Eric Oliver has taught a legendary course—The Intelligible Self—that students routinely describe as life–changing. Now, in How to Know Your Self, he brings...

Science and technology are, without a doubt, two forces that will change the way you live your life in the coming months, years, and decades. And in recent decades, these forces have evolved and developed at a lightning-fast pace. Explore the many possibilities of what your future may look like with these 24 lectures: a scientifically accurate and enlightening survey of today's most advanced research in fields such as engineering, biology, chemistry, and theoretical physics.

In Understanding Artificial Intelligence: Of Minds and Machines, philosopher Patrick Grim traces the story of AI from ancient legends to the neural networks behind today’s breakthroughs. You see how modern systems became so powerful so quickly. You also explore the very meaning of “intelligence,” discovering how modern AI succeeds by drawing on three resources: vast datasets that let systems learn from examples; deep-learning architectures loosely modeled on the brain’s layers; and feedback loops that help models refine their behavior.

In these 24 lectures, The Great Courses teams up with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, to take you behind the scenes of the animal world. Dr. Moore has crafted a wonderful introduction to zoology that brings you up close and personal with a breathtaking variety of animal species through the eyes of a trained zoologist.

What if the key to improving every relationship, breaking every bad habit, and making better decisions wasn't a matter of willpower, but of understanding the science of behavior? How to Think Like a Behavior Analyst brings one of the most powerful frameworks in modern psychology to everyday people who want real, lasting change. Written in plain English and packed with practical examples, this book translates the evidence-based methods used by professionals in schools, clinics, businesses, and sports coaching into a toolkit anyone can use, no graduate degree required. Inside, you'll discover...

Considering everything the brain does, how can it possibly be the source of our personalities, dreams, thoughts, sensations, utterances, and movements? Understanding the Brain, a 36-lecture course by award-winning Professor Jeanette Norden of Vanderbilt University, takes you inside this astonishingly complex organ and shows you how it works. With its combination of neurology, biology, and psychology, this course helps you understand how we perceive the world through our senses, how we move, how we learn and remember, and how emotions affect our thoughts and actions.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about someone committing a violent, reprehensible, even evil, act. And each time it happens, before we know anything about the circumstances, we are already sure of one thing: We are nothing like that perpetrator. But how can we be so sure? After all, we are all human. In Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature, Professor Daniel Breyer takes us on a fascinating philosophical journey into many of the deepest and darkest questions that have engaged humanity for millennia.

Before We Treat, We Must Understand Staying Sober Is Hard Millions of people suffer from alcoholism, and most of them don't even know it. Or perhaps, they just can't admit it. If you or somebody you know is suffering from alcoholism, it is important to act immediately. The effect of alcohol on the body and mind is significant. Alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction are serious, potentially lethal conditions. When it comes to overcoming alcoholism and alcohol dependence, the hardest part is understanding why. Maybe we've heard the personal drug stories, maybe we've read the personal memoirs, ...

What if everything you’ve ever sensed—about life, learning, illness, and identity—was more than intuition? What if it was real, and explainable? Anthroposophy for Beginners doesn’t just suggest there’s more to the human experience—it gives you the map. Clear, grounded, and sharply written, this is the book that opens the door to Rudolf Steiner’s remarkable vision of spiritual science—without requiring you to abandon logic or embrace mysticism. This isn’t another book filled with vague affirmations and recycled ideas. It’s a crash course in seeing the invisible ...

Marine Biology Lite: Volume 1 The World of Sea Animals Explained: Accurate, Relatable, Entertaining This isn’t your typical marine biology textbook. Marine Biology Lite breaks down the ocean’s complexity using logic, real stories, and clear explanations that make everything—from survival strategies to bizarre sea creatures—make sense. Written by a real marine biologist who’s spent decades exploring and explaining the sea, this book teaches how marine life works by starting with one key idea: nature is logical. You'll discover the Four Core Needs every animal must solve—Energy, ...

In Why Don’t You Understand Me? behavioral scientist and clinical psychologist Yael Schonbrun shows that misunderstanding is a problem of perception, not of communication. Solving it means looking in places most of us never think to look. In an increasingly “connected” world...

A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" ( The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.

Now, you can learn the remarkable stories surrounding monumental inventions - and how consequential these inventions were to history. Taught by Professor W. Bernard Carlson of the University of Virginia, who is an expert on the role of innovation in history, these 36 enlightening lectures give you a broad survey of material history, from the ancient pottery wheel to the Internet and social media. Along with recounting the famous inventions you might expect, this course explores a number of surprising innovations, including beer, pagodas, and the operating room.

Have you ever wondered what compels an otherwise ordinary person to cross the most sacred moral boundaries? In Inside the Criminal’s Mind, explore the chilling psychology behind some of history’s most notorious criminals—like Andrea Yates, Jeffrey Epstein, and John Wayne Gacy. What hidden patterns drive these individuals to commit the unthinkable? This book delves into the neurological and psychological forces that influence criminal behavior, revealing how structural brain abnormalities and chemical imbalances may play a role. Drawing on pioneering research by Cesare Lombroso, we ...

Quantum Mechanics and the Hidden Structure of Reality How Equations, Experiments, and Human Curiosity Changed Our Understanding of the Universe What if reality is far stranger than it appears? What if the world is not made of solid objects moving in simple ways, but of probabilities, invisible fields, mathematical structures, and rules so precise that the universe itself begins to look like code? Quantum Mechanics and the Hidden Structure of Reality tells the story of one of the greatest revolutions in human history: the discovery that the microscopic world does not obey common sense. From ...