Whether we want to improve education or cut crime, to enhance public health or to generate clean energy, we need the experimental methods of science - the best tool humanity has yet developed for working out what works. Yet from the way we're governed to the news we're fed by the media we're let down by a lack of understanding and respect for its insights and evidence. In The Geek Manifesto Mark Henderson explains why and how we need to entrench scientific thinking more deeply into every aspect of our society. A new movement is gathering. Let's turn it into a force our leaders cannot ignore. This edition includes an appendix: 'A Geek Manifesto for America' by David Dobbs.

This mini ebook features a sample chapter from Mark Henderson’s brilliant new book THE GEEK MANIFESTO: why science matters. The geeks are coming. And our world needs them. We live in a country where: -A writer can be forced into court for telling the scientific truth. -The media would rather sell papers by scaremongering about the MMR vaccine or GM crops than reporting the facts. -A government advisor was sacked for a decision based on science rather than public opinion. -Only one of our 650 MPs has ever worked as a research scientist. It is time to entrench scientific thinking more deeply into politics and society. To fight for policy based on evidence. The full book is available from 12th May 2012.

Britain's leading science journalist makes an agenda-setting argument that science matters to every aspect of politics with a rallying call to all geeks, wannabe geeks, and secret geeks to join together in a new force our leaders cannot ignore. There has never been a better time to be a geek (or a nerd, or a dork). What was once an insult used to marginalize those curious people (in either sense of the word) and their obsessive interest in science has increasingly become a badge of honor. And we should be crying out for them. England is a country where only one of 650 MPs has worked as a research scientist, the government's drug adviser was sacked for making a decision based on scientific fact rather than public opinion, a writer can be forced into court for telling the scientific truth, and the media would rather sell papers by scaremongering over MMR vaccines and GM crops than report the less sensational facts. Whether one wants to improve education, cut crime, enhance public health, or generate clean energy, science and its experimental method is critical. It's time to stop the nonsense The Geek Manifesto explains what needs to happen to entrench scientific thinking more deeply into politics and society; and how those who are concerned can turn their frustrated outrage into positive action that our country's leaders cannot ignore. Contributors include Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Robin Ince, Evan Harris, Tim Harford, Brian Cox, and Sir Paul Nurse.

Enthusiasts look forward to a time when tiny machines reassemble matter and process information but is their vision realistic? 'Soft Machines' explains why the nanoworld is so different to the macro-world that we are all familar with and shows how it has more in common with biology than conventional engineering.

Agile is one of the most popular software development methodologies used by organizations all over the world. It is characterized by adaptability, flexibility and self-organization, but what does it mean to truly "be" Agile instead of just "doing" Agile? This book offers in-depth commentary and explanations on the Agile methodology's foundation, the Agile Manifesto. Larry Apke, a seasoned Agile coach, uses his own experiences to provide a clear, understandable path to implementing and succeeding with Agile for organizations and individuals.

What do Amy Poehler, Bjork, Felicia Day, Martha Stewart, Miranda July, and Zooey Deschanel have in common? They’re just a few of the amazing women proving that “geek” is no longer a four-letter word. In recent years, male geeks have taken the world by storm. But what about their female counterparts? After all, fangirls are just like fanboys—they put on their Imperial Stormtrooper Lycra pants one leg at a time. Geek Girls Unite is a call to arms for every girl who has ever obsessed over music, comics, film, comedy, books, crafts, fashion, or anything else under the Death Star. Music geek girl Leslie Simon offers an overview of the geek elite by covering groundbreaking women, hall-of-famers, ultimate love matches, and potential frenemies, along with her top picks for playlists, books, movies, and websites. This smart and hilarious tour through girl geekdom is a must-have for any woman who has ever wondered where her sassy rebel sisters have been hiding.

The nonfiction debut from the author of the international bestseller Sacred Games about the surprising overlap between writing and computer coding Vikram Chandra has been a computer programmer for almost as long as he has been a novelist. In this extraordinary new book, his first work of nonfiction, he searches for the connections between the worlds of art and technology. Coders are obsessed with elegance and style, just as writers are, but do the words mean the same thing to both? Can we ascribe beauty to the craft of writing code? Exploring such varied topics as logic gates and literary modernism, the machismo of tech geeks, the omnipresence of an "Indian Mafia" in Silicon Valley, and the writings of the eleventh-century Kashmiri thinker Abhinavagupta, Geek Sublime is both an idiosyncratic history of coding and a fascinating meditation on the writer's art. Part literary essay, part technology story, and part memoir, it is an engrossing, original, and heady book of sweeping ideas.

After a decade designing technologies meant to address education, health, and global poverty, award-winning computer scientist Kentaro Toyama came to a difficult conclusion: Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets can't deliver. Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don't know what to do with them. Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health. Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics. And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality. Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills? In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward.

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A programmer, musician, and father of virtual reality technology, Jaron Lanier was a pioneer in digital media, and among the first to predict the revolutionary changes it would bring to our commerce and culture. Now, with the Web influencing virtually every aspect of our lives, he offers this provocative critique of how digital design is shaping society, for better and for worse. Informed by Lanier’s experience and expertise as a computer scientist, You Are Not a Gadget discusses the technical and cultural problems that have unwittingly risen from programming choices—such as the nature of user identity—that were “locked-in” at the birth of digital media and considers what a future based on current design philosophies will bring. With the proliferation of social networks, cloud-based data storage systems, and Web 2.0 designs that elevate the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and wisdom of individuals, his message has never been more urgent.

A lighthearted celebration of the contributions of women in male-dominated arenas features essays on a range of topics, from computer technology and Dungeons and Dragons to comic books and cyberlaw, in an anthology that includes pieces by such contributors as Ellen Spertus, Wendy Seltzer, and Devin Grayson. Original.