Longitude by Dava Sobel, published by Penguin Books in 1995, is a fascinating account of the history of technological efforts to develop a means of shipboard measurement of longitude. It is not generally remembered that great difficulties and much loss of life resulted from the inability of sailors to accurately determine their location. This problem was solved by John Harrison, who invented a clock that would keep precise time at sea.
Of Mice and Mandates: Animal Experiments, Human Cancer Risk, and Regulatory Policies, American Council on Science and Health, 1995 Broadway, Second Floor, New York, NY 10023-5860. This is an excellent article about the misuse of cancer data at very high doses in rodents to estimate low-dose risks to humans. About half of such tested substances are thus demonized.
"Happiness Is a Warm Planet'' by T. G. Moore in The Wall Street Journal, A22, October 7, 1997. Why impoverish ourselves preventing a global warming that is not occurring and would be good for the environment even if it did occur? As Moore says, "Global change is inevitable; warmer is better; richer is healthier.''
The Economic Laws of Scientific Research by Terence Kealey, Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996. This is a comparison between tax funding of science and technology and free market funding of science and technology - one more instance where freedom is superior to socialism.
