Reddit mentions of Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society

I absolutely agree that skepticism, when it's based on empirical evidence, is a healthy and fundamental part of the scientific method. But the problem I have in this regard as it relates to climate change, is that much of the "skepticism" I have seen is almost completely devoid of empirical evidence.

As an aside, have you read Seeing Further? It sounds like you would enjoy it.

Seeing further!

Mr Bryson wrote a great introduction book to science some time ago, and now he has written another one.

Both are great highly recommended as starting points , you can read about the origin of almost every branch of modern science, learn a bit and discover which topics interest you the most, so you can find other sources to really study. (The first book is called 'A Short History of Nearly Everything)

I find that science history and biography gives a good understanding of scientific methods, and when written for the lay-person, doesn't get so bogged down in technical jargon.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
  
• Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
  (Also check out his biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman)
  
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
  
  And here are a few on my to read list:
  
  
• Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society - Bill Bryson
  
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
  
• The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine - Lindsey Fitzharris
  
• Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus - Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
  
• The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring - Richard Preston
  
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science - Richard Holmes
  
• The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution - David Wootton
  
  I hope that helps.