by Carl Sagan

I have to admit, although I own this book and intend to read it as soon as I finish the other 12 ahead of it on my list, I haven’t yet.  That being said, I’m a huge fan of Mr. Sagan and have devoured everything else to come out of his brain, so I look forward to it.  More importantly, I’ve heard time and again that this is the absolute perfect read if one is interested in getting their skeptical toes wet.  Given the late Sagan’s enormous gifts, I very un-skeptically buy into that recommendation.

by Richard Dawkins

While creationism isn’t the most dangerous bit of pseudoscience out there by any means, (I’d give that distinction to alternative medicine) understanding why creationism is not science is a great way to practise skeptical thinking.  While most sensible people understand that evolution is a real phenomenon, they usually don’t understand the vastness of the evidence that supports it.  Therefore when creationists question evolution using scientific sounding words, the two approaches seem equally reasonable.

They’re not.  In this book Dawkins lays out just how massive the body of evidence really is, and in so doing illustrates how ridiculous it is to ignore it.  In a way, this is skepticism at it’s core: follow the evidence.

on Brad Blogspeed