Bernie’s Philosophy of Science eBook is Alive!

Apologies for the lack of activity on the site for the last few weeks, but I had been putting the final touches to my ebook and Roger is off on his travels. Anyhow, the ebook is now published and so in a bit of unabashed and shameless self-promotion here are the details (cue the fanfare)…

So what is it about, you may well ask? In the book I present a pragmatic approach to the philosophy of health science (particularly nursing) that underpins evidence-based practice (EBP), including an exploration of research methodologies. It covers the history of scientific inquiry and foundational principles underpinning science as applied in the field of professional healthcare. I have used some provocative arguments to challenge some of the constructivist and postmodern approaches to nursing knowledge. There is a chapter exploring some key examples of non-science, pseudoscience, and simply bad-science that continues to pervade modern healthcare research. Basically, if ever you want some good arguments to challenge postmodern or relativist philosophical positions in healthcare, this book should provide you with plenty. It also includes an updated version of our good science detection kit, and an excellent foreword by Roger (although I fear endless claims of “it must be your round” when I am next in the UK as a result of that).

The book is available from a range of ebook sellers and I will update the list as they put it out ( see details on ebook readers at the end of the post) . You can search for it by my name, the title, or the ISBN: 9780991984602.

Sources 

It has been an interesting journey on the road to publication, and the book should be found at around $9 (which was the price I agreed; although, strangely some vendors seem to have added a few dollars, so shop around). I have had some excellent reviews and some dissent with the ideas presented  (but that is always the way with controversial issues). Anyhow, I hope people will keep an open mind while they read it and enjoy the book, finding something of interest. Do let me know your thoughts on the book in the blog. I welcome all constructive criticism, ideas, commentary and feedback. I am still finding the occasional typo now and again too, so apologies, I will amend, but hey it’s only $6!

A publicity flyer PDF for the book is available here.

If anyone has any trouble finding a copy, or format issues (I can supply any ebook format), please e-mail me; likewise any educators who would like an inspection copy.

Regards

Bernie

 P.S. Additional eBook Reader Information

The ebook was developed for the Apple iPad, but I have been testing various free ebook readers with the book and interestingly found some differing results. Despite adhering to all of the latest publishing standards for ebooks it seems full standardization is some way off in the electronic publishing world. I thought the following might be of use (click on the name of the application to download it):

  • Apple iBooks: displays perfectly – available via iTunes – best choice for iPad readers
  • Kindle Reader: displays fine, but loss of coloured fonts, lines and formatting of titles, in most versions. Readers may need to resize text in their Kindle to get optimum page layout.
  • Sony Reader: Displays fine- but the application is a bit slow to run on some PCs .
  • Kobo: displays perfectly The reader is available here: http://www.kobo.com/desktop
  • Lucidor: the book displays perfectly but some Windows users have experienced installation issues with this reader (it also needs Firefox to be installed first)
  • Adobe Digital Editions: Displays fine, but it seems the font size is not resizable in the application, which can mean fine sized print on some hi-resolution monitors
  • Calibre: a fine free ebook reader, and the book displays perfectly in it
  • ePubReader: displays Ok but format display issues with chapter titles (does not follow font size coding). This application also needs Firefox installed and works through it.
  • Aldiko EReader: Not tested on this Android platform but uses epub standards so should be OK. Let me know if anyone has tested it on this reader.

I hope this is helpful.

Bernie

 

2 thoughts on “Bernie’s Philosophy of Science eBook is Alive!

  1. Hi. Congratulations on the eBook release! I have a question that’s probably slightly off topic. My first eBook is pretty much ready for release, but I’ve been struggling with the cover design. If you don’t mind sharing, I was wondering where you got your cover done? I really like how it turned out. Thank you in advance!

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