Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves - Couverture rigide

Lefanu, James

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 037542198X ISBN 13 : 9780375421983

Editeur : Pantheon Books, 2009

Synopsis

A general practitioner in England, Le Fanu finds time to write a weekly column for The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph and articles in other periodicals contributing to ongoing debates primarily about the interface between medicine and other aspects of society. Here he explores unanswered--indeed until recently unasked--questions about genetic inheritance and about the workings of the human brain, and what scientific research is now discovering about them. Among his topics are science almost triumphant, the ascent of man, certainty and doubt as the reason for everything, the impenetrable helix, the unfathomable brain, and restoring man to his pedestal. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

“Simple and compelling; a bold attempt to reunite science with a sense of wonder.”
—The Sunday Times (London)

“An extraordinary work of science. . . . Quite wonderfully refreshing.”
—A. N. Wilson, Reader’s Digest (UK)
 
“[Le Fanu reminds us] that life is finally inexplicable, and the universe full of mysteries that are inaccessible to scientific probing. The fact that these rarely stated realities are so superbly brought to life here makes this a brave, brilliant and fascinating book.”
—The Sunday Telegraph (London)

“Excellent. . . . An important, luminously written book. . . . Carefully-documented, scrupulously fair-minded. . . . It deserves a very wide readership. . . .  A careful reader, analyst, and conveyor of this body of research, and an admirer of its revelations and the ingenuity of those who have made them, LeFanu is also possessed of something even rarer than a gift for luminous explication of scientific complexity: he has what the great, polymathic thinker Blaise Pascal called 'l’esprit de finesse,' or a philosophical mind.”
—Modern Age

“James Le Fanu’s lively literary imagination makes this book such a stimulating and challenging read.”
—Literary Review (UK)
 
“Erudite and beautifully written. . . . Le Fanu lucidly analyses the limitations of that narrow intellectual prison in which science has languished too long.”
—The Spectator (UK)
 
“Le Fanu sets his stall out with admirable clarity, and not a little brio. . . . [He is] a lucid and compelling writer.”
—Evening Standard (UK)
 
“This challenge is so knowledgeable, so meticulously constructed that mere prejudice will not be enough to undermine this major work.”
—Catholic Herald
 
“A bold synthesising polemic.”
—Standpoint Magazine
 
“Le Fanu eviscerates salvation by science. The Double Helix is impenetrable, the brain unfathomable, the genome over-rated, the self a mystery.”
—World Magazine
 
“An outstandingly readable and informative book. . . . Le Fanu knows a lot but wears his erudition lightly.”
—David Klinghoffer, The Discovery Institute
From the Trade Paperback edition.

Présentation de l'éditeur

The triumph of science in explaining man’s unique place in the universe might seem almost complete. But in this lucid and compelling account, James Le Fanu describes how in the recent past science has come face-to-face with two seemingly unanswerable questions concerning the nature of genetic inheritance and the workings of the brain–questions that suggest there is, after all, “more than we can know.”

“Scientists do not ‘do’ wonder,” he writes in his introduction. “Rather . . . they have interpreted the world through the prism of supposing there is nothing in principle that cannot be accounted for.” But Le Fanu argues that there is nothing so full of wonder as life itself. As revealed by recent scientific research, it is simply not possible to get from the monotonous sequence of genes strung out along the double helix to the infinite beauty and diversity of the living world, or from the electrical activity of the brain to the richness and abundant creativity of the human mind. Le Fanu’s exploration of these mysteries, and his analysis of where they might lead us in our thinking about the nature and purpose of human existence, form the impassioned and riveting heart of Why Us?

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Pantheon Books
• Date d'édition: 2009
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 037542198X
• ISBN 13: 9780375421983
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 303
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible