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INCOGNITO

Name: INCOGNITO
Author: David Eagleman
ISBN: 978-0-307-37733-3

THE SECRET LIVES OF THE BRAIN

by David Eagleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 2011

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An up-to-date examination of what used to be called the mind-body problem.

Eagleman (Neuroscience/Baylor Coll. of Medicine; Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, 2009) makes the point that our sense of ourselves as coherent, free-standing personalities is at odds with the most basic findings about the workings of the human brain, an organ so complex that an objective description of it sounds hyperbolic. Instinct, unconscious impulses, automatic systems, emotion and a dozen other forces, most of which we aren’t even aware of, affect every thought and action. The book is full of startling examples; split-brain research, for example, shows how the two halves of a mind can be completely at odds, with neither being aware of what the other experiences. Nor are those of us with “whole” brains and a complete set of senses necessarily experiencing the world “as it really is.” For example, other animals experience a different part of the visual spectrum, or can detect sounds and odors we have no awareness of. A significant segment of the population—about 15 percent of women—sees colors the rest of us can’t. Our brains work differently when learning a skill and after it’s become second nature – it’s one thing to drive to a new place, another to drive a familiar route, and our brains work much harder doing the former than the latter, when we can go on “automatic pilot.” There are lessons to be learned from various mental disorders, as well. Victims of strokes affecting certain parts of the brain may claim that they are operating at full capacity when they are clearly not; one former Supreme Court justice was forced to retire after displaying these symptoms. Eagleman has a wealth of such observations, backed up with case studies, bits of pop culture, literary references and historic examples. A book that will leave you looking at yourself—and the world—differently.

Pub Date: May 31, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-307-37733-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011

Categories:

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
LIVEWIRED
by David Eagleman

- BOOK REVIEW
THE RUNAWAY SPECIES
by Anthony Brandt & David Eagleman

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WILD LIFE

THE REMARKABLE LIVES OF ORDINARY ANIMALS

by Edward Kanze ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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A naturalist profiles his favorite North American animals in 50 short sketches. Kanze (Notes from New Zealand, 1992, etc.) here selects from his previously published essays on what he claims are the continent's more intriguing inhabitants. Starting with birds, he describes the thrilling song of the waterthrush, the surprising nastiness of the hummingbird, and the disgusting habits of the turkey vulture, among others. Then it's on to mammals: Kanze sets the record straight on weasels, admires the aerobatics of flying squirrels, and catches three masked shrews in a mayonnaise jar. Part Three, ``In Cold Blood,'' covers reptiles, amphibians, and various creepy-crawlies, from ant lions to black widow spiders. A final section of miscellany contains a few examples of the author's more striking personal encounters with wildlife. Jennifer Harper's illustrations are attractive, but they don't quite compensate for Kanze's liberal use of appallingly bad puns: ``Beetles: The Insect Kingdom's Greatest Hits,'' ``The Evolution of Snakes, or A Farewell to Arms,'' and so on. Although he provides a fair amount of natural history, the self-conscious cuteness of Kanze's style leaves his work in no-man's-land: This is not a dumbed-down anthology of animals intended for children, but neither is it seriously lyrical nature writing. The essays are too short to be anything more than superficial glances at a motley assortment of animals, and it is difficult to divine the author's criteria for selecting these particular creatures, as the ``remarkableness'' promised in the subtitle is not always obvious. More appropriate as folksy newspaper bits; as collected here these essays add up to Wildlife Lite.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-517-70169-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995

Categories:

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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WHAT IS LIFE?

by Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 1995

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The authors of Mystery Dance: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1991) return to the fundamental biological questions, this time taking on the slipperiest of all issues. Wisely, they avoid any temptation to present a single, simplistic answer to the question posed in the title. Instead, Margulis (Biology/Univ. of Mass., Amherst) and her collaborator/son end each chapter with an answer from a different perspective: astronomical, physical, bacteriological, evolutionary, and so forth. While the range they cover is thus greatly extended, the reader will quickly begin to note certain limitations. For example, the book's initial chapter excludes viruses from the definition of life, on the ground that they do not metabolize; but very few biologists would be comfortable with such a clear-cut demarcation. At the other end of the scale, the illustrations quite deliberately scant what most of us would think of as ``higher'' organisms; the only vertebrates shown in 80 full-color photographs are a pair of human skeletons and a fish. Even granted that vertebrates comprise a small fraction of all species, the decision still seems eccentric. Equally eccentric is the pervasive niceness of the authors' viewpoint: Any tough-minded biologist would laugh at the quaint exegesis of Darwinian competition as the idea that organisms ``knock up against each other and work things out.'' Likewise, the text is skewed in favor of such fashionable but still controversial notions as the Gaia theory. And while the book is full of interesting insights, many of them will be obscured by a prose style that rarely finds a middle ground between the muddiest kind of technical language and self-consciously ``poetic'' overwriting. Visually very attractive, this book will probably find a place on many coffee tables; but it would be surprising if any but the most dedicated readers persevered through the entire text. (15 charts)