An impressive overview of modern neurology and the still-unanswered issues raised by our treatment of our fellow living...
Berns (Neuroeconomics/Emory Univ.; How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain, 2013, etc.) reveals how his training to be a doctor shaped his life in unexpected ways.
The author was using MRI to study the processes involved in decision-making when the death of a beloved dog led him to ponder the human-dog relationship. After viewing photographs of the capture of Osama bin Laden in which dogs were jumping from helicopters under chaotic conditions, the author believed if he could train a dog to enter an MRI machine voluntarily, he could compare the functioning of human and dog brains. One of his motives was to refute the rationale that dogs are unaware of their own suffering, a view that was used to justify the medical school practice of dissecting them without anesthesia while still alive. Dogs (and other animals) can be conditioned to respond to hand signals or spoken words, but Berns asks, to what extent do they understand that these signals are intended to convey a meaningful message? A first step in the investigation involved figuring out if dogs share “the same basic structures for emotion” as humans. “Animals can represent and communicate knowledge in nonverbal ways,” but more is involved than just the structures. The connectivity between regions of the brain is also a determining factor in the level of consciousness and self-awareness of animals. By providing the “roadmap for the level of consciousness that is possible,” animals as diverse as dogs, apes, and whales can understand spoken commands and hand signals. As pet lovers already know, such experiments confirm that dogs also recognize and respond to body language that indicates the emotional states of other dogs and humans. The author explains that his purpose in writing this book is “to raise awareness of the mental lives of the animals with whom we share the planet.” In that, he succeeds.
An impressive overview of modern neurology and the still-unanswered issues raised by our treatment of our fellow living creatures.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-465-09624-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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