An insightful look at the intellectual underpinnings of science.
British journalist Le Fanu (The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, 2000) investigates some thus-far-unanswered questions in genetics and brain research.
Scientists have made earth-shattering discoveries in recent years, writes the author, but still face many mysteries. Despite the fact that the human genome was mapped in its entirety in 2001, for example, they are still baffled as to how genes actually work—that is, how they generate the different species’ incredible diversity of forms, shapes and behaviors. Le Fanu also singles out brain research for scrutiny. Thanks to advances in scanning technology, researchers have identified the functions of many parts of the brain, but so far have been unable to answer the most basic question: how the firing of nerve impulses actually produce the phenomena of perception and thought. Apparently convinced that scientists have hit a sort of intellectual wall in these areas, the author devotes the bulk of the book to documenting their unexplained mysteries. For example, why does a defective gene in one person cause horrible disease, while the same defective gene in another person does not? How does the brain produce what we would call a sense of self? Le Fanu doesn’t seem to believe that these questions are completely unanswerable, but he does think that scientists will have to undergo a radical alteration in the way they look at the problems. What they lack, he argues, is a sense of wonder: “They have interpreted the world through the prism of supposing that there is nothing in principle that cannot be accounted for.” Le Fanu stops short of supporting intelligent design, but he appears to understand the impulse of those who think that mind-bogglingly complex problems might require resolution by a higher power than humankind.
An insightful look at the intellectual underpinnings of science.Pub Date: March 17, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-42198-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science...
Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.), a man who knows how to track down an explanation and make it confess, asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.
As he once went about making English intelligible, Bryson now attempts the same with the great moments of science, both the ideas themselves and their genesis, to resounding success. Piqued by his own ignorance on these matters, he’s egged on even more so by the people who’ve figured out—or think they’ve figured out—such things as what is in the center of the Earth. So he goes exploring, in the library and in company with scientists at work today, to get a grip on a range of topics from subatomic particles to cosmology. The aim is to deliver reports on these subjects in terms anyone can understand, and for the most part, it works. The most difficult is the nonintuitive material—time as part of space, say, or proteins inventing themselves spontaneously, without direction—and the quantum leaps unusual minds have made: as J.B.S. Haldane once put it, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” Mostly, though, Bryson renders clear the evolution of continental drift, atomic structure, singularity, the extinction of the dinosaur, and a mighty host of other subjects in self-contained chapters that can be taken at a bite, rather than read wholesale. He delivers the human-interest angle on the scientists, and he keeps the reader laughing and willing to forge ahead, even over their heads: the human body, for instance, harboring enough energy “to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.Pub Date: May 6, 2003
ISBN: 0-7679-0817-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.
Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, 2017, etc.) receives a great deal of mail, and this slim volume collects his responses and other scraps of writing.
The prolific science commentator and bestselling author, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, delivers few surprises and much admirable commentary. Readers may suspect that most of these letters date from the author’s earlier years when, a newly minted celebrity, he still thrilled that many of his audience were pouring out their hearts. Consequently, unlike more hardened colleagues, he sought to address their concerns. As years passed, suspecting that many had no interest in tapping his expertise or entering into an intelligent give and take, he undoubtedly made greater use of the waste basket. Tyson eschews pure fan letters, but many of these selections are full of compliments as a prelude to asking advice, pointing out mistakes, proclaiming opposing beliefs, or denouncing him. Readers will also encounter some earnest op-ed pieces and his eyewitness account of 9/11. “I consider myself emotionally strong,” he writes. “What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind.” To crackpots, he gently repeats facts that almost everyone except crackpots accept. Those who have seen ghosts, dead relatives, and Bigfoot learn that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. Tyson points out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so confirmation that a light in the sky represents an alien spacecraft requires more than a photograph. Again and again he defends “science,” and his criteria—observation, repeatable experiments, honest discourse, peer review—are not controversial but will remain easy for zealots to dismiss. Among the instances of “hate mail” and “science deniers,” the author also discusses philosophy, parenting, and schooling.
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-324-00331-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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