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
The Johnstown Flood was one of the greatest natural disasters of all time (actually manmade, since it was precipitated by a wealthy country club dam which had long been the source of justified misgivings). This then is a routine rundown of the catastrophe of May 31st, 1889, the biggest news story since Lincoln's murder in which thousands died. The most interesting incidental: a baby floated unharmed in its cradle for eighty miles.... Perhaps of local interest-but it lacks the Lord-ly touch.
Pub Date: March 18, 1968
ISBN: 0671207148
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968
IN THE NEWS
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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