What Scientists Think

ISBN-13: 9780415334273 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 208 str.

Jeremy Stangroom

Opis

What are leading scientists working on now? What do they think about the working of the brain, climate change, animal experimentation, cancer, and mental illness? Is science progressing or in retreat? Is this century humankind's last?
These are just some of the compelling questions discussed by twelve of world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers in this fascinating book. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the complex scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today. They also explain what drives their interest in science, revealing something of the often-neglected personal side of science.
Steven Pinker Evolutionary Psychology
Robin Murray Psychiatry and Schizophrenia
Kevin Warwick Cybernetics
Susan Greenfield The Brain and Human Consciousness
Norman Levitt Science under Threat
E.O. Wilson Biodiversity
Steve Jones Genes
Dorothy Crawford Viruses and their Threats
Michael Stratton Cancer Research
Martin Rees Science: Its Dangers and Its Public
Colin Blakemore Medical Research, Animal Experimentation and Science
John Polkinghorne Science and Religion

Recenzje

'I don't often recommend books in the health column, but I have to make an exception this week. It's called What Scientists Think ... Why do I recommend it as a doctor? Because there are chapters on the brain and consciousness, on psychiatry and schizophrenia, on viruses and their threats, and on cancer research and animal experimentation, all of which are absolute 'must' reads for anyone who wishes to be properly informed on all of these subjects. If I were a schoolteacher I'd buy a copy for every teenager and certainly every student going to university - not just those studying science, but for all the others, too, who find science difficult or even alien ... it is straightforward and thought-provoking and if you have opinions on science be prepared to change them.' - Dr Tom Smith, Broadcasting Doctors' Association

'Highly personal yet wholly intellectual, the interviewees reflect current hotspots in research' - Victoria Neumark, TES

'What Scientists Think ... can begin, incrementally, to give non-scientists a glimpse of how scientists work, and their thoughts and worries ... Stangroom has produced a volume in which the issues are contemporary and the interviewees speak clearly and non-technically. At just 194 pages, it is a simple and pleasingly effective manual for understanding scientists and what they think.' - Mark Pagel, New Humanist

Spis treści

Preface.  Introduction.  The Interviews  1. Darwinism and Genes  2. Evolutionary Psychology and the Blank Slate  3. The Human Brain and Consciousness  4. Science and the Human Animal  5. Cybernetics and a Post-Human Future  6. Psychiatry and Schizophrenia 7. Microbiology, Viruses and Their Threats  8. On Cancer Research  9. Animal Experimentation, Ethics and Medical Research  10. Science Under Threat  11. Biodiversity  12. Science: Its Dangers and its Public  Further Reading

O autorze

Jeremy Stangroom is co-editor of The Philosophers' Magazine.