What are scientists working on today? What do they worry about? 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 and provocative questions tackled here by twelve of the world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the most urgent scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today.
Essential reading for anyone interested in popular science, What Scientists Think is edited and written by Jeremy Stangroom of the highly successful The Philosopher's Magazine and includes a foreword by Marek Kohn, author of A Reason for Everything: Natural Selection and the British Imagination.
| Foreword | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| 1 | Darwinism and genes | 8 |
| 2 | Evolutionary psychology and the blank slate | 23 |
| 3 | The human brain and consciousness | 37 |
| 4 | Science and the human animal | 51 |
| 5 | Cybernetics and a post-human future | 66 |
| 6 | Psychiatry and schizophrenia | 79 |
| 7 | Microbiology, viruses and their threats | 97 |
| 8 | On cancer research | 111 |
| 9 | Animal experimentation, ethics and medical research | 125 |
| 10 | Science under threat | 140 |
| 11 | Biodiversity | 155 |
| 12 | Science : its dangers and its public | 169 |
Overview
What are scientists working on today? What do they worry about? 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 and provocative questions tackled here by twelve of the world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify ...