★ 02/02/2015
Brooks (Free Radicals), a consultant at New Scientist, highlights numerous areas of research that give pause to many scientists and throw lay readers into confusion in this challenging and mind-bending work. This confusion follows in no part from Brooks's skills as a writer and explicator of science, but from topics that are difficult to face, whether it be the philosophical morass of human/animal tissue combinations called "chimera" or the startling finding that time as we experience it may well be an illusion. Issues of the nature of consciousness, animal personality, and our part in the "vast computer" that is the universe fill these pages. The hard-to-grasp concept of the Big Bang may, itself, be too simplistic to explain our current universe. Even concepts that aren't intellectually challenging, like the notion that medical practice ought to differ for men and women, strain the status quo of practice. Brooks handily works his way through these thorny problems, highlighting current research and researchers along the way. His goal isn't always to make sense of things, as some scientific work has only reached the stage of pointing out the problems in previously held theories. Perhaps he sums his work up best when he writes "common sense is not a useful guide to reality." (Feb.)
At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
Narrated by Sean Runnette
Michael BrooksUnabridged — 9 hours, 12 minutes
At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
Narrated by Sean Runnette
Michael BrooksUnabridged — 9 hours, 12 minutes
Overview
The bestselling author of Free Radicals takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the most controversial areas of modern science
The atom, the big bang, DNA, natural selection-all are ideas that have revolutionized science; and all were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped in recent years, and in At the Edge of Uncertainty, bestselling author Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of radical insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
Brooks takes us to the extreme frontiers of what we understand about the world. He journeys from the observations that might rewrite our story of how the cosmos came to be, through the novel biology behind our will to live, and on to the physiological root of consciousness. Along the way, he examines how it's time to redress the gender imbalance in clinical trials, explores how merging humans with other species might provide a solution to the shortage of organ donors, and finds out whether the universe really is like a computer or if the flow of time is a mere illusion.
Editorial Reviews
"Brooks details research being conducted on the extreme frontiers of science...in this absorbing piece of reportage...scintillating... the edgy edge of scientific investigation presented with verve." —Kirkus
"Brooks highlights numerous areas of research that give pause to many scientists and throw lay readers into confusion in this challenging and mind-bending work. This confusion follows in no part from Brooks's skills as a writer and explicator of science, but from topics that are difficult to face, whether it be the philosophical morass of human/animal tissue combinations called "chimera" or the startling finding that time as we experience it may well be an illusion. Brooks handily works his way through these thorny problems, highlighting current research and researchers along the way." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Physicist and writer Michael Brooks wants readers to take a new look at things we think we already understand, and he has an engaging way of making his point...His book touches on advanced computing, essential differences between men and women, the power of the will to live, mysteries of the cosmos and more...The book can leave your brain feeling “battered and bruised,” Brooks writes. But he hopes that you, like the ever-questing scientists he applauds, will want to know more." —Washington Post
Praise for Free Radicals:
“An exuberant tour through the world of scientists behaving badly.” —The New York Times
“Fascinating . . . Free Radicals reminds readers that scientific advances sometimes require creativity and vision.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
Brooks explores the frontiers of research that are challenging or changing some of science's most basic beliefs. Sean Runnette proves an excellent choice for listeners to follow the disruptions to the fundamentals of science. With a clear and emphatic voice, he provides an aural spotlight to help listeners navigate through complex ideas such as the environmental influence on genes, the inconsistency of time, and how the universe operates as a computer. Runnette is comfortable with the material and careful with his tone; it’s clear he doesn’t want to lose listeners. His attitude seems reassuring, which is helpful for an intellectually demanding book like this. L.E. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
2014-11-20
New Statesman columnist Brooks (Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science, 2012, etc.) details research being conducted on the extreme frontiers of science."Science has been successful for the most part in explaining why things are as they are," writes the author in this absorbing piece of reportage. "But in the process they have also discovered the broad horizon of their ignorance." It is encouraging to hear that scientists continue to push the envelope of inquiry in realms that require vast background knowledge to even frame the questions that are subsequently turned on their heads. Ignorance is an invitation, Brooks suggests, or as the physicist Richard Feynman once said: "Everything we know is only some kind of approximation. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected." Brooks accessibly examines his chosen 11 skirmishes with exploratory "corrections," and he opens with a doozy: the origins and workings of human consciousness. Does it sit atop our sensory perceptions? Is awareness an illusion with no overarching narrative? Brooks proceeds to outline a theory of seeing, with all its herky-jerky gaps, that makes consciousness appear a survival tool straight out of Darwin. He provides a scintillating chapter on animal personalities that segues into animal-to-human organ transplants. He also explores epigenetics, forecasting the development of an embryo via the environment "in which [the] genes' chemical properties are operating," and he rolls out the experiments and studies that have been conducted to give the lie to the Big Bang theory, to promote examples of mind over body, or to demonstrate our ability to disconnect from time, with the aid of psilocybin. He ends with the great humbling statement: The more we learn, the more insignificant humans become, knocked off our perch of self-regard by, for instance, "godlike" subatomic particles. The edgy edge of scientific investigation presented with verve.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169663426 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 02/12/2015 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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