The Life Project
The Extraordinary Story of 70,000 Ordinary Lives
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A fascinating account of a scientific project that tracked 5 generations of children—the longest-ever-running study of human development.
The lives of 70,000 people reveal the importance of our beginnings on the greater trajectory of our lives.
In March 1946, scientists began to track thousands of children born in one cold week as part of a birth cohort study. No one imagined that this would become the longest-running study of human development in the world, growing to encompass 5 generations of children. Today, they are some of the best-studied people on the planet, and the simple act of observing human life has changed the way we are born, schooled, parented, and die.
This is the tale of these studies and the remarkable discoveries that have come from them. Touching people across the globe, they are one of the world’s best-kept secrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The first book from science journalist and Nature editor Pearson brings to life a particularly ambitious series of cohort studies, which draw conclusions from bulk data on large populations. Every 12 years since 1946, scientists have chosen one week and tracked the lives of all babies born in the U.K. during that week. Information about these babies has directly affected legislation on the creation of Britain's National Health Service, education reform, and adult literacy programs. Many facts that we now consider common sense (having a baby is expensive; smoking increases the risk of lung cancer; poor children are at an educational disadvantage compared to wealthy children) were first confirmed by cohort data. Pearson gamely traces the scientists' findings while painting mostly sympathetic portraits of both researchers and subjects. Her dogged enthusiasm for her chosen topic is so unflagging that it can occasionally be grating, but her sense of compassion and wonder shines through on every page.
