At the Edge of Uncertainty
11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
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- €6.99
Publisher Description
The atom. The Big Bang. DNA. Natural selection. All ideas that have revolutionised science - and that were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped: here, Michael Brooks, bestselling author of 13 Things that Don't Make Sense, investigates the new wave of unexpected insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
Through eleven radical new insights, Brooks takes us to the extreme frontiers of what we understand about the world. He journeys from the observations that might rewrite our history of the universe, through the novel biology behind our will to live, and on to the physiological root of consciousness. Along the way, he examines how the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials means that many of the drugs we use are less effective on women than men and more likely to have adverse effects, explores how merging humans with other species might provide a solution to the shortage of organ donors, and finds out if there is such a thing as the will to live.
When we think about science, we often think of iron-clad facts. But today more than ever, our unshakeable truths have been shaken apart. As Michael Brooks reveals, the best science is about open-mindedness, imagination and a love of mind-boggling adventures at the edge of uncertainty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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."
