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In a brilliant and explosively controversial work, the author attacks modern science for destroying our spiritual sense of self.

What is the role of science in present-day society? Should we be as dazzled as we are by the innovations, the insights, and the miraculous improvements in material life that science has wrought? Or is there a darker, more pernicious side to our scientific success?

Renowned British science columnist Bryan Appleyard thoroughly explores each of these provocative topics in a book that has incited the ire of the scientific community. He points out that while scientists have shaped our lives and our beliefs, they have consistently failed to explain human consciousness, the soul, or the meaning of life. From Galileo to Darwin, from Copernicus to Oppenheimer, countless scientists have proclaimed a universe in which human beings are only an accidental presence. The unwitting result is that science has cast humankind adrift, paralyzing us with fear and cutting us off from personal or religious truth. In Appleyard's view, science has done us "appalling spiritual damage."

These startling conclusions have prompted strong counterattacks from the scientific establishment. Yet regardless of where one falls in the debate, Understanding the Present forces readers to re-examine society's blind faith in the benevolence of modern science.

"An exposition that is dazzling for its concrete illustrations and examples."-- The New York Times

"A withering indictment of modern science . . . This should crack a few test tubes."-- Kirkus Reviews

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Publishers Weekly Review

Science columnist for the Sunday Times of London, Appleyard here chronicles the history of science from moral and philosophical points of view, aiming to explicate the ``appalling spiritual damage that science has done.'' Pandering to neither neo-Luddites nor eco-reactionaries, he argues for the primacy of the human soul, recalling the spirit, if not the ontologic letter, of Teilhard de Chardin. The chapter ``The Humbling of Man''--effected by a reductionist science--begins with a discussion of the 17th-century figures Newton, Galileo and Descartes and ends by considering Freud's arguably scientific work as being both in this continuum and a way to move beyond its limitations. Appleyard sees the scientific paradigm as having developed into a psuedo-religion that is incompatible with its core human culture, both personal and social. ``Science, quietly and inexplicitly, is talking us into abandoning . . . our true selves.'' Impassioned and robust, his arguments with such humanist apologists for science as Bertrand Russell and Jacob Bronowski are consistently provocative and often persuasive. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Bryan Appleyard is a special-feature writer and columnist for the Sunday Times of London. He is the author of several books, including Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man and The Brain Is Wider Than the Sky.