Many others, family and friends, have been punished over the years by the obsession that inspires this book. I would also like to thank Peter Straus and Giles Gordon for their enthusiasm and support for this project. Genesis and content of this book when, in 1988, he granted me an interview as a journalist for The Sunday Times Magazine, as did his wife, Jane Hawking. Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, contributed, perhaps unwittingly, to the Michael Redhead, Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. John Polkinghorne, President of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Roger Penrose, Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Professor Brian Hartley, director of the Centre for Biotechnology at Imperial College, London. John Durant, Visiting Professor of the History and Understanding of Science at Imperial College, London. Richard Dawkins, Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Oxford. I would like to thank the following for the time they allowed me to discuss the subject matter of this book: Don Cupitt, Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge and Dean of Emmanuel College. F ern an d B rau delįrom scientific horror to the green solution It a l o CĪll history must be mobilized if one would understand the present. The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts. ISBN 1-4 Copyright © 1992 by Bryan Appleyard All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America February 1993 FIRST EDITION IN TH E U N ITED STA TES OF A M ER IC A Includes bibliographical references and index. Understanding the present : science and the soul of modem man / Bryan Appleyard. Originally published 1992 by Pan Books, Ltd., a division of Pan Macmillan Limited Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Appleyard, Bryan. 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10 10 3 Doubleday and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. S C I E N C E AND THE SOUL OF M O D E R N M A NĪ division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. In this thrilling and compelling explo ration of the human condition, Appleyard not only exposes the central role of science in shaping our lives and beliefs he ana lyzes the health fads, environmentalism, m ass com m unications, and politics of today and explains them all as the out. But he shows us more than how science has led us to the brink of disaster: he proposes the end of science's spirit-killing hegemo ny and an alternative route to the future. Well-known British science commen tator Bryan Appleyard begins with a mar velously compact o verview of science from the ancient Greeks to the "weird sci ence" of the 1990s, showing precisely how we reached our present dilemma. Though science has advanced our understanding of the universe and provid ed us with the toys and weapons of mod ern civilization, it has failed to answer the ultimate questions: Who am I? Does life have a purpose? Is there a God? What lies beyond death? By taking no account of our most fundamental needs, science devalues human experience and even threatens to destroy our inner selves. "Required reading for anyone who wants to understand fully, the meaning off the late twentieth century." X -Peter Ackroyd ’Ĭience has hoodwinked us all into believing it has the ulti mate answers, w arns Bryan Appleyard in U n d e r s t a n d i n g the P r e s e n t in reality, it is our Frankenstein monster, a creature of our own design that now threatens to destroy us.
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