Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves
Publisher: Pantheon Books, March 17, 2009.
Edition: First
Book Condition: New
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780375421983
Describes how in the recent past science has come face-to-face with two seemingly unanswerable questions concerning the nature of genetic inheritance and the workings of the brain-- questions that suggest there is, after all, "more than we can know."
The triumph of science in explaining man’s unique place in the universe might seem almost complete. But in this lucid and compelling account, James Le Fanu describes how in the recent past science has come face-to-face with two seemingly unanswerable questions concerning the nature of genetic inheritance and the workings of the brain–questions that suggest there is, after all, “more than we can know.”
“Scientists do not ‘do’ wonder,” he writes in his introduction. “Rather . . . they have interpreted the world through the prism of supposing there is nothing in principle that cannot be accounted for.” But Le Fanu argues that there is nothing so full of wonder as life itself. Recent scientific research shows it is simply not possible to get from the monotonous sequence of genes strung along the double helix to the infinite beauty and diversity of the living world, or from the electrical activity of the brain to the richness and abundant creativity of the human mind. Le Fanu’s exploration of these mysteries, and his analysis of where they might lead us in our thinking about the nature and purpose of human existence, form the impassioned and riveting heart of Why Us?
Review
—The Sunday Times (London)
“An extraordinary work of science. . . . Quite wonderfully refreshing.”
—A. N. Wilson, Reader’s Digest (UK)
“[Le Fanu reminds us] that life is finally inexplicable, and the universe full of mysteries that are inaccessible to scientific probing. The fact that these rarely stated realities are so superbly brought to life here makes this a brave, brilliant and fascinating book.”
—The Sunday Telegraph (London)
“Excellent. . . . An important, luminously written book. . . . Carefully-documented, scrupulously fair-minded. . . . It deserves a very wide readership. . . . A careful reader, analyst, and conveyor of this body of research, and an admirer of its revelations and the ingenuity of those who have made them, LeFanu is also possessed of something even rarer than a gift for luminous explication of scientific complexity: he has what the great, polymathic thinker Blaise Pascal called 'l’esprit de finesse,' or a philosophical mind.”
—Modern Age
“James Le Fanu’s lively literary imagination makes this book such a stimulating and challenging read.”
—Literary Review (UK)
“Erudite and beautifully written. . . . Le Fanu lucidly analyses the limitations of that narrow intellectual prison in which science has languished too long.”
—The Spectator (UK)
“Le Fanu sets his stall out with admirable clarity, and not a little brio. . . . [He is] a lucid and compelling writer.”
—Evening Standard (UK)
“This challenge is so knowledgeable, so meticulously constructed that mere prejudice will not be enough to undermine this major work.”
—Catholic Herald
“A bold synthesizing polemic.”
—Standpoint Magazine
“Le Fanu eviscerates salvation by science. The Double Helix is impenetrable, the brain unfathomable, the genome overrated, the self a mystery.”
—World Magazine
“An outstandingly readable and informative book. . . . Le Fanu knows a lot but wears his erudition lightly.”
—David Klinghoffer, The Discovery Institute
About the Author
Price: $24.97