Books - (author:lewis Thomas)and(subject:biology)not(author:wolpert Or Vries Or Angier Or Martin Or Margulis)

Customer Review: Great book:
Give this book to your favorite creationist. The eloquent writing explores the connection between the spiritual and the scientific in a powerful way.

Customer Review: We all started as a cell...:
This is another book which at some point will enter our cultural canon, much like Orwell's essays or Gary Zukav's _The Dancing Wu-Li Masters_.
True, as a few critics have pointed out, for some reason an essay or two drags; it's a style thing, or perhaps a scientific term here or there. But overall, ah, the wonder...
These essays are compilations and meditations which speak to us in this day and age. In the future a lot of scientific findings will be dated, but the philosophical thoughts such scientific findings generate today will remain with us for the ages.
The insights Thomas extrapolates from biological science and specifically from cell studies are fascinating, almost religious, but not of the holy-roller variety. They tend toward the spiritual and ethical.
I am impressed with his insight that man is a mere carrier in time for cells; yet--much, much more--as man, the cell collective, has achieved--Oh, wondrous miracle! Consciousness. Cells are born, split, feed, die, and yet go on and adapt and evolve, in countless forms, species and beings. And we/they have "achieved" a biological type that composes music, writes essays, learns, remembers, creates, invents, generates human cultures/societies, and looks at the stars.
Man has such humble origins, and yet man achieves...
In a perfect world a couple of essays in this book would be required reading in high school biology or science classes.

Customer Review: Great Book:
This is a fantastic book. It requires at least a rough understanding of basic biology and an interest in cellular/microbiology. It is a bit older, but the author's grasp on the subject was quite firm. This would make a great gift to any scientist in the family.

Customer Review: Forever Young:
Lewis Thomas is that odd trifecta: a learned scientist; a speculative philosopher; and a master of prose both gracious and graceful.

The Lives of a Cell is a book of 29 essays originally written for the New England Journal of Medicine. They are short; they are light and airy; they are pretty; they are fun. Teenagers could enjoy them. But these essays are fundamentally serious and scientific. Lewis is always on the hunt for the cosmic insight or deeper truth.

His mind works metaphorically. He seeks interconnections. A recurring motif is to wonder whether social animals such as ants are like cells or more like human societies or perchance like the planet earth. Here is a celebrated quote:

"I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannot think of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking visible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern New England, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like, what is it most like? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell."

This book was a bestseller around 1975 and won the National Book Award. Everyone seemed to be reading it. I read it. I recently ordered it again because I thought it might contain a tidbit for a video I was making called How To Teach Science. No such luck, but this is a book anyone could enjoy reading twice. Most of it remains in the present. It is finally the most readable of science books. Here are two more samples:

"My cells are no longer the pure line entities I was raised with; they are ecosystems more complex than Jamaica Bay. I like to think that they work in my interest, that each breath they draw for me, but perhaps it is they who walk through the local park in the early morning, sensing my senses, listening to my music, thinking my thoughts."

"Viewed from a suitable height, the aggregating clusters of medical scientists in the bright sunlight of the boardwalk at Atlantic city, swarmed there from everywhere for the annual meetings, have the look of assemblages of social insects. There is the same vibrating, ionic movement, interrupted by the darting back and forth of jerky individuals to touch antennae and exchange small bits of information..."

For anyone thinking of writing non-fiction, this is an ultimate text book. Apparently Thomas learned his style from Montaigne. Good luck on that.

For anyone thinking of a career in science, Thomas shows the advantages of being partly a generalist, of being in your field and outside your field--the better to see some strange shadow or artifact that nobody else has noticed.

Epilogue: I ordered a used copy from an Amazon dealer in the northwest USA. Stuck in the book was an old ticket to a music concert (George Winston, solo piano; Wikipedia says he has been called The Father of New Age Music). Date of ticket: 1985. City: Norfolk, Va., where I am now. That's the sort of goofy loop that Thomas could build an essay on. What's more New Age than Amazon?

Customer Review: Whimsical and entertaining:
Lewis Thomas' essays offer the creative and whimsical perspectives of a scientist. I doubt the non-biologist would appreciate these 'notes of a biology watcher' much, but as a biologist myself, I have to say that this is one of my favorite books for light reading.

No, I don't get a great deal of new knowledge from reading Lives of a Cell, but he clearly looked at science and the world in ways that I wouldn't have thought of. I've caught myself chuckling at his wit with each and every essay - and there are quite a few in there - and I re-read them when the occasion arises (usually while passing the time during traveling).

And so, in a phrase, I'd describe this book as 'light reading and wit for biologists.' If that's what you're looking for, it's a very good book indeed.

Product Description:
Continuing the exploration of humanity and its world he began in The Lives of a Cell, the acclaimed scientist examines disease and natural death, cloning, making mistakes, and other timely topics with his trademark wonder and wit. Reprint.



Customer Review: Terrific:
This is a great book. I wish I had known about it years ago. Lewis Thomas is just a great writer, full of personality and wonder. The first thing you should read is the essay on warts. I know. Why would anyone write about warts? It's one of the finest pieces of writing I've read, and I recommend it to anyone. Uplifting, makes you proud (and humble) to be a human being.

Customer Review: The joys of imperfection:
Re-reading one of Thomas' wonderful essay collections this week reminded me of his high standing on my life-list of essayists. Both this volume and the earlier THE LIVES OF A CELL (Penguin, 1978)) are stimulating excursions into the everyday phenomena that make life what it is. Thomas' probing intellect is as likely to find delight in the play of otters as in the conjugation of paramecia. He is a cleverly cerebral cliff diver, leaping into the murk of the mundane only to come up with a shiny new coin between his teeth. For example, in the essay "To err is human," the author considers the truth embodied in the phrase, "Learn by trial and error." The ability to make mistakes is essential to progress, to invention, to creation, he posits, and it is true down to the sub-cellular level. He speculates that if modern scientists had been assigned to invent DNA, the project would have failed due to our bias toward making things work - we try to eliminate failure from a system. If DNA had always replicated perfectly the earth would still be populated by single celled organisms. A wonderful read.

Customer Review: 29 Brief Essays on Biology; Very Entertaining; Very Witty:
This is quite simply one of the best written books on biology that you'll ever read. If you are in the camp which believes that scientists use one side of their brain, and that writers use the other, be prepared for a big surprise. If you've read Bill Bryson, you may already realize that there are a gifted few who possess both talents. This is a collection of 29 very brief essays (they average only 6 pages each). Prepare to be thoroughly amazed by Dr. Lewis Thomas' descriptions of the most remarkable features of our natural world. The title story serves to illustrate his literary technique.

This essay is a mere four and a half pages. The protagonists are a sea slug and a jellyfish, which Dr. Thomas re-christens with artistic license. The lead sentence is "We've never been so self-conscious as we seem to be these days." Then follows some three pages about how lower animals (coral polyps, for example) have some, yet undiscovered method of discriminating between their own species (self) and others which may be extremely close. Then, as if to prove the general rule with a startling exception, Dr. Thomas shows how a particular medusa and snail in the Sea of Naples appear to be confused about their molecular configuration and fuse into a single organism. The jellyfish (medusa) is affixed to the mouth of the slug (snail), and when the slug produces larvae, one becomes entrapped in the tentacles of the tiny jellyfish. At first it looks like the parasite is the predator. But no. The slug larvae eats away at the jellyfish from the inside and as the jellyfish shrinks, the slug grows, until a new equilibrium is reached in adulthood. Lewis finishes by saying that this cycle is so bizarre, so thoroughly unexpected, and so confusing that "I cannot get my mind to stay still and think it through."

Now you have twenty-eight essays to go, and I assure you that your mind will not be able to stay still through any of them.

One of my favorites isn't about science at all, but about punctuation. Yes, literally, punctuation. In writing about the uses, and misuses, of parentheses, commas, semicolons, exclamation points, quote marks, and dashes, Dr. Thomas employs them in the relevant paragraph in such a way as to draw the readers' attention. Take for instance the comma:

"The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows into all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn't realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashes up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself."

If Dr. Thomas carries a dominant theme throughout the book, it is that a liberal education is critically important, even for a very dedicated scientist.


Customer Review: The humane scientist Modern Montaigne with Microscope:
Lewis Thomas' essays draw on his wide knowledge and experience as doctor and research scientist. They also draw on his humane perception , and Montaigne- like desire to think and inquire about all which is human. He can clarify the most complex issues in a few brief paragraphs. I have read much on the subject of human cloning but I do not believe I have read anything which analyzes the subject in such a clear and convincing way as Thomas in this following paragrah.

"Cloning is the most dismaying of prospects, mandating as it does the elimination of sex with only a metaphoric elimination of death as compensation. It is almost no comfort to know that one's cloned, identical surrogate lives on, especially when the living will very likely involve edging one's real, now aging self off to side, sooner or later. It is hard to imagine anything like filial affection or respect for a single, unmated nucleus: harder still to think of one's new, self- generated self anything, but an absolute, desolate orphan. Not to mentrion the complex interpersonal relationship involved in raising one's self from infancy , teaching the language, enforcing discipline, instilling good manners and the like. How would you feel if you became an incorrigible juvenile dilenquent at the age of fifty- five"

Aside from cloning Thomas writes in this collection about the symbiotic relation of medusa and snail, of the meaning of 'self' in relation to being outside, and other, about the heatlh- care system and its costs, about 'warts' about humanity as the worrying species, about the meaning of 'disease' The closing essay is a brief history of medical practice.
There are also two small but wonderful essays on Montaigne's way of thinking.
Thomas while deeply aware of humanity's capacity for grandiose error is a hope-filled and hope- giving writer. Here is the way he writes about the worrying animal, a passage which is a sample of his elegant etymologically informed prose.

"But security is the last thing we feel entitled to feel. We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing gthe future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still. We deserve a better press, in my view. We have always had a strong hunch about our origin, which does us credit; from the oldest language we know, the Indo-European tongue, we took the word for earth- Dhghem- and turned it into 'humus' and 'human' ; 'humble' too which does us more credit ; We are by all odds the most persistently and obsessively social of all species, more dependent on each other than the famous social insects, and really when you look at us, infinitely more imaginative and deft at social living. We are good at this; it is the way we have built our cultures and the literature of our civilizations. We have high expectations and set high standards for our social behavior , and when we fail at it and endanger the species- as we have done several times in this century- the strongest words we can find to condemn ourselves are the telling words 'inhuman' and' inhumane'.
There is nothing at all absurd about the human condition. We matter. It seems to me a good guess, hazarded by a good many people who have thought about it, that we may be engaged in the formation of something like a mind for the life of this planet.If this is so we are still at the most primitive stage., still fumbling with language and thinking, but infinitely capacitated for the future. It is remarkable that we've come so far as we have in so short a period , really no time at all as geologists measure time. We are the newest, the youngest and the brightest thing around."

What a wonderful hope- giving human being wrote this book.



Customer Review: Very Interesting:
Lewis Thomas takes a simple observation, like the report on pollution, and changes the reader's perception. In one of his essays, he chastises the reader on his or her selfishness with a fiery passion. Thomas convinces the reader of the ideas inferred with his scientific observations, the theme of this book being the major human fault: striving to reach perfection. The essays are short, abrupt but leave you to ponder your own interactions in life, nature.

Product Description:
The author of The Lives of a Cell and The Medusa and the Snail now raises challenging questions about some of the major issues of our time--AIDS, drug abuse, and aging. With extraordinary perception, he discusses topics such as evolutionary biology, the development of language, the therapeutic aspects of medicine, and his love for his profession.



Customer Review: A fine book for the intelligent general reader:
Lewis Thomas is a writer of great elegance and insight. In this book he returns to familiar themes, once again cautioning humanity about its place in the natural world, warning against the dangers of nuclear war, and of man's inhumanity to man. Thomas recaps the History of Medicine and tells us that for most of its history it did more damage than good. Only in the latter part of the nineteenth century did true scientific medicine begin to develop.Thomas talks about the great revolution which came with the use of anti-biotics. He catalogues a whole list of major discoveries and developments over the past one- hundred and fifty years. Thomas warns us here too however of being overwhelmed by our own pride in accomplishment. He points many medical problems and puzzles which are far from being solved. But he too has an optimism, for instance regarding a single major source for Cancer, which may well prove unwarranted.
He writes about our need for humility in regard to our origins. He describes the conditions on earth when the first bacteria emerged close to around 3.7 billion years ago. He expresses optimism about the survival of humanity even though he is aware of great destructions in the past Earth has known in the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods. He basically believes in an overall evolutionary development on earth towards greater complexity and intelligence. And he seems to suggest that this is what will continue to happen despite human stupidity and greed.
He is fascinated by the intricacy of biological processes and describes many vital to our human existence.
He seems both a very clear writer and a very decent human being, besides being a first- rate scientist and doctor.
This is a fine book which I believe every intelligent general reader will both enjoy and learn much from.

Customer Review: One Remarkable Man's Insights on Science and Public Health:
This book was copyrighted in 1992, a year prior to the author's death, and most of the essays in the book were written in the mid eighties. Now, some twenty-five years later it is instructive to view Lewis Thomas' observations as science history. Known for his ability to convey to a general readership the remarkable inner workings of the world of nature and its underlying scientific principles, Thomas entertains us with animated prose and brings science within our grasp. He assures us that we do not need to attend medical school or work in a research lab to be amazed by the newest discoveries in cellular biology, provided the processes are clearly explained.

Many of the discoveries in basic science which Thomas describes were made on his watch, during the fifty years which he was a practicing physician. He points out that, "It wasn't until the early 20th century that anything approaching rational therapy emerged for human disease." Prior to that, physicians were ridiculed, as for instance personal injury lawyers are in this age, and for much the same reason.

But some of Thomas' observations have not worn well with the passage of time. His alarmism about the AIDS pandemic sounds anachronistic, since the virus didn't jump to the non drug using, heterosexual population, at least in America and Western Europe, as he feared. Nor did the general public share his pathos over the imminent deaths of large numbers of drug users and gay men. Thomas also agonizes over the unequal distribution of wealth in the world and the consequent unequal distribution of health, without once suggesting that birth control might provide a cornerstone of public policy. He decries the nation-state as "inherently instable," and a deleterious force in human history, but fails to note that one particular nation-state, America, earns nearly three quarters of the Nobel prizes in science, which should show that some nation-states are not as harmful as others. Nor, with twenty-twenty hindsight, should we be surprised that Thomas did not foresee that the greatest threat to human civilization would come from a non-state player, namely Islamic jihad.

Of course most of Thomas' observations have proven correct. He correctly predicted the likely success of recombinant DNA in increasing the resistance of crops to disease, except for in Europe, which to this day rejects the underlying science as just so much American cultural imperialism. And there are the quintessentially Thomasian observations such as how the ultrasound chirps of bats send crickets into chaotic and evasive flight patterns, though the crickets themselves do not appreciate the principles of bat echolocation. It works for them and the gene survives, mostly.

But Thomas' most stunning perception, of an increasing distrust and even hostility to science, has blossomed into fruition in the present era. He anticipated presciently, "an anxiety to replace science with magic." He says, "anti-science is reaching the status of a philosophy in the public mind." He was absolutely right. Go ahead and Google the phrase, "what doctors don't want you to know," and see how many hits you get. Look at the resistance to bioengineering. And at the proliferation of alternative medicine, junk science, and the resurgence of homeopathy and dietary supplements, and you can only imagine Thomas' dismay about his future, our present. It makes you appreciate his writing all the more. Books such as Thomas', and there are very few, directed at the general reader and requiring very little by way of prerequisite scientific learning, enlighten the enquiring mind and strike incrementally at the cult of anti-science.


Customer Review: required reading that you'll also enjoy:
This is a great book, written by the late Lewis Thomas, who cared deeply about living things on this planet and their future. It's beautifully written, and I found practically every sentence a pleasure to read. I may be a touch biased, however, due to my fascination with biology. In a sense, the book is centered around the author's expertise in basic biology, and topics such as the threat of large scale nuclear war extend from this knowledge base. Fifteen years after its publication the book is not dated at all, as its message that humans must behave more prudently and compassionately, toward one another and toward the earth itself, to avoid extinction, is obviously still very much relevant today. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

Customer Review: Excellent material but some is a retread:
In my opinion, Lewis Thomas is the best there is at describing the wonder and beauty of biology. His first book, "The Lives of a Cell" , set the standard against which all other popular writers in biology should be measured. The elegant simplicity of his descriptions of how organisms interact remain as interesting and valid today as when "Lives .. " was first published in 1974. I recently re-read it and found it just as interesting now as I did the first time.
That description also holds for this book, with Thomas once again waxing eloquent, particularly about the absurdity of "limited" nuclear war. His story about the development of Hawaiian Creole is also particularly thought-provoking. The islands were opened up for sugar plantations after 1880 and there was an enormous influx of laborers from many different language backgrounds. They came from China, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico and the United States and none of these groups could understand any of the others. However, a pidgin language rapidly developed among the children of all groups. This hybrid language was almost completely unintelligible to the adults. Thomas uses this to argue his point that language originated among the children of early humans. The point is highly plausible, as only the minds of children seem to possess the necessary malleability to learn languages quickly.
While I found the book interesting, it is not the page-turning classic that "Lives . . " is. The problem is that so much of this material already appeared in that book. This is unfortunate, for when Thomas is original he is so engaging a writer. Given the ongoing advances in biology, there certainly is no lack of material to write about.

Customer Review: Amazingly readable!:
Thomas's collection of essays on life, the universe and pretty darn much everything is suprisingly readable. He puts his theories into poetic prose and makes valid scientific points available in laymen's terms. More than a scientific paper, though, this is a deep peice of philosophy and offers much insight to the human soul. Definately worth reading!

Customer Review: Thought-provoking essays:
This is an interesting collection of essays. Some are relevant and thought-provoking for today. Others were a bit dated and too focused on the build-up of nuclear weapons. The author's voice is down to earth and approachable, yet authoritative and experienced.

Customer Review: Provocative Essays and Social Comment on Science and Humanities:
The twenty-four, short essays in Late Night Thoughts On Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony remain surprisingly fresh and fascinating today. While many focus on new discoveries in biology, medicine, and physics, Lewis Thomas also offers a sobering look at the dark side of modern technology. The title essay (the last one in this collection) is particularly haunting.

I almost set this book aside after reading The Unforgettable Fire, the first essay in this collection. Thomas Lewis had awakened in me uncomfortable memories of a distant past. Among my first lessons in kindergarten was to move quickly to the basement when the alarms rang, to crouch down, and to cover my neck with my hands. Along with many others of my generation, I came to accept that nuclear war was virtually inevitable.

Lewis Thomas balances the more serious essays with others characterized by enthusiasm, wonder and excitement for the world about us. His observations are often surprising, and nearly always provocative. Admittedly, a few essays are becoming dated, but this collection is still quite interesting. A few examples include:

The Lie Detector: our physiological response to telling a lie - even when we do it for protection or personal advantage - is sufficiently stressful to be detectable, suggesting that there is at least some physiological compulsion for humans to be honest.

On Speaking of Speaking: Children not only learn languages much more readily than adults, but they seem also to play a key role in shaping and restructuring language, especially in a mixed language setting. Perhaps that period called childhood is ultimately the source of the thousands of languages and dialects that characterize human societies.

On Smell: The short-lived olfactory receptor cells are themselves proper brain cells although not residing in the brain. The storage of olfactory memories remains a mystery.

On the Need for Asylums: A society can be judged by how it treats its most disadvantaged, its least beloved, its mad. We must be judged a poor lot for closing institutions and turning mentally ill inmates onto the streets.

The Problem of Dementia: Lewis asks not only for more funding, but for a qualitatively different approach, one that funds long term studies, freeing researchers from the need to continuously publish results.

Trained at Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, Lewis Thomas held positions at the University of Minnesota Medical School, New York University-Bellevue Medical Center, and Yale University Medical School. Subsequently, he became president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He began publishing essays in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1971; nearly all of the essays in this collection were originally published in Discover Magazine.

Customer Review: Essays on humankind's accomplishments--and its dementia:
The title of this collection alone conjures up a pipe-smoking, fireside dilettante charming his friends with eclectic observations on random but serious subjects. Take away the pipe and the Renaissance man you've envisioned would indeed look a lot like Lewis Thomas, who wrote dozens of breezy, perceptive, witty essays on subjects as varied as the seven wonders of the modern world, the evolution of language, incidents of fraud in science, the faculty of smell, and the onerousness of politics.

Most of these essays appeared in Discover magazine in the early 1980s, and although Thomas introduces current events into his discussions, his subjects are timeless. A notable preoccupation, however, is with the nuclear threat and the irrational thinking that fueled the arms race and, more troubling, the planning for tactical nuclear warfare. Although the Cold War has passed and the threat has greatly diminished (but not vanished), the essays on this subject serve both as reminders that the challenges we currently face (terrorism, global warming, sectarianism) are hardly unprecedented in their peril and as investigations into the madness and stupidity that fear alone can unleash.

The fact that military strategists were (and are) actually planning scenarios for a limited nuclear war can, upon rational reflection, only shock and dismay. While enumerating some of the impressive (if time-consuming and expensive) advances in surgery and therapy, for example, Thomas reminds us, "There exists no medical technology that can cope with the certain outcome of just one small, neat, so-called tactical bomb exploded over a battlefield. . . . If you go ahead with this business, the casualties you will instantly produce are beyond the reach of any health-care system." All the emergency drills, the plans for evacuations, and the crisis management training are for naught. The certain horrific outcome of such "strategies" is why medical professionals like Thomas wouldn't--and won't--have anything to do with their planning ("count us out")--not because they are pacifists, but because they are realists. Lewis Thomas listens to Mahler and begs his readers for reason.

Customer Review: What a pleasure:
It is simply a great pleasure to read the essays of Lewis Thomas. His intelligence, his balance, his sense of wonder, his great knowledge his humility and sense of human values , his masterly and often poetic writing ability make each of the essays an adventure of discovery and delight.
In the opening essay he considers the horrifying consequences of nuclear war, and argues urgently that Mankind must cease being its own worse enemy, and threatening itself in a way no natural phenomenom could.
In many of the other essays he argues for the centrality of the human, and the terrestial. In surveying the cosmos he wonders at the remarkable beauty and singularity, the intricate complexity of the Earth.
He writes about the sense of smell, and wonders how it is we do not have the power to reimagine what we smell the way we can reimagine and recreate what we see and hear.He returns in his essays 'Things Unflattened by Science to the subject of his first and perhaps most well- known work 'The Living Cell'.
Here is a description of the evolution of the cell, a description which provides a sample of his own exceptionally clear and vivid style.
"The oxygen in today's atmosphere is almost entirely the result of phosynthetic living, which had its start with the appearance of blue- green algae among the micro-organisms. It was very likely that this first step -or evolutionary jump- that led to the subsequent differntiation into eukaryotic , nucleated cell, and there is almost no doubt that these new cells were pieced together by the symbiotic joining up of prokaryote. The chloroplasts in today's green plants, which capitalize on the sun's energy to produce the oxygen in our atmosphere, arethe lineal descendants of ancient blue- green algae. The mitochondria in all our cells, which utilize the oxygen for securing energyfrom plant food, are the progeny of ancient oxidative bacteria. Collectively, we are still, in a fundamental sense, a tissue of microbial organisms living off the sun, decorated and ornamented these days by the elaborate architectural structures that the molecules have constructed for their living quarters, including seagrass, foxes and of course ourselves. '

Customer Review: A Winner:
If you are looking for a short, exquisite book about humanity and life and science (and the connection among all three) look no further. Lewis Thomas gives just the right touch, always keeping the writing at the educated layman's level.

Starting with an outdated plea for peace (the USSR was still semi-viable at this time) he touches on human senses - sight, smell, hearing, touch, language - and inserts a brilliant little chapter on his own Seven Modern Wonders. Essays on altruism, music in all its splendored forms and the brain follow. The last chapter is a requiem for life and the loss of life.

Product Description:
In this series of 15 essays, which won the Letterstedt Prize, Sweden's equivalent of the Pulitzer, distinguished cell biologist George Klein shares his considerable insights on science and on human nature. Organized loosely as "The Wisdom and Folly of Scientists," "Journeys," "Viruses and Cancer," and "La Condition Humaine," the essays range from lucid explanations of biological and genetic processes to personal remembrances and studies of famous scientists to discussions of the complicity of science and medicine in the Nazi extermination camps.



Customer Review: Holy Atheist:
This is one of those books that I remember by where I read it as much as by what I read in it. A treacherous winter flight between Ottawa and Halifax complete with a skid upon landing and beside me an Anglican minister somewhat fixated upon the title. Now the contents, written by a `spiritual atheist' who has served the planet in his attempt at saving those imperilled by cancer, will be of interest to anyone who values life and humour. I have since read everything he has written for the layman and have wondered about the `Advances in Cancer Research Vol.#' works though I know he must contribute to those differently. _Pieta_ is, perhaps, its equal. Hopefully others may discover this writer, as I was lucky enough to have done.

Customer Review: Critique of REASON:
This book takes you throug the depths of reasoning from different angles viz. science, philosophy, spirituality, humanity and more. And the ultimate aim: how ther are just different parts of the same string. Must read !!

Customer Review: A Personal Journey:
With this debut collection of essays, George Klein, Holocaustsurvivor and one of the world's foremost cancer researchers has joinedthe growing list of scientists willing to share their experiences in science with the general reading public. By all accounts, this is an impressive start. The essays range in content from personal anecdotes about science and scientists, travelogues, discussions on virology, genetics and cancer, misuses of science in Nazi extermination camps to reflections on death, religion and ethics. His writing is simple, unpretentious, original and a delight to read. If this gem of a collection is any indication of things to come, we are in for many such treats in the future. Read it, enjoy it, treasure it, this book is a memorable reading experience.

Not since I read Sir Peter Medawar's essays on science and scientists have I encountered such clarity in language and thought and a commitment to portray science as it is really practiced, subject to the same motivations and biases as any other human endeavor. The first section of the book, "The Wisdom and Folly of Scientists" deals with such issues. The tempo and style of Klein's writing is defined early in the book in the essay "The Emperor's New Clothes" (my favorite in this collection). In this story he explains the phenomenon of scientific "conformism", the tendency of scientists to accept or reject a new finding without critical thinking, and how this may hinder or even damage scientific research.

In the essay "Are Scientists Creative" Klein uses the biologist Sol Speigelmann's dilemma, Is my work worth anything? (Something that many scientists must have agonized over at some point) to explore the nature of scientific creativity and to contrast it with the artistic temperament.

In "Ultima Thule" he talks to the German geneticist Benno-Muller Hill about the ugly history of the eugenics movement and its culmination in the mass murder of Jews. How could this have happened? How could respectable scientists commit such unspeakable misuses of science? Were they all psychopaths? Klein discovers some surprising answers. One would have thought that after the excesses of the Second World War and our current understanding of genetics, the theory of genetic inequality would have been finally put to rest. Instead, this distasteful topic keeps surfacing every now and then. H.J Muller's 'genetic deterioration' hypothesis, our attitudes towards AIDS patients and Singapore's "race improvement" program through preferential matrimony are recent examples of such misguided thinking. Will we ever shake ourselves free of these prejudices? Klein offers no easy answers, just a warning to keep vigil.

In the section Viruses and Cancer, Klein displays his abilities to explain the difficult concepts of virology, genetics and cell biology in uncomplicated and understandable language. The essay "The Tale of the Great Cuckoo Egg" is particularly fascinating. It traces the history of cancer research, from the early days when all cancer was thought to be of viral origin to its present state of understanding. The story beautifully illustrates how 'pet theories', coincidences and pure dumb luck all played their part in some of the most important discoveries of 20th century biology, finally leading to the discovery of oncogenes, the growth regulatoy genes of the cell.

La Condition Humaine, the final section, is also the most philosophical, as Klein reflects on our will to live, our sexuality, attitudes towards death and dying and religion. 'Eternal Printemps' begins with some entertaining examples of our attitudes towards sex. Klein uses quite a few examples, from classical music to the sexual mores in Sweden, the Masai and the orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem to summarize his 'kaleidoscope of sexuality'. A section on sex as a genetic process and how it evolved as the dominant mode of reproduction in the eukaryotes, puts the preceding discussion on human sexuality in a more sobering perspective.

The last chapter 'The Atheist and the Holy City' set in Jerusalem, is his most personal writing. Here, George Klein, scientist, humanist, philosopher, attempts to reconcile his atheist beliefs in a city steeped in religion. No one can convince him of the existence of God. The scars of Auschwitz are too deep to heal. What has this century taught us? Where is mankind heading? Like Peter Medawar, Klein also believes that this century has been what it is because of science, and this conviction resonates throughout his writings.

In the end, this book is George Klein's personal journey, undertaken to make sense of some of humanities most basic constructs; religion, sexuality, ethics and morality, how they conflict with, and are sometimes better understood within the framework of modern biological thought. I suppose, anyone who has lived the life he has, will finally have something to say. As he admits in the preface," the words have welled up in me. I needed only step aside and watch them flow". Indeed they flow, in a calm, soothing, passionate and gently persuasive manner. We need to just immerse ourselves in them to experience the mind of an extraordinary scientist.

Customer Review: All could be positive:
You may read it, put it away and forget about it, but you may consider to read it again and again and again. If you try to live your life by the easy principles pointed out it this book, positive things WILL happen to you!!!

It's a basic pep-talk on a slightly higher level and very well written. This book can change your life completely (if you allow yourself the benefits of life) Nothing is "hocus spocus" here, neighter it will keep on forcing you to listen to the "biblical truths".

I say: If you have a little bit common sense and like to change your life for the better, this is THE book to own.

Product Description:
Boxed set of 2 PB books -- The Lives of a Cell (0670434426) of 1974 & The Medusa and the Snail (0670465682)of 1979, both the philosophical observations of a biologist about life. Box with own design & illustration different from book covers.

Customer Review: This book will make you think.:
This is one of the most thought-provoking and eloquent books about science that I have ever read. Thomas has produced 24 essays defining what it means to be human. Through his fascination with the world, he raises a multitude of questions and points out existing uncertainties. He makes it strikingly clear that the human race has a really long way to go in order to solve the puzzles of this world. He demands solutions and answers; is there some genetic reason for the rituals that occur in nature, such as insects laying their eggs on the branches of specific trees, and then pruning these branches, thus extending the life of the trees and keeping the symbiosis in this world going from generation to generation? What is the explanation for the behavior of bees? How do you explain experiments done on people where, under hypnosis, they are told that their hands are being scalded with an iron, but in fact it is a wooden pencil, and in a short time their whole hand is red and marked? From cells to music, Thomas captures the soul of the reader and opens the door to reality with his thoughts on nature and human consciousness. This book will make you think, and the questions will linger in your mind.