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Carregando... Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Orderde George Johnson
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. compares/contrasts modern scientific thought to religious beliefs--not very convincing George Johnson was my group leader in a recent Santa Fe Science-Writing workshop. In several of our discussions, this book came up, so I decided to read it when I came home. Drawing inspiration from the Pueblo Indians who live near him, and from the scientists at Los Alamos and the Santa Fe Institute, Johnson weaves together a powerful story of how humans carve up the world to make sense of it. If you ever wondered if there were laws guiding the universe, or whether the order we find in it is a mere artifact of the way we have evolved, this is an immensely provocative book that considers all sides of the question. Well-written and well-reasoned, this is one of my favorite books this year.
Mr. Johnson shows admirable openness and agnosticism as he examines, chapter by chapter, a range of scientific frontiers furthest from the simple and deterministic physics and chemistry of objects operating at our scales and times. But he occasionally shows the hand of conventional bias, thus affirming by example (and perhaps unintentionally) the mental obstacles that stand against our restructuring of nature. He is particularly reluctant to view the history of life as undetermined in broad outline and not predictably driven to greater complexity (although he gives my own contrary views both a lucid explanation and a fair summary). And he honestly locates this reluctance in our social traditions and psychological preferences. He writes, "Most of us feel certain that the biological world inexorably increases in complexity." But why do you feel this way, Mr. Johnson, in a world that has been truly dominated by bacteria since life began?
Are there really laws governing the universe? Or is the order we see a mere artifact of the way evolution wired the brain? And is what we call science only a set of myths in which quarks, DNA, and information fill the role once occupied by gods? These questions lie at the heart of George Johnson's audacious exploration of the border between science and religion, cosmic accident and timeless law. Northern New Mexico is home both to the most provocative new enterprises in quantum physics, information science, and the evolution of complexity and to the cosmologies of the Tewa Indians and the Catholic Penitentes. As it draws the reader into this landscape, juxtaposing the systems of belief that have taken root there, Fire in the Mind into a gripping intellectual adventure story that compels us to ask where science ends and religion begins. "A must for all those seriously interested in the key ideas at the frontier of scientific discourse."--Paul Davies Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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