Synopses & Reviews
In this book readers will travel to the outer extremities of experimental science to contemplate the unhallowed arts of re-animation, genetic engineering, galvanism, time travel, mind control, and psychadelic drugs. Center stage are the extreme scientists who challenged everything—nature, morality, the government, the law and sometimes even their own bodies—in pursuit of knowledge.
Can you extract a man's soul from his body? Can you transplant a human head from one neck to another? What happens if you take LSD every day for 11 weeks? Can humans converse wtih dolphins? Can we travel through time? At some point, scientists have actively sought the answers to all these questions, but society often asks just one in reply: Just because you can do something, does that mean you should?
Extreme Science lifts the dustsheets off the past to explore the lives of people who pushed every possible boundary to get to the truth. Readers might find the content disturbing. However, all these bizarre experiments, and the scientists who performed them, have had a significant impact on the world in which we live. Not only that, but many have helped to shape the world we will be living in tomorrow.
Synopsis
Extreme Science takes an in-depth look at the lives of people who have crossed boundaries in search of knowledge, often going beyond what’s considered right, sensible or even sane in the pursuit of an idea.
About the Author
Charlotte Montague is a freelance writer who specializes in general history. After gaining an M.A. degree in Cultural History from Sussex University, she began writing on a variety of subjects including ethnic cultures, travel, and music. More recently, she has developed a keen interest in the history of science and surgery. Her current research has taken her to many parts of the globe, including Africa and the Far East. She travels for most of the year, but returns frequently to her home, a remote eighteenth-century cottage on the Cornish coast.