Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A big-picture look at how human life emerged and evolved in the universe, incorporating the ideas of world-renowned experts from a wide range of intellectual disciplines.
Synopsis
Specialistscientific fields are developing at incredibly swift speeds, butwhat can they really tell us about how theuniverse began and how we humans evolved to play such adominant role on Earth?
John Hands sextraordinarily ambitious questis tobring together this scientific knowledge andevaluate without bias or preconceptionall the theories and evidence about the originand evolution of matter, life, consciousness, and humankind.
This astonishing bookprovidesthe mostcomprehensive account yet of current ideas such as cosmic inflation, dark energy, the selfish gene, and neurogenetic determinism. In theclearest possible prose it differentiates the firmly established fromthespeculative and examines the claims of various fields such as string theory to approach a unified theory of everything. In doing so it challenges the orthodox consensus in those branches of cosmology, biology, and neuroscience that have ossified into dogma.
Its striking analysis revealsunderlying patterns of cooperation, complexification, and convergence thatleadto the unique emergence in humans of a self-reflective consciousness thatenablesus to determine our future evolution.
Thisgroundbreaking book is destined to become a classic of scientific thinking.
(67 black and white illustrations)
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About the Author
John Hands has devoted the last ten years to evaluating scientific theories about the origins of the cosmos, life, and humanity. He graduated in chemistry from the University of London, the first undergraduate President of the Union. After a spell as the founding Director of the UK Government's Co-operative Housing Agency, he has tutored in both physics and management studies for the Open University.