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Title details for Science in the Soul by Richard Dawkins - Available

Science in the Soul

Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

by Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
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1 of 1 copy available
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The legendary biologist and bestselling author mounts a timely and passionate defense of science and clear thinking with this career-spanning collection of essays, including twenty pieces published in the United States for the first time.
For decades, Richard Dawkins has been a brilliant scientific communicator, consistently illuminating the wonders of nature and attacking faulty logic. Science in the Soul brings together forty-two essays, polemics, and paeans—all written with Dawkins’s characteristic erudition, remorseless wit, and unjaded awe of the natural world.
Though it spans three decades, this book couldn’t be more timely or more urgent. Elected officials have opened the floodgates to prejudices that have for half a century been unacceptable or at least undercover. In a passionate introduction, Dawkins calls on us to insist that reason take center stage and that gut feelings, even when they don’t represent the stirred dark waters of xenophobia, misogyny, or other blind prejudice, should stay out of the voting booth. And in the essays themselves, newly annotated by the author, he investigates a number of issues, including the importance of empirical evidence, and decries bad science, religion in the schools, and climate-change deniers.
Dawkins has equal ardor for “the sacred truth of nature” and renders here with typical virtuosity the glories and complexities of the natural world. Woven into an exploration of the vastness of geological time, for instance, is the peculiar history of the giant tortoises and the sea turtles—whose journeys between water and land tell us a deeper story about evolution. At this moment, when so many highly placed people still question the fact of evolution, Dawkins asks what Darwin would make of his own legacy—“a mixture of exhilaration and exasperation”—and celebrates science as possessing many of religion’s virtues—“explanation, consolation, and uplift”—without its detriments of superstition and prejudice.
In a world grown irrational and hostile to facts, Science in the Soul is an essential collection by an indispensable author.
Praise for Science in the Soul
“Compelling . . . rendered in gloriously spiky and opinionated prose . . . [Dawkins is] one of the great science popularizers of the last half-century.”—The Christian Science Monitor 
“Dawkins is a ferocious polemicist, a defender of reason and enemy of superstition.”—John Horgan, Scientific American

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 8, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525495727
      • File size: 422803 KB
      • Duration: 14:40:50

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 12, 2017
      In this assemblage of assorted texts, British evolutionary biologist and polemicist Dawkins (Brief Candle in the Dark) mixes his personal delight that humans have discovered the truth about so much of nature with frustration that the rational search for truth remains a minority approach. Whether he’s administering a respectful rebuke to Prince Charles for a speech full of fashionable antiscience, praising Charles Darwin, or satirizing an article by former prime minister Tony Blair promoting his foundation aimed at encouraging religious faith, Dawkins never conceals his love of good explanations and his contempt for sloppy thinking. Unfortunately, that contempt for sloppy thinking doesn’t extend to the social realm, where Dawkins often comes across as being as confused by politics, culture, and society (for example, his failure to understand why Barack Obama might identify as black) as he is knowledgeable about genetics. Dawkins’s pedantic tone and notable blind spots notwithstanding, his writings on evolution are worth reading and make for a satisfying introduction to one of today’s most prominent scientific thinkers. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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