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Title: The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought by Gary Marcus ISBN: 0-465-04405-0 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 December, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Current and well written if not especially new.
Comment: Although I found The Birth of the Mind by Gary Marcus to be a very well written book, I don't think that the author has added anything significantly new. Anyone who has read Penrose, Pinker or Dawkins is pretty much aware of the theory of mind as emergent property of brain function. Anyone who has kept abreast of research in genetics is aware that most of what we are as biological beings is dictated by our DNA. That the brain and the mind are part of that is hardly a surprise either. Of Dr. Marcus's illustrations of physical and cognitive dysfunction drawn from neurology and neurophysiology, few were new and most have been discussed in far greater detail in other volumes, the best known probably being Oliver Sac's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
What the author does do is put all of the most recent work together in a very cogent and readable manner for the average reader on the subject. His friendly, chatty writing style makes the subject very accessible. A youthful Associate Professor in the department of psychology at NYU, with a primary research focus in the brain and the mind in cognitive psychology, he is well placed to pull recent and germane literature together. For anyone who has read very little about the topic but who wishes to get a well rounded idea of the subject, this is a good place to start. It's current and well written even if the conclusions are not especially new.
For THOSE WRITING TERM PAPERS in psychology, history of science,or philosophy, this book might provide you with a large, very current collection of sources from which to begin your own literature search. Most of them come from 1995-2002. Among the list of periodicals are journals like the American Journal of Human Genetics, Brain Research, Cognition, Journal of Comparative Neurology, Journal of Neurobiological Science, Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, and Science. Some of these, like Science and Nature, will be readily available in most college libraries and even some local public libraries, while others will only be available at large university, especially those associated with medical schools.
Rating: 5
Summary: From the cover: Chomsky, Pinker, Gardner and more...
Comment: "Expert and lucid ... carries the reader to the edge of current knowledge in areas of great fascination and promise."
- Noam Chomsky
"In this crystal-clear and entertaining book, Marcus offers new ideas for how to integrate what we know about the thinking, talking person. [His] brilliantly original book is a contribution both to popularizing science and to science itself."
- Steven Pinker
"This is without doubt the clearest account of the relationship between genes and environment that I have ever read. Marcus has digested an enormous amount of information from very diverse fields and integrated it into a smooth-flowing, user-friendly whole."
- Derek Bickerton, author of Language and Human Behavior
"The Birth of the Mind is fast, accurate, and informative-an excellent overview of new ideas and research. Gary Marcus will light all eight of your brain's lobes!"
- Greg Bear, author of Darwin's Children
"Engaging and clear... covers a truly amazing range."
- Richard C. Atkinson, past President, University of California
"Gary Marcus has written the real deal. This book is smart, tough, and insightful."
- Michael S. Gazzaniga, author of Nature's Mind
"If you've ever wondered about the space between genes and the mind, here's the book that connects the dots. Marcus's book is clear, fascinating, and up-to-date."
- Howard Gardner, author of Frames of Mind
Rating: 5
Summary: Clearest account of the nature vs. nurture debate.
Comment: I very much enjoyed and learned from this new and innovative book, Birth of the Mind by Dr. Gary Marcus. Still, before I could write my own review I came across a professional review in one of Britain's most distinguished journals, Nature Neuroscience. I present it instead:
"About half of the estimated 30,000-odd genes in the human genome are expressed in the brain. Among these genes is hidden the explanation for our unique human cognitive abilities, and for many of the differences between individual people. Developmental neurobiology is the essential bridge for connecting genome to behavior, but despite its obvious importance, there has not yet been a popular book devoted to this subject.
"The Birth of the Mind is an ambitious attempt to fill this gap. The author, Gary Marcus, is a cognitive scientist, but he has learned a lot about developmental neurobiology and has written a concise and very readable introduction to the field. By drawing on related disciplines such as genetics, cognitive science and evolution, he provides an overview of how the interaction between genome and environment gives rise to the human brain and by extension the human mind.
"Marcus gives as clear an account as I have ever seen of the nature versus nurture 'debate' In fact, most biologists no longer regard this as a debate (genes and environment are both important), and the fact that it is still perceived as such by the public may reflect the lack of clear popular account, which this book now provides.
"He also dispels a more recent myth, namely that there is a gene shortage that precludes genes from encoding complex behaviors. It is admittedly surprising that we have only 30,000 genes but 100 billion neurons, particularly given that the nematode C. elegans has nearly as many genes yet only 302 neurons. But as Marcus makes clear, genes are complex individually and give rise to even greater complexity by acting in combination; moreover, the truth is that we have no basis for surprise, absent a theory to explain how many genes are needed for a given degree of biological complexity"
"Einstein famously advised that everything should be made as simple as
possible, but no simpler. Marcus takes this to heart, and his book contains
many simplifications but few misrepresentations.
"... enjoyable to read [and written] with a light touch .... I have no
hesitation recommending it to students, scientists from other disciplines, or lay readers wanting to learn something about this fascinating and fast-developing field."
[Nature Neuroscience, April 2004, at p. 117, by Charles Jennings, Executive
Editor of the Nature Research Journals.]
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Title: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life by Steven Johnson ISBN: 0743241657 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--And How It Changed the World by Carl Zimmer ISBN: 0743230388 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach by Christof Koch ISBN: 0974707708 Publisher: Roberts and Co. Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science by Gary F. Marcus ISBN: 0262632683 Publisher: Bradford Book Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness by Gerald M. Edelman ISBN: 0300102291 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 10 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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