Medawar on anything means genuine profundity, elegance and above all, joy.
Roy Herbert, New Scientist
Sir Peter Medawar was not only a Nobel prize-winning immunologist but also a wonderful writer about science and scientists. Described by the Washington Post as a `genuinely brilliant popularizer' of science, his essays are remarkable for their clarity and wit. This entertaining selection presents the very best of his writing with a new Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould, one of his greatest admirers.
The wide range of subjects include Howard Florey and penicillin, J. B. S. Haldane, whom he describes as a `with-knobs-on variant of us all', and, in the title essay, scientific fraud involving laboratory mice. There is Medawar's defence of James Watson against the storm of criticism that greeted the publication of The Double Helix. A merciless debunker of myths, he reveals the nonsense to be discovered in psychoanalytic interpretations of Darwin's illness and launches devastating attacks on Arthur Koestler, IQ psychologists, and, most notably, Teilhard de Chardin. He raises questions about the nature of scientific endeavour - he famously defined science as the art of the soluble - and a common theme is his desire to communicate the importance of science to the widest possible audience.
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This selection presents the best of the popular science writing of Sir Peter Medawar. He was not only a prize-winning immunologist, but also a noted writer about science and scientists.
`Medawar on anything means genuine profundity, elegance and above all, joy.'
Roy Herbert, New Scientist
`Peter Medawar, Nobel Laureate, wrote clearly for general audiences and it is a pleasure to reread some of his essays and book reviews. I enjoyed this book.'
H.V. Wyatt, Journal of Biological Education (1997) 31 (3)
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* A new selection of the very best of Peter Medawar's writings
Sir Peter Medawar, OM, 1915-87, was born in Rio de Janeiro and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He began research in H. W. Florey's department at Oxford in the early days of the development of penicillin. After professorships at Birmingham and University College London, he became Director of the National Institute for Medical Research. His scientific reputation is based mainly on his research in immunology, which helped make transplant surgery possible. In
1960 he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on tissue transplantation. Elected to the Royal Society at the age of 34, he was also a Fellow of the British Academy - a rare honour for a scientist.
Sir Peter wrote a number of books for a general audience, including Pluto's Republic (1982), The Limits of Science (1985), and Aristotle to Zoos (1983, with Jean Medawar). A further collection of his essays, The Threat and the Glory (1990), was published after his death.
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* A new selection of the very best of Peter Medawar's writings
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780192861931
Publisert
1996
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Vekt
280 gr
Høyde
197 mm
Bredde
129 mm
Dybde
17 mm
Aldersnivå
UU, G, 05, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
256
Forfatter
Foreword by