Hidden Histories of ScienceRobert B. Silvers Five top writers on science have collaborated to produce this book which looks at the ways that major discoveries in biology, physics and medicine have been suppressed or misunderstood. Stephen Jay Gould gives a summary of his critique of conventional progressive pictures of evolutionary change. Richard Lewontin rejects the attempt to reduce the complexity of living things to the simplicity of physics. Oliver Sacks offers a tour of scientific roads not taken, or taken too late. Daniel Kevles recounts the strange story of resistance to the idea that viruses can cause cancer. And Jonathan Miller shows how the discredited panacea of hypnotism could have helped to reveal a non-Freudian view of the unconscious. |
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achromatopsia animal magnetism automatic behavior biologists biology biomedical Bishop and Varmus Bittner Braid brain canonical icon Carpenter cause cells cellular genes century cerebral color complex concepts cone consciousness cortex Darwin David Baltimore discovery disease Dulbecco Elliotson environment evidence evolution evolutionary example existence experience external Figuier's Figure function genetic Goethe history of science Howard Temin humanists hypnotism hypothesis iconography idea imagination invertebrates Jackson Laboratory Laycock leukemia Ludwik Gross mechanical medicine ment Mesmer mice Michael Bishop migraine mind molecular National nature neurological neurologist Newton nineteenth Nobel observations Oliver Sacks oncogenes organism patient perception phenomena phrenology physical physician physiology problem provirus Renato Dulbecco result retroviruses RNA tumor viruses Rous sarcoma virus sarc scientific scientists scotoma seemed sense sequence species spinal cord stage Stephen Jay Gould syndrome Temin theory thought tion Tourette's trances transformation Unconscious University vertebrates viral visual