Lifelines: Life Beyond the Gene - Softcover

Rose, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099468638 ISBN 13: 9780099468639

Publisher: Vintage, 2005

Synopsis

In Lifelines, neuroscientist Steven Rose offers a theory of life that insists that we as humans - along with all living creatures - create our own futures, though in circumstances not of our own choosing. Placing the organism at the centre of life, Rose directly confronts the ideology of reductionism and ultra-Darwinism, with its headline-grabbing insistence that all aspects of human life from sexual preference to infanticide, political orientation to violence, make domination to alcoholism, are in our genes and are the inevitable consequence of natural selection. Rose asserts that such claims are not merely socially naive, but fundamentally misunderstand the active and irreducible nature of living processes.

About this title

Review:

"In the current intellectual and political climate, there is a desperate need to return to the real biology of real organisms, including human beings, in a real world. For the general reader wanting to know how this might be done, there can be no better guide than Rose's book" (New Scientist)

"Written with admirable clarity and force... I can't imagine anyone who wanted enlightenment coming away from this book empty-handed" (Spectator)

"Essential reading for anyone interested in biology and evolution" (Times Higher Education Supplement)

"There is no denying his skill as a writer...a flowing, elegant scientific treatise" (Observer)

Book Description:

'Rose eloquently achieves his aim of reintroducing a philosophy to biology' Sunday Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0099468638
• ISBN 13: 9780099468639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352