Is Science Necessary? - Hardcover

Perutz, M. F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0712621237 ISBN 13: 9780712621236

Publisher: Barrie & Jenkins, 1989

Synopsis

This book demolishes the caricature of the scientist as a "soulless hermit toiling away at abstruse problems he cannot explain except in incomprehensible gibberish". Nobel Prize-winning chemist Max Perutz demonstrates the need for an intelligent application and understanding of science in this collection of essays that ranges from science's role in food production, health, and energy to pen portraits of Fleming, Rutherford, Plank, and Weizmann. The book should be of interest to undergraduates across all science subjects and people interested in the philosophy of science.

About this title

Synopsis

Max Perutz, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1962 has made major contributions in the field of molecular biology, and particularly on the structure and functions of proteins and nucleic acids. In this book, aimed at the general reader, he examines the role of science in society, and makes a powerful case for the essential benevolence and humanizing influence of the scientific process in its approach to the great problems of our world. He takes us into the three main areas in which science and human problems interact, the areas of food-production, health and medicine, and energy. In each case the problems we face - for example the endemic undernourishment and near-starvation throughout the third world, the unsolved problems of cancer and heart disease, the total dependence of our civilization on dwindling fossil-fuel supplies - are still, in his view, susceptible to scientific solutions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Barrie & Jenkins
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712621237
• ISBN 13: 9780712621236
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 285