"All life in all worlds" -this was the object of the author's seventeen-year quest for knowledge and discovery, culminating in this book. In a manner unmistakably his own, Murchie delves into the interconnectedness of all life on the planet and of such fields as biology, geology, sociology, mathematics, and physics. He offers us what the poet May Sarton has called "a good book to take to a desert island as sole companion, so rich is it in knowledge and insight."

Why discovering the limits to science may be the most powerful discovery of allHow much can we know about the world? In this book, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know. Gleiser shows that by aband.

A playful and diverting, yet always scientifically rigorous look at those simple mysteries that are yet to be solved Why are so many giraffes gay? Has human evolution stopped? Where did our alphabet come from? Can robots become self-aware? Can lobsters recognize other lobsters by sight? What goes on inside a black hole? Are cell phones bad for us? Why can't we remember anything from our earliest years? Full of the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything, this is a fascinating and unputdownable exploration of the limits of human knowledge of our planet, its history and culture, and the universe beyond.

John L. Casti's Paradigms Lost framed each Big Question as a mock jury trial with prosecution, defense, and verdict rendered. Now Paradigms Regained reexamines each of these questions as an appellate brief and decides whether or not the previous verdict still holds based on a decade's worth of new evidence from the scientific world's top minds. In Paradigms Regained, noted mathematician and researcher John Casti boldly tackles the Big Questions of science and sets our sights on a thrilling new millennium of discovery. Exploring the extraordinary "what ifs" of the natural world -- the origins of Life, the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, our genetic destiny, the roots of Language and Learning, the limits of knowtedge -- he debates, with penetrating insight, the diverse and competing theories that exist today. Brilliant, accessible, and totally engrossing, Paradigms Regained offers important new insight into contemporary scientific thought.

This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.

This compelling study of the origins of all that exists, including explanations of the entire material world, traces the responses of philosophers and scientists to the most elemental and haunting question of all: why is anything here—or anything anywhere? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why not nothing? It includes the thoughts of dozens of luminaries from Plato and Aristotle to Aquinas and Leibniz to modern thinkers such as physicists Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg, philosophers Robert Nozick and Derek Parfit, philosophers of religion Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, and the Dalai Lama. The first accessible volume to cover a wide range of possible reasons for the existence of all reality, from over 50 renowned thinkers, including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, and the Dalai Lama Features insights by scientists, philosophers, and theologians Includes informative and helpful editorial introductions to each section Provides a wealth of suggestions for further reading and research Presents material that is both comprehensive and comprehensible