"A smart, engrossing tale that entertainingly uses science" (Kirkus Reviews): Juan may have found a cure for cancer. But as FBI forensic analyst Nate breaks down a baffling case, it becomes clear that Juan's algorithm has fallen into the wrong hands...

Darwin's discovery of evolution is as celebrated as Galileo's laws of motion or Newton's discovery of gravity. But this was only half the story. Not content to prove that evolution had happened, Darwin sought to convey its full humbling implications. Thus he formulated the theory of natural selection. Contrary to popular belief, this theory ran exactly counter to scientific reason and was consequently rejected by the scientific community of the time. This wasn’t the only reason Darwin’s critics recoiled. His theory robbed the ruling orders of any easy recourse to consolatory tales of nature’s harmony and design. The fate of his ideas, for the time being at least, would be left to the heretics he inspired in other domains. Darwin's radical thought anticipated Nietzsche's Godless philosophy, Marx's class-based economics and Freud's psychological theories of the unconscious. It would take a further 80 years for Darwinism to become accepted as mainstream science, but it came at the expense of its counter-scientific core. For the remainder of the twentieth century a popularized Darwinism would become the touchstone for backlash movements in philosophy, economics and psychology—disciplines he once so radicalized. This is the story of how the most revolutionary idea of the nineteenth century became the most reactionary idea of the twentieth.

In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet," focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

James yearned to weave science and religion into a popular philosophy useful for the everyday life of everyday people of faith. He saw that many of them were defenseless in an increasingly agnostic, even atheistic culture. "Thousands of innocent magazine readers lie paralyzed and terrified in the network of shallow negations which the leaders of opinion have thrown over their souls," he wrote in 1882. To which he added, "If I, . . . like the mouse in the fable, have gnawed a few of the strings of the sophistical net that has been binding down [the human heart's] lion strength, I shall be more than rewarded for my pains." Were he to return, he would surely be even more unhappy with the leaders of opinion, but also with the responses of people of faith, who either seek refuge in untenable fundamentalist reliance on religious scriptures or else view science and religion as two wholly separate, independent spheres of knowledge. Building on three previous books about Jamess philosophy, as well as on three books about related topics, the present text will explain why no one professing to do science in this third millennium can ignore the psychology behind all discoveries.

Darwin has long been hailed as forefather to behavioural science, especially nowadays, with the growing popularity of evolutionary psychologies. Yet, until now, his contribution to the field of psychology has been somewhat understated. This is the first book ever to examine the riches of what Darwin himself wrote about psychological matters. It unearths a Darwin new to contemporary science, whose first concern is the agency of organisms — from which he derives both his psychology, and his theory of evolution. A deep reading of Darwin's writings on climbing plants and babies, blushing and bower-birds, worms and facial movements, shows that, for Darwin, evolution does not explain everything about human action. Group-life and culture are also keys, whether we discuss the dynamics of conscience or the dramas of desire. Thus his treatment of facial actions sets out from the anatomy and physiology of human facial movements, and shows how these gain meanings through their recognition by others. A discussion of blushing extends his theory to the way reading others' expressions rebounds on ourselves — I care about how I think you read me. This dynamic proves central to how Darwin understands sexual desire, the production of conscience and of social standards through group dynamics, and the role of culture in human agency. Presenting a new Darwin to science, and showing how widely Darwin's understanding of evolution and agency has been misunderstood and misrepresented in biology and the social sciences, this important new book lights a new way forward for those who want to build psychology on the foundation of evolutionary biology

In his second collection of works, Edward Fisher is at his rhapsodic best again, full of rhythmic surprise and lyrical freshness as he wrestles with the intermingling mysteries of love and death. Ordinary experience becomes a gateway to revelation through the miracle and adventure of the senses in a celebration of the natural world. The merry-go-round of the planet, dancing with animals, revolves in a circle of self-discovery, eternal renewal and metamorphosis. This festive air of child-like wonder and simple joy is set against the backdrop of the passing seasons and a sense of personal loss, plumbing the darker side of suffering that deepens our humanity and compassion. At once both testament and meditation, hymn and psalm, Fisher explores the universality of sacred stories, reconciling the scientific world-view with religious symbol and myth, and finding meaning in the guiding hand of love through the geography of longing and lament.

Lamarck asked himself: Why do giraffes have been taller over time? And he achieves a wrong answer also. The bad question directed him to the wrong answer.Darwin asked himself: Why do giraffes have been taller over time? And he achieve a wrong answer also. The bad question directed him to the wrong answer.I asked myself: Why all of mammals have been larger within a period of their life?Why all classes of land vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, crocodiles, birds, mammals) have been larger within a period of their life? Why all classes of vertebrate, invertebrate, arthropods and plants have been larger within a period of their life? And I found a correct answer. The right and proper question directed me to the correct answer.