CultureLab has posted brief reviews of three new science-related books.
- Curious Behavior: Yawning, laughing, hiccupping, and beyond by Robert Provine
In Curious Behavior , neuroscientist Robert Provine discusses common yet seemingly strange actions, such as crying, tickling and yawning - subjects often overlooked by science. Beyond explaining how each of these actions work anatomically, Provine explores their functions, similarities and whether they might be linked by some higher, social purpose.
The most fascinating chapters involve descriptions of what happens when these behaviours become extreme. Take the 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanganyika, now Tanzania, which affected around a thousand people over several years. Then there is the story of a woman with an itch so severe she scratched through to her brain in her sleep.
- An Epidemic of Absence: A new way of understanding allergies and autoimmune diseases by Moises Velasquez-Manoff
In An Epidemic of Absence , Velasquez-Manoff chronicles his experience with worm treatment. Eventually his allergies dwindle, fine hairs sprout and his eczema disappears. He also explores the underground community using parasites to try to treat asthma, Crohn’s disease and autism.
- Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake
With the Higgs in the bag and a NASA rover on Mars, all would seem to be tickety-boo in the house of science. But if Rupert Sheldrake is to be believed, these triumphs are merely final hurrahs. Despite all of its achievements, science - or the materialist world view that underpins it - is at crisis point.
Sheldrake’s main argument is that while materialism was once useful, it has hardened into dogmas that are holding knowledge back. If science wants to become “freer, more interesting and more fun” it needs to abandon assumptions that, for example, matter is unconscious, the laws of nature are fixed, minds are confined to brains and psychic phenomena don’t exist.