Paradigms Lost: Images of Man in the Mirror of Science

Casti draws the reader into current scientific controversies as he weighs the pros and cons of puzzling questions: Did life on earth arise from a ``primordial organic soup''? Can a machine ever duplicate human cognitive processes? How do children acquire the ability to speak their native language? Is there validity to sociobiologists' claims that human behavior patterns are genetically determined? Quantum physics, artificial intelligence and astronomers' search for intelligent life in the universe are among the topics explored in an engaging, elegant, personal fashion. Casti, author of Alternate Realities , spotlights the role of passion and politics in scientific debate. However, he highhandedly dismisses research into UFOs, Bigfoot (yeti) and ``even more offbeat phenomena'' as the work of pseudoscientific cranks, thus himself mirroring the attitudes of scientists whose blinkered viewpoints on other topics he so deftly exposes. BOMC and QPBC alternates. (June)