Closer to Truth : Science Meaning and the Future

Explore the latest scientific research, philosophical thinking, and expressions of human creativity. Some of the world's most esteemed experts--Nobel laureates, best-selling authors, and renowned scholars--engage in spontaneous and intimate conversations that combine hard facts with an inspiring, and breathtaking, look into our future. Based on the public television program of the same name, Closer To Truth features distinguished specialists who forcefully debate provocative subjects that have broad ramifications for the population at large: Who gets to validate alternative medicine? How does basic science support national security? Can we believe in both religion and science? At the heart is the question: how will scientific advances and the philosophical issues they create affect the individual as well as humanity as a whole?

This work is essentially a series of roundtable discussions in which Kuhn (who has a doctorate in brain research but now works as an international investment banker and corporate strategists) brings together various expert figures to discuss multiple questions about the role of science in contemporary society and to consider a variety of unresolved scientific questions. For example, the opening chapter on the science of science fiction brings together prominent science fiction authors David Brin, the late Octavia Butler, and Michael Crichton and the final chapter on the relationship between science and religion brings together the editor of the Kalam newsletter on Islam and Science, a professor of Christian philosophy, and the president of the Skeptics Society. In between these, 13 other chapters examine issues such as the nature of consciousness, autism, the legitimization of alternative medicine, pharmaceutical testing controversies, the origins of order in the universe, the possibility extra-terrestrial life, the frontiers of quantum computing, and the role of basic science in national security. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)