Closer To Truth

Science, Meaning, and the Future

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9780275993894
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781573567770
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

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?

Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future explores 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?

Whether the subject is the meaning of human consciousness, the ethics of testing experimental drugs on sick people, scientific thinking versus religious beliefs, or how music may help mental development, Closer To Truth uncovers exciting new lines of inquiry and offers fresh perspectives. Participants include Nobel laureates Murray Gell-Mann and David Baltimore; authors Michael Crichton, Octavia Butler, and David Brin; astrophysicists Alan Guth and Neil deGrasse Tyson; planetary scientist Bruce Murray; physicist Steven Koonin; quantum theorist Seth Lloyd; molecular biologist Lucy Shapiro; neuroscientists Nancy Andreasen, Terry Sejnowski, and Christof Koch; psychiatrist Leslie Brothers; Psychology Today's Robert Epstein; musicologists Jeanne Bamberger and Robert Freeman; ethicist Alexander Capron; skeptic Michael Shermer; theologian Nancey Murphy; and Islamic scientist Muzaffar Iqbal.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword: No End for Science Exploration
• Introduction: What is Closer To Truth?
• Chapter 1: Is Science Fiction Science?
• Chapter 2: Why is Music So Significant?
• Chapter 3: Is Consciousness an Illusion?
• Chapter 4: How Does the Autistic Brain Work?
• Chapter 5: Does Psychiatry Have a Split Personality?
• Chapter 6: Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine?
• Chapter 7: Microbes — Friend or Foe?
• Chapter 8: Testing New Drugs — Are People Guinea Pigs?
• Chapter 9: How Does Order Arise in the Universe?
• Chapter 10: How Weird is the Cosmos?
• Chapter 11: Is the Universe Full of Life?
• Chapter 12: Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap?
• Chapter 13: How Does Basic Science Support National Security?
• Chapter 14: Can Religion Withstand Technology?
• Chapter 15: Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion?
• Why Ultimate Reality Works for Us: Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations
• Glossary of Key Terms
• About the Author and Contributors
• Index