Wolpert's developmental biology textbook is evidently an excellent text in its field. The authors are all well recognized in thier research areas. The organization of the text is also very well written. The summary of the concept presented at the end of each chapter is helpful. The figures presented througout the text are clear and the language used to explain them is simple but very understandable. Compared with the well-known Gilbert's text, this text may be less in dept but you can get the concept from this book for only half of the time reading Gilbert's. It is a nice book to have both for the new beginner in the field and for just a quick reference.

@I read this book for 2 months. Chapters of regeneration is more impressive than any other chapters.Moreover, I impressed that this bppk is best for beginners and students. Composition is also excellent.

Excellent essay about the real nature of science and the fact that day-to-day common sense will never give an understanding of the nature of science.
Absolutely to the point are his analyses of science and technology (science produces ideas whereas technology results in the production of usable objects), science and philosophy (science has been immune to philosophical doubts) & science and morality (decisions are political and economic).
His viewpoint on genetic engineering is 'common sense': "... genetic engineering ... has so far damaged no one. By contrast, smoking, AIDS, drugs and alcohol have caused massive damage to children in utero." (p.168)
Particularly impressive are the chapters on 'Science and religion' (7) where the author defends secularism, and on 'Moral and Immoral Science' (8).
This book contains some very painful paragraphs on Konrad Lorenz.
A must read for everybody interested in western and scientific culture.

This book is for those who want the facts and options as related to major and bi-polar depression. It is not a "touchy-feely, sympathetic wallowing-in" of the subject, which is its appeal for me (in addition to its brevity and readability). It offers facts related to the possible mechanisms of depression and, more importantly, how these mechanisms can be changed. It is brief, but it is supplemented with plenty of citations. A good book if you don't quite have the time for "Noonday Demon" but would like to understand what depression is and, more importantly, the options for dealing with it.

Lewis Wolpert is one of Britain's leading scientists. In particular, developmental biology. His other great love and drive is to make science accessible to 'ordinary' people. This book was written to accompany a six-part TV series run on BBC TV - the first time that depression has been given so much air-time.

He brings his incisive mind to bear on the subject of depression, and describes how this truly devastating and dreadful illness slid his legs from under him. He goes on to explore the symptoms and the various treatments. Interestingly, he does not cast aspersions on psychological treatments in favour of biological variants. In fact, he is astute enough to recognise that many of the 'softer' treatment modalities can affect brain chemistry through behavioural modification. Through his great desire to pass on much of what he uncovered, he distilled the information into this book which accompanied a six part TV series produced ny the BBC.

This is NOT a morbid book. It's aim is to enlighten the sufferer (and his carer) and perhaps point them in the direction of alternative options if their recovery isn't progressing well. It is also NOT a self-help book, in a far as Wolpert doesn't tell you how to treat yourself.

A great book and a great TV series.

In a time so significantly distinguished by mass dyspepsia and personal crisis, this book is a significant contribution to better public understanding. In a country so singularly obsessed with the simple-minded solution of feeling better through pharmaceutical support by way of Prozac, Zoloft and all the whole class of new central psycho-active and regulative brain drugs of that ilk, this book shines a bright and illuminating light into the morass of serious psychiatric darkness. Indeed, what is most striking and valuable about Wolpert's approach to this massively interesting and endlessly complex issue is the fact that he makes a great effort to explain and detail exactly where the current state of knowledge is about this often baffling and extremely debilitating affliction. Depression is so widespread and so commonplace that the public knows it by a variety of everyday names such as the blues, or being "off", or just as being down.

Few of us are unaffected by its massive effects, since either we ourselves or someone we know and love is so profoundly affected by its symptoms. He threads his way knowingly through a mountain of data and scientific literature, sifting out tidbits of knowledge from to help us understand just how Depression works its evil within us. His balancing act as both an observer and a sufferer from its effects make his perceptions especially acute and valuable, as his description of what the experience itself is like is a powerful demonstration of just how disabling depression can be. I must also admit that I found his views especially interesting since I admit to a long-standing personal bias against psychiatrists and mental health care professionals based on my own adolescent and adult experiences with depression, which left me suspicious of both physicians and psychiatric professionals who often seem all too ready for simple solutions such as simply medicating the symptoms away, refusing to deal with what one believes to be the underlying causes of the malady.

Certainly Wolpert mounts a wall of impressive research findings to support his own perceptions, and his combination of such data with his own experiences sounded a responsive chord in my own admittedly limited experiences. He does not disappoint the reader in the sense that while one expects him to over-emphasize biological causes and the subsequent recourse to pharmaceutical relief, yet Wolpert (to his considerable credit) also examines and evaluates both psychological and environmental factors their due. Thus, while admitting that the current theory that serotonin plays a major role in depression is given too much credence, he also admits that he believes that pharmaceutically altering brain chemistry may offer a major possibility for relief from depression in the future.

My only qualm concerning his approach or his intellectual stance is that he seems to underplay what many believe are overwhelming indications that social and cultural factors may significantly influence the onset of depression and also often exacerbate its symptoms. In this sense the book falls short of being truly comprehensive, for without due consideration of the ways in which such social factors contribute to and foster the development and extension of depression in its members, we can never truly understand the degree to which its development is a psychiatric, as opposed to philosophical, response by increasingly vulnerable and sensitive individuals to the manifest ills of a world gone absolutely bonkers. This is a book I highly recommend.

Many will lend this book but few will get it back. It contains the heavily edited transcripts from a series of interviews conducted by Lewis Wolpert on BBC Radio 3 and it maintains the high standard set by Bryan Magee who pioneered the art of extended interviews with men of ideas on the BBC. The result is a treasure-trove of insights into the world of science at the highest level. The book itself is beautifully designed and printed.

The thirteen interviews are grouped in five sections. 'First and Last Things' introduces the theoretical physicists Abdus Salam and Michael Berry, the cosmologist Martin Rees and the mathematician Christopher Zeeman. 'Molecules of Life' offers the chemist Dorothy Hodgkin and three molecular biologists - Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner and Gunther Stent. 'Evolving Ideas' presents John Maynard Smith and Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologists. 'The Search' contains Anthony Epstein, a virologist, and the geneticist Walter Bodmer. Richard Gregory the neuropsychologist has a section to himself titled 'Cunning Mechanisms'.

The challenge for a book like this is to find people who can talk about their field in simple terms. They also need to convey some insights into the activities that are involved in their work, and the "feel" of it all. This book suceeds handsomely because all the subjects are interesting and coherent, at least in the edited form provided to us. Wolpert has done very well to draw out his subjects with the lightest of touches here and there to nudge the discussion forward.

Deep philosophical thoughts do not feature in the dialogues apart from Wolpert's occasional recourse to Kuhn's language of paradigm shifts. Despite this, useful insights abound. Martin Rees draws a contrast between his own pluralistic approach to rival theories - "running the horses against each other" to see if any fall by the wayside, and the more dogmatic approach of the "advocates" who feel obliged to defend their pet ideas against all criticisms. Richard Gregory points out that the academic battles between rival dogmatists are "very much fought by forgetting half of the counter-evidence". He prefers to maintain friendly relations with opponents, "not working in cupboards and getting amazingly aggressive about other people who think a bit differently" (page 197).

Francis Crick, as one would expect from reading The Double Helix, displays a thoroughly "Popperian" perspective - 'It's getting rid of false ideas which is the most important thing in developing the good ones...You should not get bogged down with experimental details. You should make some sort of bold assumptions, and try them out' (pp 94-5). This contrasts with the compulsive experimentalist Anthony Epstein who states 'I don't understand any of that [talk of theory]. I think just sort of messing about is the answer. You've just go to keep messing about at the bench...You make a little bit of apparatus...You see how to change this just a little bit...and you want to tinker with something'(p 165).

Only one of these scientists (Gunther Stent) has been touched by the current vogue for the "social construction of science". The others tend to think that the world is there, in all its complexity and glory, and we do the best we can to improve our understanding of it. In the words of Michael Berry 'It's very important to always realize that there are phenomena, that there is a world outside our heads that we're trying to explain. Otherwise it's a curious game, a form of self indulgence which I think is intellectually not very worthwhile' (47).

Similarly the notion of objective truth is maintained, notably by Stephen Jay Gould, who has made his mark as a leading opponent of the anti-evolutionary movement that sometimes calls itself "Creationism" or "Creation Science". Gould likes to regard himself as a "New York city street kid" and his two unfulfilled dreams are to play centre field for the Yankees baseball team, and to sing Wotan at the Met.

These scientists display few characteristics in common apart from a burning interest in their vocation and a certain amount of entrepreneurial flair in making the most of opportunities. Many of these arose from the disruption of career paths by the war. For example a bomb destroyed the laboratory where Francis Crick had been painfully making his way as an experimental physicist. Fortunately he was elsewhere doing war work on mines at the time and, after the war, he tossed up between brain research and molecular biology for a change of direction. The impact of hostilities on Abdus Salam was less spectacular but equally decisive. Born in a peasant community in Pakistan he regarded the Civil Service as the peak of achievement but the war stopped the entrance exams and he did an MA in mathematics instead. This earned him a scholarship to Cambridge which led, in turn, to the Cavendish Laboratory and eventually to a share in the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.

These talks provide a wealth of background insights into some of the most significant advances in modern science. No summary or paraphrase can do justice to the engaging personal voices which speak from it. This is a book to read with pleasure, and one to re-read, if you can get it back from the person who borrowed it.