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Falling for Science: Asking the Big Questions Bernard Beckett ISBN: 9781877361722 Release: 08-2007 Subject: Popular Science Format: Paperback RRP: NZ$39.99

'What is consciousness? Is evolution compatible with traditional religion? Does time exist or is it just our way of ordering experiences? Could a machine ever think? What do scientists really mean when they call something a fact?’

Modern science has unravelled the mystery of life, seen back to the dawn of time and peered down into the weird world of quantum mechanics. Small wonder then that people now look to science to answer the big metaphysical questions.

In Falling for Science Bernard Beckett shows this instinct to be misguided. According to Beckett, the modern fashion for making scientists ‘the High Priests of Everything’ is mysticism in a lab coat. Here the author argues for a new model of scepticism, one which leaves scientists and story tellers to each get on with what they’re best at.

Beckett is a powerful, persuasive communicator who writes in the contemporary vein of popular science writers like Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker and Jared Diamond. With wit and not a little irreverence, Beckett offers a history of the ideas behind recent scientific development, and introduces the reader to arguments about the nature of consciousness, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence – and more.

Brilliantly unsettling, Falling for Science is compulsively readable.

Reviewers Comments ... ‘…an enjoyable, instructive and thought-provoking read.’ - The New Zealand Herald, 2007 ‘This uncommonly well written and fascinating book will challenge the lay reader to think about some of the major concepts of science and how they developed. Dare to read it.’ - The Press, 2008