Issue: Science and understanding

Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things

For centuries, the scientific question of life’s origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems.
But how life began isn’t just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe. — Amazon.co.uk

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Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society

One of the great intellectual battles of modern times is between evolution and religion. Until now, they have been considered completely irreconcilable theories of origin and existence. David Sloan Wilson’s Darwin’s Cathedral takes the radical step of joining the two, in the process proposing an evolutionary theory of religion that shakes both evolutionary biology and social theory at their foundations. — Amazon.co.uk

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The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language

The literary mind–the mind of stories and parables–is not peripheral but basic to thought. Story is the central principle of our experience and knowledge. Parable–the projection of story to give meaning to new encounters–is the indispensable tool of everyday reason. Literary thought makes everyday thought possible. This book makes the revolutionary claim that the basic issue for cognitive science is the nature of literary thinking. — Amazon.co.uk

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