Customer Reviews

The Noble Lie: When Scientists Give the Right Answers for the Wrong Reasons

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In The Nobel Lie, Dr. Greenberg manages the near impossible. While enteratining the reader with a humor that's both deep and dry, he probes a medical issue that gets right down to the question of what is normality and what, if anything, it's worth. The implications ripple into religion, politics, law, morality, even the nature of consciousness and existence. His interwoven threads of reasoning and observation bring together homosexuality, hallucinogens, the Unibomber, and death. What do they have in common? Well it's a little hard to explain, but Greenberg manages to do it and even makes it look easy. He doesn't exactly answer life's biggest questions, but he renders them as palatable as popcorn. This is a good book for anyone who needs something new to think about. For others, well, there's always hallucinogens and TV.

Greenberg is a find--informed, original, humane, humorous, and above all, intellectually honest. I felt only one major disagreement with his thesis: I'm not convinced that all the lies are noble.

Good stuff about the medical and science systems in life, written by a counselling professional who showed upsides as well as downsides of a host of lies we often swallow. Parts of the book even seemed theraputic. It was very funny as well as elucidating. The Noble Lie: When Scientists Give the Right Answers for the Wrong Reasons