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The Future of the Brain: The Promise and Perils of Tomorrow's Neuroscience First Edition

by Steven Rose (Author)

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Brain repair, smart pills, mind-reading machines--modern neuroscience promises to soon deliver a remarkable array of wonders as well as profound insight into the nature of the brain. But these exciting new breakthroughs, warns Steven Rose, will also raise troubling questions about what it means to be human.
In The Future of the Brain, Rose explores just how far neuroscience may help us understand the human brain--including consciousness--and to what extent cutting edge technologies should have the power to mend or manipulate the mind. Rose first offers a panoramic look at what we now know about the brain, from its three-billion-year evolution, to its astonishingly rapid development in the embryo, to the miraculous process of infant development (how a brain becomes a human). More important, he shows what all this science can--and cannot--tell us about the human condition. He examines questions that still baffle scientists: if our genes are 99% identical to those of chimpanzees, if our brains are composed of identical molecules, arranged in pretty similar cellular patterns, how come we are so different? And he explores the potential threats and promises of new technologies and their ethical, legal, and social implications, wondering how far we should go in eliminating unwanted behavior or enhancing desired characteristics, focusing on the new "brain steroids" and on the use of Ritalin to control young children.
The Future of the Brain is a remarkable look at what the brain sciences are telling us about who we are and where we came from--and where we may be headed in the years ahead.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

British neuroscientist Rose, a specialist on memory and an able popular-science writer, discusses the technologies for altering the brain that are apt to appear in the next two decades. He first places the human brain in its evolutionary context, delineating the chemical/electrical action by which any cell responds to its surroundings. Scaling up to the way neurons and brains do so, Rose keeps in view significant evolutionary adaptations before turning to a detailed account of the embryonic development of the brain, and then its phenomenal growth in a child's first years. After an interlude about how the brain is prey to the insults of disease or age, the payoff of this preparation arrives for Rose's readers: a presentation of prospective psychotropic drugs, genes, and computers, which advocates (see Ramez Naam's More Than Human, p.1045) tout as boons to humanity. Rose cautions that the power to mend the mind confers the power to manipulate it, so the understanding of neuroscience he provides permits his readers to consider the implications of imminent developments. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Steven Rose is not only properly proud of the achievements of his science--neuroscience--but he reflects long and hard on the social consequences--good and bad--of those achievements. He is, in short, a neuroscientist with a conscience. This book is his survey of the future of brain research--the good, without the hype, and the possible trouble as well. A very wise and timely book. Recommended reading."--Antonio Damasio, neuroscientist and author of Looking for Spinoza, The Feeling of What Happens, and Descartes' Error

"Steven Rose clearly and elegantly shows us how little we really know about the relationship between brain structure, mind and consciousness, while warning us about future attempts to manipulate our minds by fooling with our wiring."--Richard Lewontin, evolutionary biologist, and author of Not in Our Genes, Biology as Ideology, and The Triple Helix

"Erudite but extremely readable, this book tells the story of neuroscience from its earliest days to the present, and provides a tantalizing look at what the future may hold." --Martha J. Farah, Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and Bob and Arlene Kogod Term Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania

"Steven Rose has hacked through all the hype to tell us how far science has really come in explaining the human mind, how far it will probably go in the future, and what the consequences for all of us might be. This book is not only timely and important. It is invaluable."--John Horgan, science journalist, and author of The Undiscovered Mind

"More than a century after the demise of phrenology, brain science has made many advances. Yet much of the field remains an intellectual jungle haunted by hucksters who seem indifferent to the potential misuse of neural research. Into the jungle darkness comes Steven Rose, the conscience of neuroscientists, whose clear prose guides lay readers past the hokum and toward the real potential value of brain science. The book is vital reading for lay politicians and science policymakers who, in funding brain research, often struggle to distinguish between scientific gold and iron pyrite."--Keay Davidson, author of Carl Sagan: A Life

"Rose cautions that the power to mend the mind confers the power to manipulate it, so the understanding of neuroscience he provides permits his readers to consider the implications of imminent developments."--Booklist

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 1, 2005
Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195154207
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195154207
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.1 x 1.2 x 6.4 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #1,291 in Neuropsychology (Books)
- #2,081 in Neuroscience (Books)
- #2,859 in Medical Neuropsychology

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