Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science Free

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Sign in with Facebook Sign in options. Join Goodreads. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Broca's Brain Quotes Showing of They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science Bozo the Clown. Can you be sure that the natives are not humoring you or pulling your leg? Bronislaw Malinowski thought he had discovered a people in Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science Trobriant Islands who had not worked out the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth. When asked how children were conceived, they supplied him with an elaborate mythic structure prominently featuring celestial intervention. Amazed, Malinowski objected that was not how it was done at all, and supplied them instead with the version so popular in the West today — including a nine-month gestation period. Her husband has been on an extended voyage to another island for two years. Prescientific people are people. Individually they are as clever as we are. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application. But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking. It would be the ultimate breach of privacy. Prejudice is the result of powerful emotions, not of sound reasoning. Such solutions require brilliant, daring and complex people. I believe that there are many more of them around—in every nation, ethnic group and degree of affluence—than we realize. But one does not live in the cradle forever. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. This is a mild but very useful sort of machine intelligence. I cannot imagine the wearer of this device resenting its intelligence. Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science by Carl Sagan

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan. Get A Copy. Mass Market Paperbackpages. Published February 12th by Ballantine Books first published April 12th More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Broca's Brainplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Apr 07, Alex rated it liked it. It's very hard to give a review and rating for the entirety of this book. From chapter to chapter it feels disjointed and varies quite a bit in both content and quality. I seem forced to review the different parts and chapters individually. The first "part" of Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science book, titled "Science and Human Concern" and encompassing the first four chapters, showcases Sagan's eloquent and brilliant writing especially well. In these chapters I learned new things and gained a new appreciation for Einstein's in It's very hard to give a review and rating for the entirety of this book. In these chapters I learned new things and gained a new appreciation for Einstein's incredible mind; One would be hard-pressed to argue the book doesn't start off strong. The next part, called "The Paradoxers", starts of well enough, explaining and refuting various pseudoscientific and paranormal beliefs. But in chapter 7 Sagan spends over 50 pages refuting the claims made in a specific book called "Worlds in Collision" written by a specific author named Velikovsky. This would be fine if I were reading Broca's brain 30 years ago when it was published, but as it is I have never heard anyone repeating the ridiculous claims spouted by Velikovsky so I wasn't very interested in their refutations. I ended up skimming through most of the chapter. This is just one of the ways the book suffers from how dated it is. After this, part two continues with a couple good chapters, the first on theological arguments and second on science fiction. The next two parts of Broca's Brain are both mostly concerned with astronomy, space exploration, and humanity's future. They continue to vary in quality from a great chapter on Robert H. Goddard's tireless work towards space exploration to a terribly boring chapter on choosing namesakes for features of other planets. The final part skeptically examines Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science and does a pretty good job until it ends with a chapter concerning hypothesis that explains religious stories and experiences in terms of subconscious memories of birth that's almost Freudian in its level of wild speculation. Broca's Brain is magnificent at times, but at times it's dense enough to make up for it, and overall it just felt too muddled for me to give it a very good rating. View 2 comments. Mar 25, Ana rated it it was amazing Shelves: me-likey-a-lota-little-historicalpage-turnernon-fictioncouldn-t- understand. View 1 comment. Oct 03, Nandakishore Varma rated it really liked it. Miscellaneous writings by Carl Sagan. Sagan is a great explainer - reading him will automatically engender a love for science! A re-read after 13 years certainly Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science worth the effort for at least a few chapters. Although a lot of information must be now updated considering this being a updated edition, this book must have been intense at that time. An entire section is dedicated to debunking "Paradoxers" which occupies more than a quarter of the book, especially on Immanuel Velikovsky's theories. Certain introductory chapters dealing with "Why Science? Other chapters that were interesting to read were related to The Solar System and the usage of Nomenclature within it; on life in our Solar System based on their atmospheres; a chapter based on the Surface and Atmosphere of Titan, the moon of Saturn; Climates of Earth and Mars; Asteroids and Meteorites; Planetary Exploration; Communication and Transportation Speeds; In defense of Robots and AI; the quest for Extraterrestrial Life; Views on God and Religion, our Galaxy and the Universe; and finally a chapter on the usage of psychedelic drugs and its usage to induce Perinatal Memories while relating it to understand the Origins and Nature of Religion and to Cosmology. If only Mr. Sagan have had lived today, I would have loved to read a revised edition of this book now after nearly four decades of its first publication in Apr 09, Hamid rated it Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science was amazing Shelves: science. Considering this book was written forty years ago, it's a masterpiece. In it, Carl Sagan covers a range of different topics. In one whole chapter, which I think is the bulk of this book, Sagan makes a critical analysis of Velikovsky's book, Worlds in Collision. Sometimes the borderline between science and pseudoscience is so thin, you have to be a scientist to point it out. That being said, in most cases we can apply methods and tools of skepticism and critical thinking to come to a sound decisi Considering this book was written forty years ago, it's a masterpiece. That being said, in most cases we can apply methods and tools of skepticism and critical thinking to come to Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science sound decision. Sagan wisely asserts that skepticism is not denialism or cynicism. It's just that you need to ask for sufficient evidence in case of extraordinary claims. Dec 19, Jake rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fictionscience. Museums have an inner world that the public never sees. In one of these hideaways, Carl Sagan was permitted to view the brain of Paul Broca, a surgeon who died in As Dr. And then he wrote something that struck Museums have an inner world that the public never sees. And then he wrote something that struck me. After all, what if we could tap the intelligence of brilliant men and women, now deceased? I admired Sagan for volunteering the questionable nature of his own desire for access. This book is a collection of essays, many previously published in magazines. With a firm command of both science and humanity, Sagan explores a range of issues related to our existence. Especially engrossing, even haunting, are his ruminations on the process of dying. Sagan writes with candor about the issues facing our species. He also throws some pointed jabs at absurd notions that regrettably retain traction in modern society. As our world becomes almost wholly dependent on scientific technology, works like this will be an essential frame of reference for laypersons. The more I read Sagan and others, the more I am convinced that being conversant in science is a matter of civic responsibility. With some technical exceptions, the content of this book is very accessible. For those who have already read other works by Carl Sagan, I highly recommend it. If you have not yet tried Sagan, I suggest starting with the novel Contactor getting a hold of his groundbreaking work Cosmos. The latter is available on DVD and in book form. Apr 14, Jay rated it it was amazing. This should be a school textbook. The world would be a better place. Sep 13, Rita rated it really liked it. It took me a lot more time than I expected, mainly because I kept checking for update information about most of the interesting topics. I still love Carl Sagan's writing though. Feb 08, Jim rated it really liked it Shelves: science. I had never read any of Sagan's work before, and rather like well-written popularizations of science. Some of Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science chapters were, however, well beyond my own knowledge; but I soldiered through them. Oct 14, Anuraag Sharma rated it it was amazing Shelves: science. Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science Earth is the cradle of mankind. But one does not live in the cradle forever. Broca's Brain - Wikipedia

Carl Sagan is a classic of science writing, and I've enjoyed his fiction, but unfortunately he doesn't hold up too well. Sometimes it's easy to tell when the science is dated, particularly when he's This is a collection of essays, all somehow related to science. I read it over the course of Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science months - not because it wasn't interesting, but because sometimes I just wasn't in the mood for it A respected planetary scientist best known outside the field for his popularizations of astronomy, Carl Sagan was born in New York City on November 9, He attended the University of Chicago, where he received a B. He has several early scholarly achievements including Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science experimental demonstration of the synthesis of the energy-carrying molecule ATP adenosine triphosphate in primitive-earth experiments. Another was the proposal that the greenhouse effect explained the high temperature of the surface of Venus. He was also one of the driving forces behind the mission of the U. He was part of a team that investigated the effects of nuclear war on the earth's climate - the "nuclear winter" scenario. Sagan's role in developing the "Cosmos" series, one of the most successful series of any kind to be broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System, and his book The Dragons of Eden won the Pulitzer Prize in He also wrote the novel Contact, which was made into a movie starring Jodie Foster. He died from pneumonia on December 20, Broca's Brain : Reflections on the Romance of Science. Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan, writer and scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores and explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life and its consquences, and other provocative, fascinating quandries of the future that we want to see today. All rights reserved. Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt. Brocas Brain. Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science.