Overview

"""Bracingly intelligent, lucid, balanced--witty, too. . . . A scrupulous and charming look at our modern understanding of genes and experience."" -- Oliver Sacks Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about our genes, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature-versus-nurture debate in a thoughtful book about the roots of human behavior. Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture. With the decoding of the human genome, we now know that genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will."

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9780060006792

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Reviews

Terrific popular science. -- Booklist (starred review) Thoughtful and entertaining. -- Salon.com Thoughtful and entertaining. --Salon.com Terrific popular science. --Booklist (starred review) Fascinating and important information from the world of science. --New York Times Book Review Thoughtful and entertaining. --Salon.com Ridley is simply one of the best science writers in the business. --Hartford Courant NATURE VIA NURTURE proposes a new way of looking at an ongoing debate. --Washington Post Book World An engrossing study of what makes us who we are ... conveyed with insight and style. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) An engrossing study of what makes us who we are conveyed with insight and style. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Terrific popular science. --Booklist (starred review) Ridley is simply one of the best science writers in the business. --Hartford Courant Thoughtful and entertaining. --Salon.com NATURE VIA NURTURE proposes a new way of looking at an ongoing debate. --Washington Post Book World Fascinating and important information from the world of science. --New York Times Book Review

Terrific popular science. -- Booklist (starred review) Thoughtful and entertaining. -- Salon.com Thoughtful and entertaining. --Salon.com Terrific popular science. --Booklist (starred review) Fascinating and important information from the world of science. --New York Times Book Review Thoughtful and entertaining. --Salon.com Ridley is simply one of the best science writers in the business. --Hartford Courant NATURE VIA NURTURE proposes a new way of looking at an ongoing debate. --Washington Post Book World An engrossing study of what makes us who we are conveyed with insight and style. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Terrific popular science. --Booklist (starred review) Ridley is simply one of the best science writers in the business. --Hartford Courant Thoughtful and entertaining. --Salon.com NATURE VIA NURTURE proposes a new way of looking at an ongoing debate. --Washington Post Book World Fascinating and important information from the world of science. --New York Times Book Review An engrossing study of what makes us who we are ... conveyed with insight and style. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Author Information

"Matt Ridley's books--including The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything, How Innovation Works, and most recently, Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid-19 (with Alina Chan)--have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages, and won several awards. He sat in the House of Lords from 2013 and 2021, and was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the ""Mind and Matter"" column in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, and was a columnist for the Times. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Northumberland."

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