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Chargement... Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979)par Carl Sagan
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. This year marks 20 years since I first watched and read Cosmos. In the intervening time, there is no voice that left a greater impression on the course of my intellectual life than Carl Sagan. Carl invites everyone to share in the joy of science. To mark this anniversary, I picked up this book because it preceded his work on Cosmos and because I never managed to read it. Like a book of short stories, it is easy to pick up and read in no particular order. 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 talking about upcoming missions in the 1980s, but sometimes you have to know enough contemporary science to stay ahead of him. And although I've always heard he's great at making science seem romantic and exciting...well, a lot of these essays were lists of facts. Sometimes facts are cool! But if you're not a fact person, it's not all that compelling on the whole. Science writing has advanced a lot since Sagan; I can only imagine he'd be pleased by that, but I can't really recommend him to modern readers. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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Explorers various aspects of several fields of science and examines the role of the intellect in scientific achievement. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)128.2Philosophy and Psychology Philosophy Of Humanity The Human Condition MindClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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There are a total of 25 chapters and I thought some of the essays were a bit dry and too long for my liking. One chapter was particularly long (about 50-something pages) and was a slog to read through. Carl picks apart the claims of another scientist who believes that events described in certain religious text (Great Flood or the splitting of Red Sea, etc) can be proven to be true by scientific means. While it was cool to see Sagan rip this hypotheses apart with this own wit and knowledge I ended up skimming through the rest of the pages.
Sagan usually does a fantastic job writing for the layman and making complicated topics easy to read and relate to but in Broca's Brain the writing can go from easy to difficult in a matter of paragraphs. This made some passages hard to keep up with.
However some other essays were an absolute joy to read! I particularly enjoyed the chapters about Albert Einstein and Robert H. Goddard. Those piqued my interest and persuaded me to learn more about them. Another chapter spoke on the process of how the nomenclature of the different planets and of their craters and mountains were chosen. The fact that Uranus was almost named George was hilarious! In the chapter "Science Fiction: A Personal View" he speaks on how the science-fiction stories of his youth helped start the spark for his love of science. It was nice to gain some insight into Carl's childhood.
Overall I enjoyed the book although it certainly wasn't my favorite. There are a handful of chapters I would go back to and reread but overall I found the book on some days a chore to read through. ( )