Brainteasers
Why is popular science so often wrong about the mind?
IT IS surprising quite how many popular books by distinguished scientists—from Roger Penrose to Francis Crick and Gerald Edelman—tackle problems of consciousness and the mind. All of them face a difficult double task: to explain scientific results to the general reader and to use these results to illuminate the deepest mysteries of the human mind. Few really succeed.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Brainteasers”
From the June 30th 2001 edition
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