In this technology-driven age; itrsquo;s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all; science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut; science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact; when it comes to understanding the brain; art got there first.Taking a group of artists mdash; a painter; a poet; a chef; a composer; and a handful of novelists mdash; Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn; for example; how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brainrsquo;s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Ceacute;zanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language mdash; a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. Itrsquo;s the ultimate tale of art trumping science.More broadly; Lehrer shows that therersquo;s a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding; and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography; criticism; and first-rate science writing; Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other; for willing minds can combine the best of both; to brilliant effect.
#1726752 in eBooks 2007-09-05 2007-09-05File Name: B003HGQK9O
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