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by: David J. Linden  List Price: $25.95 Amazon.com's Price: $17.13 You Save: $8.82 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 612.82 EAN: 9780674024786 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0674024788 Label: Belknap Press Manufacturer: Belknap Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: March 31, 2007 Publisher: Belknap Press Studio: Belknap Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: You've probably seen it before: a human brain dramatically lit from the side, the camera circling it like a helicopter shot of Stonehenge, and a modulated baritone voice exalting the brain's elegant design in reverent tones. To which this book says: Pure nonsense. In a work at once deeply learned and wonderfully accessible, the neuroscientist David Linden counters the widespread assumption that the brain is a paragon of design--and in its place gives us a compelling explanation of how the brain's serendipitous evolution has resulted in nothing short of our humanity. A guide to the strange and often illogical world of neural function, The Accidental Mind shows how the brain is not an optimized, general-purpose problem-solving machine, but rather a weird agglomeration of ad-hoc solutions that have been piled on through millions of years of evolutionary history. Moreover, Linden tells us how the constraints of evolved brain design have ultimately led to almost every transcendent human foible: our long childhoods, our extensive memory capacity, our search for love and long-term relationships, our need to create compelling narrative, and, ultimately, the universal cultural impulse to create both religious and scientific explanations. With forays into evolutionary biology, this analysis of mental function answers some of our most common questions about how we've come to be who we are. (20070601) Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Entertaining Overview of the BrainA fun dip into various parts of the brain. The topics range from the chemistry of dendrite/axon interaction to higher level concepts like love and religion. An interesting read. Rating: - Good "challenging" bookIf you want to know how the human brain has evolved to bring us to who we are, this is a good book for a start. One caveat. The author, David J. Linden, Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and one of the top brain scientists in America, says "I'll strive to make it fun, but I'm not going to "take all the science out." What he meant by that is that he leaves lots of technical terms and information in for those who can wade through it without being put off. But most ... Read More Rating:  - Our mental ice cream coneThe greatest fear among those who reject Charles Darwin's "Dangerous Idea" is the implications the concept holds for human beings. Our brain, they often claim, demonstrates how far we are from the other animals. It must have been designed by "divine intelligence". Not so, says David Linden. Our brain is something cobbled together over millions of years, parts and functions being added over time to produce that kilogramme of matter in our heads. He likens the building-up process to a multi-scoop ... Read More Rating: - Fun readingThe Accidental Mind is a very interesting book with a lot of information on why we behave the way we do. It explains how the brain evolved and how genetics, the brain's structure and the way the brain works, affects our behavior. Kind of like Matt Ridley's Nature via Nurture only not solely focused on genetics. It has fun info (not as much as nature via Nurture) and his explanations are very clear. I enjoyed the book. The only thing I didn't like is a quasi religious insistence on the fact thar the brain's ... Read More Rating: - Great read on an interesting topicDavid J. Linden has written a highly accessible book on brain function and evolution. Taking his cue from Max Delbruck, ("Imagine that your audience has zero knowledge but infinite intelligence") Linden has managed to present the material in a way that should appeal to both a lay and an academic readership. The book can be summarized as follows: 1) Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer. The brain's design is inelegant because the brain is never re-designed from the bottom-up - it is an ... Read More 
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