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What Do You Think You Are?: The Science of What Makes You You
Popular science master Brian Clegg's new book is an entertaining tour through the science of what makes you you. From the atomic level, through life and energy to genetics and personality, it explores how the billions of particles which make up you - your DNA, your skin, your memories - have come to be.
It starts with the present-day reader and follows a number of trails to discover their origins: how the atoms in your body were created and how they got to you in space and time, the sources of things you consume, how the living cells of your body developed, where your massive brain and consciousness originated, how human beings evolved and, ultimately, what your personal genetic history reveals.
It starts with the present-day reader and follows a number of trails to discover their origins: how the atoms in your body were created and how they got to you in space and time, the sources of things you consume, how the living cells of your body developed, where your massive brain and consciousness originated, how human beings evolved and, ultimately, what your personal genetic history reveals.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published July 14, 2020
37 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
About the author
Brian Clegg
162 books3,173 followersBrian's latest books, Ten Billion Tomorrows and How Many Moons does the Earth Have are now available to pre-order. He has written a range of other science titles, including the bestselling Inflight Science, The God Effect, Before the Big Bang, A Brief History of Infinity, Build Your Own Time Machine and Dice World.
Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.
Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.
Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.
Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 2, 2020
What do you think you are? What do you think you are made of? Why do you you want to read the book? ✌️😅
It is good but it is not what I expected...
But... "whatever you think you are, whatever it is that makes you that way, you are certainly truly remarkable". 😊
It is good but it is not what I expected...
But... "whatever you think you are, whatever it is that makes you that way, you are certainly truly remarkable". 😊
July 5, 2021
Entertaining, informative and humorous, but….
Writing readable science books for the layperson is clearly no easy matter and Brian Clegg does it extremely well. This is an enjoyable read as well as being educational.
The problem for me was that it was perhaps a little too superficial and even glib at times. Some major issues and concepts were covered far too briefly and I kept feeling short changed on examples and explanations.
He’s at his strongest on the scientific aspects of what makes a human person and to me seemed weaker on the social, economic and political factors shaping us. His personal views are a key part of his books and that’s often fun, but here he makes some very controversial statements (e.g on income equality or how to react to climate change) and doesn’t give a convincing or balanced justification, so these moments sometimes feel like he’s just guided by his own personal perceptions and not the facts.
I’m sure he had fun writing this. I’m not convinced it’s one of his best
Writing readable science books for the layperson is clearly no easy matter and Brian Clegg does it extremely well. This is an enjoyable read as well as being educational.
The problem for me was that it was perhaps a little too superficial and even glib at times. Some major issues and concepts were covered far too briefly and I kept feeling short changed on examples and explanations.
He’s at his strongest on the scientific aspects of what makes a human person and to me seemed weaker on the social, economic and political factors shaping us. His personal views are a key part of his books and that’s often fun, but here he makes some very controversial statements (e.g on income equality or how to react to climate change) and doesn’t give a convincing or balanced justification, so these moments sometimes feel like he’s just guided by his own personal perceptions and not the facts.
I’m sure he had fun writing this. I’m not convinced it’s one of his best
August 11, 2020
This is a very interesting book giving a popular but not prejudiced account of the scientific argument of Nature v Nurture. It is very thoughtful but emphasises the scientific rather than the social scientific. This was not what I expected ... but never mind
February 20, 2023
An entertaining slice of pop science. The author explains (or does as far as he can) what makes who we are, from the fundamental building blocks of atoms and the chemistry that brings it together, to the evolution of all life that led to us (and all the other species, we’re nothing special and we’re not done evolving yet), to the web of DNA and inheritance that means we’re all distantly related and even the more philosophical musings about our state of consciousness.
It's all well written and objectively presented. I had two major take-aways: it’s a fallacy that humans evolved to walk upright so that we could see better as we moved from the trees to the plains, after all, most creatures that did the same (evolutionary speaking) stayed on all fours AND, and most importantly, there’s NO such thing as race – we are all, quite simply, human.
It's all well written and objectively presented. I had two major take-aways: it’s a fallacy that humans evolved to walk upright so that we could see better as we moved from the trees to the plains, after all, most creatures that did the same (evolutionary speaking) stayed on all fours AND, and most importantly, there’s NO such thing as race – we are all, quite simply, human.
June 14, 2023
A collection of loosely connected essays on all topics regarding the composition / origin of human nature / consciousness. If you have an inkling of enthusiasm for these topics, than only about one fourth (at most) of the provided information will be new to you. So, it is a very good book for people, that have no clue about evolution, DNA, the brain etc. All others will be left unsatisfied. Some information is new, alas - many parts are just lots of numbers being thrown around. All in all, I found it underwhelming, but I might not be the target audience.
September 11, 2023
I can't help feeling I've seen most of this in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Everything" and that Bryson's book was a more enjoyable read. A mish mash yes as others have said, but nothing felt new or revealing. A good airplane read perhaps
December 17, 2021
Meh. Not so much a book as a sequence of science riffs
January 10, 2022
A book about a lot of things except what its title promises. Interesting but deceptive.
November 22, 2022
Insightful but not too gripping personally
December 26, 2023
Fascinating. I’m new to reading science non-fiction so it took a while to get through but I learned so much!
August 25, 2024
Very interesting but my brain hurt every time i read, not a science gal
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews