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Page-Barbour Lectures
A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe
Freeman Dyson’s latest book does not attempt to bring together all of the celebrated physicist’s thoughts on science and technology into a unified theory. The emphasis is, instead, on the myriad ways in which the universe presents itself to us--and how, as observers and participants in its processes, we respond to it. "Life, like a dome of many-colored glass," wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley, "stains the white radiance of eternity." The author seeks here to explore the variety that gives life its beauty. Taken from Dyson’s recent public lectures--delivered to audiences with no specialized knowledge in hard sciences--the book begins with a consideration of the practical and political questions surrounding biotechnology. As he seeks how best to explain the place of life in the universe, Dyson then moves from the ethical to the purely scientific. The book concludes with an attempt to understand the implications of biology for philosophy and religion. The pieces in this collection touch on numerous disciplines, from astronomy and ecology to neurology and theology, speaking to the lay reader as well as to the scientist. As always, Dyson’s view of human nature and behavior is balanced, and his predictions of a world to come serve primarily as a means for thinking about the world as it is today.
176 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 2007
15 people are currently reading
240 people want to read
About the author
Freeman Dyson
69 books391 followersFreeman Dyson was a physicist and educator best known for his speculative work on extraterrestrial civilizations and for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He theorized several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, Dyson tree, Dyson series, and Dyson sphere.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 30, 2018
I have read in other books about fax(wide range)-hedgehog(deep but focused) kinds of people, but mostly described people in commercial, or financial field. Here Dyson also categorized scientists into these 2 types and it keeps taking turns. Einstein and Newton was hedgehog , von Neumann was fox type.
He also mentioned about what we should fear the most is not Nano technologies, but bio-technologies. He mocked why Monsanto could not win the trust in Europe but needed in Africa, because they put toxic elements into the seeds to keep the insects, disturbed the natural evolutionary path, for African, poor soil quality, the key is not toxic seeds but eradicate the hunger.
As physicist, he knows a lot of basic astrophysics and earth climates. He didn't affirmatively said that global warming is actually 100% human activities or part of natural course, but the next Ice age is about due time, human activities surely delay its coming.
He talked about life form, quoted the book of dark cloud, saying he would rather upload his consciousness into the dark cloud, not download into a microchip.
His writing has more refined British elegant touch, some said even poetic. I just found it comfortable like breeze. By the way, he reminds me of Martin Rees, both are excellent British scientists.
He also mentioned about what we should fear the most is not Nano technologies, but bio-technologies. He mocked why Monsanto could not win the trust in Europe but needed in Africa, because they put toxic elements into the seeds to keep the insects, disturbed the natural evolutionary path, for African, poor soil quality, the key is not toxic seeds but eradicate the hunger.
As physicist, he knows a lot of basic astrophysics and earth climates. He didn't affirmatively said that global warming is actually 100% human activities or part of natural course, but the next Ice age is about due time, human activities surely delay its coming.
He talked about life form, quoted the book of dark cloud, saying he would rather upload his consciousness into the dark cloud, not download into a microchip.
His writing has more refined British elegant touch, some said even poetic. I just found it comfortable like breeze. By the way, he reminds me of Martin Rees, both are excellent British scientists.
June 17, 2024
A SERIES OF LECTURES ON POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION
Freeman John Dyson (born 1923) is a British theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2007 book, “This book is a collection of lectures on the general theme of life in the universe. It began with three lectures given at the University of Virginia in March 2004… Since the three … lectures would have made a very skimpy book, I have supplemented them with other lectures given at various times and places… I have edited these lectures so as to fit them together … The result is a collection of essays rather than a coherent narrative. The book has three main themes. The first theme is political, trying to understand the human and ethical consequences of bio-technology. The second theme is scientific, trying to understand intellectually the place of life in the universe. The third theme is personal, trying to understand the implications of biology for philosophy and religion… I have not tried to squeeze my thought about various aspect of science and technology into a unified theory. My reflections spill over from astronomy into ecology, and … from neurology into theology. Life is, as Shelley said, a dome of many-colored glass, and its beauty lied in its variety.”
On the origin of life, he notes, “We do not know which component came first. The prevailing dogma among biologists says that nucleic acids came first. According to the dogma, there was an ‘RNA world’ with creatures composed of RNA… before there were creatures composed of protein… The chief evidence against this belief is the fact that RNA is chemically unstable and hard to synthesize in a prebiotic environment… I consider it most likely that the metabolic apparatus of primitive cells came first. I call this the garbage-bag model of the origin of life… Self-replicating RNA became a new parasitic form of life evolving inside preexisting cells. And then, after a while, the parasite became a symbiont, and life as we know it with its dual structure came into being. This story… is pure guesswork… I am not claiming that it is true. I claim only that it is a useful working hypothesis to explain the dual nature of life. The truth will certainly turn out to be more complicated.” (Pg. 24-25)
He observes, “The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, ‘Sorry, but we don’t know.’ The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They … end up believing their own predictions… The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.” (Pg. 43-44)
He states, “When I listen to the public debates on climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations, and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet… diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than rely on computer models.” (Pg. 49)
He explains, “The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature… The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a small price to pay if worldwide industrial development can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet.” (Pg. 55-56) He adds, “I must confess my own bias… I spent my formative years in a land … which is almost entirely man-made. The natural ecology of England was … rather boring forest… There is no wilderness in England, and yet there is plenty of room for wildflowers and birds and butterflies as well as a high density of humans. Perhaps that is why I am a humanist.” (Pg. 56)
He suggests, “the evolution of the universe is dominated by the paradox of order and disorder. The paradox is the apparent contradiction between two facts. On the one hand, the total disorder of the universe, as measured by … entropy, increases steadily as we go from past to future. On the other hand, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity … of organized structures, also increases steadily… How can it happen that both order and disorder are constantly increasing? This is the paradox that we have to understand… life is a conspicuous example of a process involving an intimate mixture of order and disorder.” (Pg. 61-62) Later, he adds, “How does it happen that in an expanding universe we can have increasing order and increasing disorder at the same time?.. the answer to this question is almost obvious… Order can increase in one part of the universe and disorder in another. The physical separation between order and disorder allows each to increase without coming into conflict.” (Pg. 77)
He admits, “The origin of life is the deepest mystery in the whole of science. Many books and learned papers have been written about it, but it remains a mystery. There is an enormous gap between the simplest living cell and the most complicated naturally occurring mixture of nonliving chemicals. We have no idea when and how and where this gap was crossed. We only know that it was crossed somehow, either on Earth or on Mars or in some other place from which the ancestors of life on Earth might have come. If we can understand how life began, we shall also have gained a deeper understanding of what it means to be alive.” (Pg. 104)
He observes, “The little SETI project is important for two reasons. The first reason is, it could happen that one night we will detect an alien. Nobody involved in the project seriously expects to find an alien, but still it could happen. It makes no sense to believe as matter of faith that alien civilizations must exist, and it also makes no sense to believe as a matter of faith that alien civilizations do not exist. All we can say is that alien civilizations are rare, since we have bene listening for forty-five years and have not found one. But wildly improbable and unexpected things happen all the time in astronomy.” (Pg. 129)
He argues, “I propose that religion and science and complementary. The formal frame of traditional theology, and the formal frame of traditional science, are both too narrow to comprehend the totality of human experience. Both frames exclude essential aspects of our existence. Theology excludes differential equations, and science excludes the idea of the sacred. But the fact that these frames are too narrow does not imply that either can be expanded to include the other. Complementarity implies exclusion. The essence of complementarity is the impossibility of observing both the scientific and the religious aspects of human nature at the same time… If science and religion are complementary, it is better that they should live apart, with mutual respect but with separate identities…” (Pg. 134-135)
This book will be of great interest to those interested in such broad (and even ‘philosophical’) issues about science.
Freeman John Dyson (born 1923) is a British theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2007 book, “This book is a collection of lectures on the general theme of life in the universe. It began with three lectures given at the University of Virginia in March 2004… Since the three … lectures would have made a very skimpy book, I have supplemented them with other lectures given at various times and places… I have edited these lectures so as to fit them together … The result is a collection of essays rather than a coherent narrative. The book has three main themes. The first theme is political, trying to understand the human and ethical consequences of bio-technology. The second theme is scientific, trying to understand intellectually the place of life in the universe. The third theme is personal, trying to understand the implications of biology for philosophy and religion… I have not tried to squeeze my thought about various aspect of science and technology into a unified theory. My reflections spill over from astronomy into ecology, and … from neurology into theology. Life is, as Shelley said, a dome of many-colored glass, and its beauty lied in its variety.”
On the origin of life, he notes, “We do not know which component came first. The prevailing dogma among biologists says that nucleic acids came first. According to the dogma, there was an ‘RNA world’ with creatures composed of RNA… before there were creatures composed of protein… The chief evidence against this belief is the fact that RNA is chemically unstable and hard to synthesize in a prebiotic environment… I consider it most likely that the metabolic apparatus of primitive cells came first. I call this the garbage-bag model of the origin of life… Self-replicating RNA became a new parasitic form of life evolving inside preexisting cells. And then, after a while, the parasite became a symbiont, and life as we know it with its dual structure came into being. This story… is pure guesswork… I am not claiming that it is true. I claim only that it is a useful working hypothesis to explain the dual nature of life. The truth will certainly turn out to be more complicated.” (Pg. 24-25)
He observes, “The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, ‘Sorry, but we don’t know.’ The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They … end up believing their own predictions… The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.” (Pg. 43-44)
He states, “When I listen to the public debates on climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations, and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet… diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than rely on computer models.” (Pg. 49)
He explains, “The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature… The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a small price to pay if worldwide industrial development can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet.” (Pg. 55-56) He adds, “I must confess my own bias… I spent my formative years in a land … which is almost entirely man-made. The natural ecology of England was … rather boring forest… There is no wilderness in England, and yet there is plenty of room for wildflowers and birds and butterflies as well as a high density of humans. Perhaps that is why I am a humanist.” (Pg. 56)
He suggests, “the evolution of the universe is dominated by the paradox of order and disorder. The paradox is the apparent contradiction between two facts. On the one hand, the total disorder of the universe, as measured by … entropy, increases steadily as we go from past to future. On the other hand, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity … of organized structures, also increases steadily… How can it happen that both order and disorder are constantly increasing? This is the paradox that we have to understand… life is a conspicuous example of a process involving an intimate mixture of order and disorder.” (Pg. 61-62) Later, he adds, “How does it happen that in an expanding universe we can have increasing order and increasing disorder at the same time?.. the answer to this question is almost obvious… Order can increase in one part of the universe and disorder in another. The physical separation between order and disorder allows each to increase without coming into conflict.” (Pg. 77)
He admits, “The origin of life is the deepest mystery in the whole of science. Many books and learned papers have been written about it, but it remains a mystery. There is an enormous gap between the simplest living cell and the most complicated naturally occurring mixture of nonliving chemicals. We have no idea when and how and where this gap was crossed. We only know that it was crossed somehow, either on Earth or on Mars or in some other place from which the ancestors of life on Earth might have come. If we can understand how life began, we shall also have gained a deeper understanding of what it means to be alive.” (Pg. 104)
He observes, “The little SETI project is important for two reasons. The first reason is, it could happen that one night we will detect an alien. Nobody involved in the project seriously expects to find an alien, but still it could happen. It makes no sense to believe as matter of faith that alien civilizations must exist, and it also makes no sense to believe as a matter of faith that alien civilizations do not exist. All we can say is that alien civilizations are rare, since we have bene listening for forty-five years and have not found one. But wildly improbable and unexpected things happen all the time in astronomy.” (Pg. 129)
He argues, “I propose that religion and science and complementary. The formal frame of traditional theology, and the formal frame of traditional science, are both too narrow to comprehend the totality of human experience. Both frames exclude essential aspects of our existence. Theology excludes differential equations, and science excludes the idea of the sacred. But the fact that these frames are too narrow does not imply that either can be expanded to include the other. Complementarity implies exclusion. The essence of complementarity is the impossibility of observing both the scientific and the religious aspects of human nature at the same time… If science and religion are complementary, it is better that they should live apart, with mutual respect but with separate identities…” (Pg. 134-135)
This book will be of great interest to those interested in such broad (and even ‘philosophical’) issues about science.
January 4, 2025
DNF. Made it 100 pages in.
Starts as a cool speculation on the future of technology and how it'll affect science and daily life. But then he starts to speculate about the (very long-term) future of life itself and it feels rather like an ego stroke.
Starts as a cool speculation on the future of technology and how it'll affect science and daily life. But then he starts to speculate about the (very long-term) future of life itself and it feels rather like an ego stroke.
September 15, 2020
Some excellent pieces, especially the last. Lots that is difficult to read, with heady science that is beyond my current understanding. I'm glad I read it.
July 30, 2021
Some great chapters, others are okay
July 29, 2011
Dyson writes well enough, but this collection of essays is hit and miss. I feel a bit out of turn being overly critical or analytical of such an accomplished physicist, philosopher and thinker, but there are some profoundly naive and superficial conclusions and reasoning in a couple of the essays that distracted from the brilliant thoughts in some of the others, particularly the sections on the "Friendly Universe" in which Dyson tries to rationalize the paradox of order in a world dominated by the second law of thermodynamics and its tendency toward disorder and the essay on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
What does work is that Dyson is tremendously well-read and deeply thoughtful in fields outside theoretical physics. One might argue that a lot of his speculations into biotechnology and other fields are the equivalent of an amateur poking around and considering himself an expert, but this isn't so. He's very clear and direct about his lack of knowledge and that his speculations are just that. In that respect he differs from a lot of "futurists" who publish books like "The World in 2050" in which they proclaim flying cars for everyone! (I'm still waiting for the one my grandmother promised me I'd have by the time I was twenty when I was ten.) He's realistic about the time frames for his speculations about the development of technology and the future of discovery in the realms of science. Dyson, quite rightly given the enormous mathematical and technological complexities of advances in particle and theoretical physics today, thinks that biology and biotechnology will dominate the sciences in the next hundred years. There are some heretical ideas in his speculations. Most intriguing among his predictions (or desires) is the development of an open source equivalent to genetic sequencing and engineering and the idea that science shall proliferate among the masses and become smaller, more diverse and given over to small teams versus larger research institutions, in both the physical sciences, like astronomy (where we can already see this happening) AND in biology. It's an interesting and exciting thought. Science could indeed progress by leaps and bounds as more people, especially those not brought through decades of rigorous academic dogma in specific Ph.D. programs bring new unorthodox methods and ideas to the table - and can test and verify them themselves. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that in the future genetic engineering will occupy the entertainment time of children the way video games do today, but the idea of science for the masses is thrillingly conceivable.
In short, Dyson's strength in this work rests in his ability to combine disciplines and draw parallels among opposite and paradoxical fields and models to develop new and believable paradigms for the future grounded in our experience with scientific revolutions and developments in the past. The last essay on the complementarity of religion and science is refreshing, enlightening, but half-formulated sadly. He starts off well and drifts off to the idea that literature has much more in common with religion where there was so much potential in the former idea. And that's kind of the point; Dyson's great at asking broad, philosophical and practical questions alike and A Many-Colored Glass should definitely be required reading in philosophy of science courses around the world. It's the questions, rather than the answers he presents that make this book valuable.
I was disappointed by a couple of the heavier essays in the work that I was looking forward to immensely. The chapter on the search for extraterrestrial life is extremely narrow and falls prey to the same weaknesses that the chapter on religion did. He starts with some great questions about what life might look like and what type of life might be most common to practically tailor or search for it, then goes into an overly detailed and narrow plan to execute said-search. Same goes for the essay on Life in an old universe tending toward heat death, in which he sets up a great framework, but fails to deliver and bungles an explanation of entropy.
Still, if you have an interest in the philosophy of science or want to hear a respected scientist's views on the future of the field, this is an interesting read.
What does work is that Dyson is tremendously well-read and deeply thoughtful in fields outside theoretical physics. One might argue that a lot of his speculations into biotechnology and other fields are the equivalent of an amateur poking around and considering himself an expert, but this isn't so. He's very clear and direct about his lack of knowledge and that his speculations are just that. In that respect he differs from a lot of "futurists" who publish books like "The World in 2050" in which they proclaim flying cars for everyone! (I'm still waiting for the one my grandmother promised me I'd have by the time I was twenty when I was ten.) He's realistic about the time frames for his speculations about the development of technology and the future of discovery in the realms of science. Dyson, quite rightly given the enormous mathematical and technological complexities of advances in particle and theoretical physics today, thinks that biology and biotechnology will dominate the sciences in the next hundred years. There are some heretical ideas in his speculations. Most intriguing among his predictions (or desires) is the development of an open source equivalent to genetic sequencing and engineering and the idea that science shall proliferate among the masses and become smaller, more diverse and given over to small teams versus larger research institutions, in both the physical sciences, like astronomy (where we can already see this happening) AND in biology. It's an interesting and exciting thought. Science could indeed progress by leaps and bounds as more people, especially those not brought through decades of rigorous academic dogma in specific Ph.D. programs bring new unorthodox methods and ideas to the table - and can test and verify them themselves. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that in the future genetic engineering will occupy the entertainment time of children the way video games do today, but the idea of science for the masses is thrillingly conceivable.
In short, Dyson's strength in this work rests in his ability to combine disciplines and draw parallels among opposite and paradoxical fields and models to develop new and believable paradigms for the future grounded in our experience with scientific revolutions and developments in the past. The last essay on the complementarity of religion and science is refreshing, enlightening, but half-formulated sadly. He starts off well and drifts off to the idea that literature has much more in common with religion where there was so much potential in the former idea. And that's kind of the point; Dyson's great at asking broad, philosophical and practical questions alike and A Many-Colored Glass should definitely be required reading in philosophy of science courses around the world. It's the questions, rather than the answers he presents that make this book valuable.
I was disappointed by a couple of the heavier essays in the work that I was looking forward to immensely. The chapter on the search for extraterrestrial life is extremely narrow and falls prey to the same weaknesses that the chapter on religion did. He starts with some great questions about what life might look like and what type of life might be most common to practically tailor or search for it, then goes into an overly detailed and narrow plan to execute said-search. Same goes for the essay on Life in an old universe tending toward heat death, in which he sets up a great framework, but fails to deliver and bungles an explanation of entropy.
Still, if you have an interest in the philosophy of science or want to hear a respected scientist's views on the future of the field, this is an interesting read.
November 9, 2010
... Are you a hedgehog or a fox?
This book is a collection of Dyson's thoughts on a few interesting topics of current relevance. In my opinion the first half of this book is brilliantly written and deserves 6-stars whereas the 2nd half wasn't very interesting.
The first chapter is regarding Biotechnology. He shares his views about the current state of biotechnological research and which direction he thinks BT research is headed and what it will evolve into in the future. He then goes on to speak about Global warming and talks about how he thinks this issue should be addressed. Dyson, a self-proclaimed humanist, looks at certain ethical issues which probably seem right from humanist point of view but not from a naturalist view. In the second half, he suggests techniques we could adopt to search for lifeforms in other planets and finally concludes with a topic on Science versus Religion.
His style of writing is wonderful and through out the book he quotes other books/authors who've influenced him. I think I just found my next read in here.
This book is a collection of Dyson's thoughts on a few interesting topics of current relevance. In my opinion the first half of this book is brilliantly written and deserves 6-stars whereas the 2nd half wasn't very interesting.
The first chapter is regarding Biotechnology. He shares his views about the current state of biotechnological research and which direction he thinks BT research is headed and what it will evolve into in the future. He then goes on to speak about Global warming and talks about how he thinks this issue should be addressed. Dyson, a self-proclaimed humanist, looks at certain ethical issues which probably seem right from humanist point of view but not from a naturalist view. In the second half, he suggests techniques we could adopt to search for lifeforms in other planets and finally concludes with a topic on Science versus Religion.
His style of writing is wonderful and through out the book he quotes other books/authors who've influenced him. I think I just found my next read in here.
July 31, 2012
Dyson had some interesting topics and ideas. I can't say I agree with him about a lot of stuff, because I think he's overly optimistic (at points in a dangerous way). Also, I was a bit disappointed about where he went on the topic of religion and consciousness in the last chapter (too narrow). The chapters covering the debate between Dyson and Krauss-Starkman were the best by far and if you're going to read the book I'd recommend you start there (pp. 83-101) then keep reading if you want to.
The editor fell down a bit on the job with some rough spots in the narrative that should have been smoothed out. But if you can ignore them, Dyson does a great job of being accessible.
The editor fell down a bit on the job with some rough spots in the narrative that should have been smoothed out. But if you can ignore them, Dyson does a great job of being accessible.
October 29, 2010
Enticed by its small size, I randomly picked this off the New Books shelf at the library. I am glad I did. Its Freeman Dyson's essays on biotechnology, the future, and life in general. Just my thing!
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January 11, 2016570.1 D998m 2010
January 30, 2017
This book. Read this book. It blew my mind. Read it.
July 29, 2021
Freeman Dyson's essays on biotechnology, the future of life, and life in general are straight forward without jargon. All essays give many faceted set of issues to contemplate. A worthwhile read.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews