Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Nicholas Humphrey A Family Affair
David M. Buss The Bungling Apprentice
Robert M. Sapolsky Mountain Gorilla and Yeshiva Boy
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Safety in Numbers
Murray Gell-Mann My Father and Albert Einstein
Alison Gopnik A Midcentury Modern Education
Paul C. W. Davies Cosmology Calls
Freeman J. Dyson Member of the Club
Lee Smolin A Strange Beautiful Girl in a Car
Steven Pinker How We May Have Become What We Are
Mary Catherine Bateson Patterns and the Participant Observer
Lynn Margulis Mixing It Up
Jaron Lanier A Childhood Between Realities
Richard Dawkins Dolittle and Darwin
Howard Gardner One Way ofMaking a Social Scientist
Joseph Ledoux Brains Through the Back Door
Sherry Turkle The Objects of Our Lives
Marc d. Hauser Intellectual Promiscuity
Ray Kurzweil Tom Swift Jr. and the Power of Ideas
Janna Levin A Day in the Life of a Child
Rodney Brooks Toward the Worm
J. Doyne Farmer The Everyday Practice of Physics in Silver City, New Mexico
Steven Strogatz The Math of the Real World
Tim White At Large in the Mountains
V. S. Ramachandran The Making of a Scientist
Daniel C. Dennett What I Want to Be When I Grow Up
Judith Rich Harris The Gift of Solitude

About the Author

John Brockman, editor of many books, including The Next Fifty Years, is also the author of By the Late John Brockman, The Third Culture, and Digerati: Encounters with the Cyber Elite. He is the founder and CEO of Brockman Inc., a literary and software agency, and the publisher and editor of the Web site Edge. He lives in New York City.www.edge.org

Reviews

“Fascinating . . . An invigorating debate.” –The Washington Post Book World“And intriguing collection of essays . . . full of comical and thought-provoking stories.” –Psychology Today“Quirky, absorbing and persuasive in just the way that good stories are.” –Nature“In this superlative collection . . . scientists–who also happen to be splendid writers–discuss what first attracted them to careers in science. . . . Inspiring.” –Sci Fi Magazine“Revealing accounts and entertaining reading.” –Science News“Compelling . . . rather than revealing a secret formula that produces an adult scientist, this collection proves just how disparate are the ingredients. . . . Idiosyncrasies are, in the end, what gives the collection its kick.” –Discover“Forget algebra camp–a scientist’s life can also begin with Gilligan’s Island or the James Bond movie Thunderball . . . Entertaining stories.” –Popular Science“[An] engrossing treat of a book . . . crammed with hugely enjoyable anecdotes.” –New Scientist

In this anthology of reminiscences by prominent scientists, the roll includes Richard Dawkins, Murray Gell-Mann, Joseph Ledoux and Ray Kurzweil, along with 23 others. The mandate of the book's editor, literary agent Brockman (The Third Culture), to each of these authors was to write an essay explaining how he or she came to be a scientist. Some take him at his word and write meandering stories of childhood. David Buss found his calling-the study of human mating behavior-while working at a truck stop after dropping out of school. Paul Davies says he was born to be a theoretical physicist. Daniel Dennett, on the other hand, seems to have tried every other profession before landing, as if by accident, in science. A few writers let their essays get hijacked by the science they have devoted their lives to. And in the midst of this, like a keystone in an arch, is an essay by Steven Pinker explaining why the entire exercise is a bunch of hooey: scientifically speaking, he says, people have no objective idea what influenced their behavior, and that writing a memoir is creative storytelling, not objective observation of what actually happened. Whether or not these essays are scientifically sound is open to debate, but they do offer occasionally inspiring glimpses into the minds of today's scientific intelligentsia. Agent, Max Brockman. (Sept. 1) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"Fascinating . . . An invigorating debate." -The Washington Post Book World"And intriguing collection of essays . . . full of comical and thought-provoking stories." -Psychology Today"Quirky, absorbing and persuasive in just the way that good stories are." -Nature"In this superlative collection . . . scientists-who also happen to be splendid writers-discuss what first attracted them to careers in science. . . . Inspiring." -Sci Fi Magazine"Revealing accounts and entertaining reading." -Science News"Compelling . . . rather than revealing a secret formula that produces an adult scientist, this collection proves just how disparate are the ingredients. . . . Idiosyncrasies are, in the end, what gives the collection its kick." -Discover"Forget algebra camp-a scientist's life can also begin with Gilligan's Island or the James Bond movie Thunderball . . . Entertaining stories." -Popular Science"[An] engrossing treat of a book . . . crammed with hugely enjoyable anecdotes." -New Scientist