The Threat and the Glory: Reflections on Science and Scientists - Hardcover

About the Author:
The late Sir Peter Medawar, who won the Nobel Prize (with Sir Macfarlane Burnet) in 1960 for his work on tissue transplantation, was the author of numerous books on scientific issues.

The late Peter Medawar shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1960 for his discovery of acquired immunological tolerance, which cleared the way for organ transplants. He also was a graceful and philosophical writer. This is a collection of 23 of his essays, speeches, and book reviews, many never published in book form. The core is a set of six provocative BBC lectures on "The Future of Man," covering genetics, education, birth control, and other factors that influence our species. Equally stimulating are essays offering insights on such questions as why more male babies then female babies are born in wartime, why smaller families tend to have smarter children, and even why the 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica could well have omitted an illustration of a giraffe: "I stake my reputation that no one who knows what a giraffe looks like found out by referring to an encyclopedia." Good reading about tough subjects for informed lay readers. For more on Medawar, see wife Jean Medawar's A Very Decided Preference: Life with Peter Medawar ( LJ 6/1/90).
-Ed. --Natalie Kupferberg, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York
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