Natural Selections: Selfish Altruists, Honest Liars, and Other Realities of Evolution P. Barash
If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe. “Barash ... brilliantly integrates science, literature, and pop culture into elegant and insightful commentaries on the most interesting and important questions of our time. A delightful read.”—Michael Shermer, author of The Science of Good and Evil “Entertaining and thought-provoking.”—Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate
Daniel Weir was a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe he still is. At 31 he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He's made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he'll regret for ever. The author's previous novels include "The Wasp Factory".
The nurse's voice on the phone is desperate, but young Dr. Peters, in his first weeks of internship, is only bone-tired and a little afraid. He has forgotten when he last slept. Yet he knows that in the coming hours he will have to make life-or-death decisions regarding patients, assist contemptuous surgeons in the operating room, deal with nurses who may know more than he does, cope with worried relatives and friends of the injured and ill, and pretend at all times to be what he has not yet become-a fully qualified doctor.
The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it.
The killer knew Eve Duncan all too well. He knew the pain she felt for her murdered daughter, Bonnie, whose body was never found. He knew that as one of the nation's top forensic sculptors she would insist on identifying nine skeletons unearthed on a bluff near Georgia's Talladega Falls. And he knew that she wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of believing that one of those skeletons - the one belonging to a young girl - might be Bonnie's.. "But that is only the beginning of the killer's sadistic game.
