Book Description
Kenan Malik, author of The Meaning of Race (1996) and Man, Beast and Zombie (2000), challenges naturalistic explanations of human behaviour.
'The pessimism of contemporary culture has cleared a space for a more naturalistic vision of humanity, a vision that seeks to erase the distinctions between humanity and nature and to deny the special, exceptional qualities of being human.' Kenan Malik
Advances in genetics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, psychology and artificial intelligence have transformed the old nature-nurture debate, and established new ways of thinking about human nature. But in attempting to understand humans in the same language as it understands the rest of nature, Malik believes much contemporary science ignores human subjectivity.
'Today, the idea of humans as exceptional beings is regarded as both scientifically false and politically dangerous. I want to argue that the retreat from human exceptionalism makes for both bad science and bad politics.'
Malik's essay is followed by responses from Maggie Gee (novelist), Matt Ridley (science writer), Kiernan Ryan (Shakespeare scholar), Norman Levitt (mathematician), Kevin Warwick (cyberneticist) and Anthony O'Hear (philosopher). Finally Malik replies to his critics.
About the Author
Kenan Malik trained as a neurobiologist and was a research psychologist at the Centre for Research into Perception and Cognition at the University of Sussex. He is now a writer and lecturer. He has taught at a number of universities including Oxford, Cambridge, London, Liverpool and Nottingham. He has published papers on a wide variety of topics including the psychology of spatial representation; philosophy of biology; race and ethnicity; poststructuralist theory; and the history of ideas. He is a regular contributor to Nature, TLS, Prospect, the Independent, The Sunday Times, Financial Times, Sunday Telegraph and New Statesman. He is the author of two highly acclaimed books: The Meaning of Race (1996) and Man, Beast and Zombie (2000). Currently, he is working on a new book on the relationship between ideas of human nature and human differences.
The other contributors are Maggie Gee (novelist), Matt Ridley (science writer), Kiernan Ryan (Shakespeare scholar), Norman Levitt (mathematician), Kevin Warwick (cyberneticist) and Anthony O'Hear (philosopher).