Touching a Nerve, by Patricia Churchland

Churchland has illuminated the boundary between brain science and philosophy. This is a marvelous book. Makes an important, complex subject easy to read.  Evolution, epigenetics and culture make us what we are, the mind is what the brain does, we are what our neurons do.
Will infuriate many, made me chortle.
Read the amazon description.
http://www.amazon.com/Touching-Nerve-Self-as-Brain-ebook/dp/B00AV7JV8E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384474979&sr=1-1&keywords=churchland+touching+a+nerve
Would love to discuss this one with you.

Bad Science

Just finished a book called “Bad Science; quacks, hacks, and big pharma flacks”, by Ben Goldacre M.D. I have always enjoyed the Brit way of expressing disdain. Here is an educated Brit in high dudgeon. He is justified in his rage. He is very good at explaining the tricks used to rip off the public by nutritionists, homeopaths, and other “alternative medicine” treatments. He also blasts the journalists who distort study results by seeking a grabber headline. They also fail to look at the basis for the studies involved to assess whether the methods involved make sense. Big pharma is slightly cleverer in how they use statistics to fool docs and rip off patients. Goldacre points out some of the lies of omission told by Big P. and how they cherry pick results. He makes several sane suggestions about how to prevent some of the worst practices, and how the individual can develop a nonsense detector. Bad Science is easy to read, and available in our public library. I recommend it.