Monday, December 16, 2013

Book Review: The Where, the Why, and the How

This idea behind this book is a simple one: for 75 questions that science has not answered (but possibly could), have a scientist write a few paragraphs on the left side of the page and have a graphic artist supply an illustration on the right side of the page. The result is a diverse book that probably bit off more than it can chew. Some of the illustrations are great (some, honestly, aren't) and a few, like the one asking how mind arises from brain, would be welcome all by themselves. But usually the promise isn't quite fulfilled and the art and the science don't quite meet. I think they got the right artists, but I'm not sure if they got the right scientists. I marked three pages (one illustration and two articles) as worth going back to in terms of ideas, but the rest was a nice exercise, signifying I'm not sure what. I wish this was better, but it too is less than the sum of its parts.

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