{"product_id":"9780062651570","title":"Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something \"alive\" and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It","description":"\u003cp\u003eA professor, biologist, and physiologist argues that modern Darwinism’s materialist and mechanistic biases have led to a scientific dead end, unable to define what life is—and only an openness to the qualities of \"purpose and desire\" will move the field forward.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScott Turner contends. \"To be scientists, we force ourselves into a Hobson’s choice on the matter: accept intentionality and purposefulness as real attributes of life, which disqualifies you as a scientist; or become a scientist and dismiss life’s distinctive quality from your thinking. I have come to believe that this choice actually stands in the way of our having a fully coherent theory of life.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrowing research shows that life's most distinctive quality, shared by all living things, is purpose and desire: maintain homeostasis to sustain life. In \u003cem\u003ePurpose and Desire,\u003c\/em\u003e Turner draws on the work of Claude Bernard, a contemporary of Darwin revered among physiologists as the founder of experimental medicine, to build on Bernard’s \"dangerous idea\" of vitalism, which seeks to identify what makes \"life\" a unique phenomenon of nature. To further its quest to achieve a fuller understanding of life, Turner argues, science must move beyond strictly accepted measures that consider only the mechanics of nature. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA thoughtful appeal to widen our perspective of biology that is grounded in scientific evidence, \u003cem\u003ePurpose and Desire\u003c\/em\u003e helps us bridge the ideological evolutionary divide.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47013848252656,"sku":"9780062651570","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780062651570_p0.jpg?v=1763632193","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780062651570","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}