{"product_id":"9780399592263","title":"Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER • The legendary biologist and bestselling author mounts a timely and passionate defense of science and clear thinking with this career-spanning collection of essays, including twenty pieces published in the United States for the first time.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor decades, Richard Dawkins has been a brilliant scientific communicator, consistently illuminating the wonders of nature and attacking faulty logic. \u003ci\u003eScience in the Soul\u003c\/i\u003e brings together forty-two essays, polemics, and paeans—all written with Dawkins’s characteristic erudition, remorseless wit, and unjaded awe of the natural world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThough it spans three decades, this book couldn’t be more timely or more urgent. Elected officials have opened the floodgates to prejudices that have for half a century been unacceptable or at least undercover. In a passionate introduction, Dawkins calls on us to insist that reason take center stage and that gut feelings, even when they \u003ci\u003edon’t\u003c\/i\u003e represent the stirred dark waters of xenophobia, misogyny, or other blind prejudice, should stay out of the voting booth. And in the essays themselves, newly annotated by the author, he investigates a number of issues, including the importance of empirical evidence, and decries bad science, religion in the schools, and climate-change deniers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDawkins has equal ardor for “the sacred truth of nature” and renders here with typical virtuosity the glories and complexities of the natural world. Woven into an exploration of the vastness of geological time, for instance, is the peculiar history of the giant tortoises and the sea turtles—whose journeys between water and land tell us a deeper story about evolution. At this moment, when so many highly placed people still question the fact of evolution, Dawkins asks what Darwin would make of his own legacy—“a mixture of exhilaration and exasperation”—and celebrates science as possessing many of religion’s virtues—“explanation, consolation, and uplift”—without its detriments of superstition and prejudice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a world grown irrational and hostile to facts, \u003ci\u003eScience in the Soul\u003c\/i\u003e is an essential collection by an indispensable author.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eScience in the Soul\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Richard Dawkins is] one of the great science popularizers of the last half-century. [His] book ranges from parodies to polemics to ideological tributes to everybody from Charles Darwin to Carl Sagan to Christopher Hitchens, all of it rendered in gloriously spiky and opinionated prose.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eScience in the Soul\u003c\/i\u003e] showcases Dawkins’s dual talents. He is a ferocious polemicist, a defender of reason and enemy of superstition. He is also an extraordinarily talented explicator and celebrator of biology. He makes complex concepts, like kin selection, pop into focus in a way that imparts a jolt of pleasure.”\u003cb\u003e—John Horgan, \u003ci\u003eScientific American\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Random House Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47050313531632,"sku":"9780399592263","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780399592263_p0.jpg?v=1763699115","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780399592263","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}