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charliespringbff's review
3.0
3.0 stars
Thank you Netgalley for this e-book!
This book explores what it means to be alive and shows how many ways life can be defined in today’s society.
At first I really enjoyed this book, it was informative, scientific and philosophical. In other words it could have been an amazing book. The first few chapters were very strong and interesting however the chapter ‘layouts’ got quite monotonous and predictable. The anecdotes and stories in this book made it engaging but it would have been better if there were some scientific diagrams to help further illustrate points.
I would recommend this book to anyone studying biology or philosophy at university or anyone studying biology or philosophy at a level or ib.
Thank you Netgalley for this e-book!
This book explores what it means to be alive and shows how many ways life can be defined in today’s society.
At first I really enjoyed this book, it was informative, scientific and philosophical. In other words it could have been an amazing book. The first few chapters were very strong and interesting however the chapter ‘layouts’ got quite monotonous and predictable. The anecdotes and stories in this book made it engaging but it would have been better if there were some scientific diagrams to help further illustrate points.
I would recommend this book to anyone studying biology or philosophy at university or anyone studying biology or philosophy at a level or ib.
kitceratops's review
4.0
Carl Zimmer took quite the challenging subject here, which is basically, What is life? There were a lot of subsets of questions that were also looked at within that subject. What is consciousness, what makes us human, how did life start from non-living structures?
What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn't shy away from controversial subjects. For example, the subject of abortion, a hot button topic at any point. Why would this come up in a book about life? Zimmer does a great explanation of the topic, bringing in the history, science, and religious aspects of the controversy. What you can walk away from his presentation there are no easy answers but it is complicated. There are no easy solutions to this subject. We fight about this sort of thing because we can't have a clear definition of what something is.
There are no simple answers in science. That maybe we need to relearn how to look at the world, that we cannot just categorize into nice neat boxes. Carl Zimmer has delivered a great readable book that is more honest about how science works than many others I have recently read, and more people would be better off having this kind of understanding.
What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn't shy away from controversial subjects. For example, the subject of abortion, a hot button topic at any point. Why would this come up in a book about life? Zimmer does a great explanation of the topic, bringing in the history, science, and religious aspects of the controversy. What you can walk away from his presentation there are no easy answers but it is complicated. There are no easy solutions to this subject. We fight about this sort of thing because we can't have a clear definition of what something is.
There are no simple answers in science. That maybe we need to relearn how to look at the world, that we cannot just categorize into nice neat boxes. Carl Zimmer has delivered a great readable book that is more honest about how science works than many others I have recently read, and more people would be better off having this kind of understanding.
leigh_ann_15_deaf's review
4.0
"Life's Edge" is a fascinating overview of biological concepts of life that not only stretch our own imaginations, but call into question what we thought we knew. Or at least for me it did. The brief histories and biographies are interesting snippets, particularly since I've heard of few of these figures and organisms.
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