Denys N. Wheatley - Böcker

What is meant by the ‘state of water?’ Few would question that water coming out of a household tap is a liquid, but water in an ice cube is something altogether different: it is a solid that floats on tap water (also known as bulk water).

Thanks to the popular media, and to books by Dawkins, Fortey, Gould, Margulis and other writers, people are informed about many aspects of biology. Everyone seems to know a little about evolution, for example, and about DNA and the possibilities (good and bad) afforded by research in molecular genetics. Most people know some of the arguments for and against the likelihood of life on other planets. And so on. We are glad that these pieces of information have become so widely available. However, we do not assume any particular knowledge (other than the most basic) in this book. Our aim is to address general questions rather than specific issues. We want to enable our readers to join their disparate pieces of knowledge about biology together. The most basic of these general questions – and perhaps the most difficult – can be expressed in beguilingly simple words: “What is life”? What does modern biology tell us about the essential differences between living organisms and the inanimate world? An attempt to answer this question takes us on a journey through almost the whole of contemporary cell and molecular biology, which occupies the first half of the book. The journey is worth the effort. The provisional answer we attain provides a coherent, unifying context in which we can discuss evolution, the origin of life, extraterrestrial life, the meaning of “intelligence”, the evolution of the human brain and the nature of mind.

Our previous book, About Life, concerned modern biology. We used our present-day understanding of cells to ‘define’ the living state, providing a basis for exploring several general-interest topics: the origin of life, extraterrestrial life, intelligence, and the possibility that humans are unique. The ideas we proposed in About Life were intended as starting-points for debate – we did not claim them as ‘truth’ – but the information on which they were based is currently accepted as ‘scientific fact’. What does that mean? What is ‘scientific fact’ and why is it accepted? What is science – and is biology like other sciences such as physics (except in subject m- ter)? The book you are now reading investigates these questions – and some related ones. Like About Life, it may particularly interest a reader who wishes to change career to biology and its related subdisciplines. In line with a recommendation by the British Association for the Advancement of Science – that the public should be given fuller information about the nature of science – we present the concepts underpinning biology and a survey of its historical and philosophical basis.

What is meant by the ‘state of water?’ Few would question that water coming out of a household tap is a liquid, but water in an ice cube is something altogether different: it is a solid that floats on tap water (also known as bulk water).

Thanks to the popular media, and to books by Dawkins, Fortey, Gould, Margulis and other writers, people are informed about many aspects of biology. Everyone seems to know a little about evolution, for example, and about DNA and the possibilities (good and bad) afforded by research in molecular genetics. Most people know some of the arguments for and against the likelihood of life on other planets. And so on. We are glad that these pieces of information have become so widely available. However, we do not assume any particular knowledge (other than the most basic) in this book. Our aim is to address general questions rather than specific issues. We want to enable our readers to join their disparate pieces of knowledge about biology together. The most basic of these general questions – and perhaps the most difficult – can be expressed in beguilingly simple words: “What is life”? What does modern biology tell us about the essential differences between living organisms and the inanimate world? An attempt to answer this question takes us on a journey through almost the whole of contemporary cell and molecular biology, which occupies the first half of the book. The journey is worth the effort. The provisional answer we attain provides a coherent, unifying context in which we can discuss evolution, the origin of life, extraterrestrial life, the meaning of “intelligence”, the evolution of the human brain and the nature of mind.

Our previous book, About Life, concerned modern biology. We used our present-day understanding of cells to ‘define’ the living state, providing a basis for exploring several general-interest topics: the origin of life, extraterrestrial life, intelligence, and the possibility that humans are unique. The ideas we proposed in About Life were intended as starting-points for debate – we did not claim them as ‘truth’ – but the information on which they were based is currently accepted as ‘scientific fact’. What does that mean? What is ‘scientific fact’ and why is it accepted? What is science – and is biology like other sciences such as physics (except in subject m- ter)? The book you are now reading investigates these questions – and some related ones. Like About Life, it may particularly interest a reader who wishes to change career to biology and its related subdisciplines. In line with a recommendation by the British Association for the Advancement of Science – that the public should be given fuller information about the nature of science – we present the concepts underpinning biology and a survey of its historical and philosophical basis.

Written with disarming honesty by a long-term sufferer of bipolar disorder, with more than half a century’s experience of intervention and treatment, this highly personal volume traces the effectiveness of a therapy modality for mental illness that has gained much ground in the past two decades: art. The author began to use art, and in particular doodling, from 1998 as a way of externalizing his feelings. Its expressiveness, accessibility and energy-efficiency was ideally suited to the catatonia he experienced during the bouts of depression that are a feature of bipolar disorder, while as the low moods lifted and his energy surged, he completed more ambitious and elaborate works.As well as being highly eclectic, Wheatley’s assembled oeuvre has afforded him both insights and therapeutic intervention into his condition, once deemed highly debilitating and taboo, but much more socially accepted now that well known sufferers such as Stephen Fry have recounted their experiences of the condition. After an opening account of how the images were generated, the volume reproduces a ‘gallery’ of selected work, and then offers an extended epilogue analyzing the art’s connections with the disorder as well as the author’s assessment of how each attempt at visual self-expression was, for him, a therapeutic intervention. Wheatley, a cell biologist who has enjoyed a full career in cancer research, has had no formal training in art, yet his haunting pictures, many of them resembling life forms, are brought to life by his perceptive, self-aware commentary.This book will be of interest to psychologists and psychiatrists among the wider medical profession as well as people suffering from any form of bipolar disorder whatever the severity.

Written with disarming honesty by a long-term sufferer of bipolar disorder, with more than half a century’s experience of intervention and treatment, this highly personal volume traces the effectiveness of a therapy modality for mental illness that has gained much ground in the past two decades: art. The author began to use art, and in particular doodling, from 1998 as a way of externalizing his feelings. Its expressiveness, accessibility and energy-efficiency was ideally suited to the catatonia he experienced during the bouts of depression that are a feature of bipolar disorder, while as the low moods lifted and his energy surged, he completed more ambitious and elaborate works.As well as being highly eclectic, Wheatley’s assembled oeuvre has afforded him both insights and therapeutic intervention into his condition, once deemed highly debilitating and taboo, but much more socially accepted now that well known sufferers such as Stephen Fry have recounted their experiences of the condition. After an opening account of how the images were generated, the volume reproduces a ‘gallery’ of selected work, and then offers an extended epilogue analyzing the art’s connections with the disorder as well as the author’s assessment of how each attempt at visual self-expression was, for him, a therapeutic intervention. Wheatley, a cell biologist who has enjoyed a full career in cancer research, has had no formal training in art, yet his haunting pictures, many of them resembling life forms, are brought to life by his perceptive, self-aware commentary.This book will be of interest to psychologists and psychiatrists among the wider medical profession as well as people suffering from any form of bipolar disorder whatever the severity.