The Birth of Mind [book announcement]

[Gary Marcus]

Announcing [and with apologies for multiple postings]

The Birth of the Mind
How A Tiny Number of Genes Creates
the Complexity of Human Thought

By <http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gary/index.html>Gary Marcus

"A joy to read."
  		-- Publisher's Weekly

"Expert and Lucid"
		-- Noam Chomsky

"Brilliantly Original"
		-- Steven Pinker

"[Across] such diverse disciplines as evolution, genetics, gene 
expression, cell biology, neurobiology, and psychology, Marcus .... 
makes the relevant issues understandable to the lay reader, and does 
an even better job of dispelling the myths that impede the way we 
think about genes and their role in making brains, and hence minds."
		-- Nature

 From the Jacket
The Human Genome Project has blazed new trails in medical science and 
genetic research. We know that within hours of their birth, babies 
can recognize faces, connect what they hear with what they see and 
tell the difference between Dutch and Japanese.  Our genes prepare us 
to observe the world; they shape the finest details of the human 
brain.  But as far as psychology is concerned, writes award-winning 
cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, "it's almost as if Watson and Crick 
never met DNA."

With The Birth of the Mind , Gary Marcus enters the nature vs. 
nurture debate and changes it forever.  Genetics isn't destiny, but 
the only way to know what nature brings to the table, he argues, is 
to take a look at what genes actually do.

Startling findings have recently revealed that the genome is much 
smaller than we once thought, containing no more than 30,000-40,000 
genes. Since this discovery, scientists have struggled to understand 
how such a tiny number of genes could contain the instructions for 
building the human brain, arguably the most complex device in the 
known universe. Synthesizing up-to-the-minute research with his own 
original findings on child development, Marcus is the first to 
resolve this apparent contradiction as he chronicles exactly how 
genes create the infinite complexities of the human mind.  Along the 
way, he reveals the common misconceptions people harbor about genes, 
and explores the stunning implications of this research for the 
future of genetic engineering.

January 2004 (Basic Books).