{"product_id":"purpose-and-desire-what-makes-something-alive-and-why-modern-darwinism-has-failed-to-explain-it-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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTurner, J. Scott:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eDR. J. SCOTT TURNER\u003c\/strong\u003e is a leading biologist and physiologist and professor of biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse, New York. His work has garnered attention in the N\u003cem\u003eew York Times Book Review, Science, Nature, American Scientist, National Geographic Online, NPR \"Science Friday\"\u003c\/em\u003e and other leading media outlets. He is the author of two books with Harvard University Press: \u003cem\u003eThe Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal Built Structures\u003c\/em\u003e (2000) and \u003cem\u003eThe Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself\u003c\/em\u003e (2007).","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50317998522642,"sku":"9780062651570","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_cf229472-f9bd-4684-a8ec-ffaba2b53940.jpg?v=1727544939","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/purpose-and-desire-what-makes-something-alive-and-why-modern-darwinism-has-failed-to-explain-it-9780062651570","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}