Biology 202 Book Commentary

In his seminal work Language and Mind world-renowned linguist Noam Chomsky discusses the development of language. In a series of telling essays and lectures he presents the linguistic contributions to past, present, and future studies of the mind and details the distinctive nature of language. Combining concepts from biology and psychology he attempts to trace the origin of language, all the while analyzing what these origins imply about the nature of the brain. One Chomskyan theory of particular interest deals with language acquisition and is labeled "Universal Grammar" (Chomsky 99)1. In the following paragraphs I will present and discuss this theory and attempt to situate it with the neurobiological conclusions reached by our class this semester.

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    Fredrick Turner’s book Beauty: The Value of Values offers a part philosophical, part anthropological, and part scientific understanding of beauty. To him the way humans perceive beauty is natural because beauty to us has a biological basis via culture. With the expansion of our brain came an expanded understanding of the world around us. This expansion is also responsible for our current interpretations of beauty.

The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of the Mind and How to Reconcile Them

      Contrary to the book’s title about the reconciliation of viewpoints, the author, Owen Flanagan, attempts to defend the naturalistic, scientific view against the humanistic view, which argues that the mind is nonphysical and endowed by a higher being. Flanagan argues that we are “fully embodied creatures” (6) that have nervous systems that can give rise to minds, morals and self-identity. He posits that there is a physical, scientific explanation for everything and argues against the existence of God, free will and an unchanging soul that exists beyond death.  

Sandra Gandarez
Neurobiology and Behavior
Book Commentary
The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul by Francis Crick
 

In her memoir, Girl Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen describes her two-year experience in a mental health facility for young women in the 60s, where she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Interwoven in her narrative of life on a psychiatric ward is a subtle message: being insane isn’t really all that different from being sane.   

The Schopenhauer Cure, by Irvin D. Yalom, follows the last year of therapist Julius Hertzfeld’s life.  At a routine check-up, Julius Hertzfeld is told he has malignant melanoma, and only has approximately a year to live.  Confronted with his own mortality, he decides to evaluate his life’s work.  What has happened to his old patients?  He remembers most of them as successful cases; he felt that he was able to help.  No therapist can help every person; Julius knew that, and remembered a few cases he was not able to crack.

The Creating Brain, the Learning Brain

As a neurologist, Oliver Sacks writes about the riddle of human identity from a medical perspective, but with great compassion and understanding for the patients he has known throughout his years of practice.  In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, he presents selected case histories of his patients to investigate what he calls the ‘neurology of identity.' What is unique about Sachs, and what I found personally motivating, is his approach to the patient as a total person, not just as someone who has a disease, as well as his ability to clearly relate this complex interrelationship in story form.  Although some of the cases can be technically challenging for the non-medical reader, Sachs' humanist perspective maintains his focus on using disease sta