The Harvard Book Club --CANCELLED

The Harvard Club of Cincinnati Book Club has suspended meetings of the group.  We will reevaluate over time based on advice of our public health authorities.

About the Book:

"Science," writes Sir Peter Medawar, "is incomparably the most successful enterprise human beings have ever engaged upon." In this brief, brilliant book the Nobel laureate explores the nature and limitations of scientific pursuit. The three essays included touch on some of the largest questions known to man: Can science determine the existence of God? Is there one "scientific method" by which all the secrets of the universe can be discovered?
In "An Essay on Scians" (an early spelling of "science"), Medawar examines the process of scientific inquiry. Debunking the common belief that science is inductively structured, he claims that great leaps of imagination are required to determine the laws of nature and likens the process of scientific hypothesis to the creative acts of poets and artists. The question posed in "Can Scientific Discovery Be Premeditated?" is answered with a firm no. Sir Peter stresses the role of luck in the history of science and cites as examples of un-premeditated discoveries those of X-rays, HLA polymorphism, and the nature of the disease myasthenia gravis. In the title essay, Medawar distinguishes between "transcendent" questions, which are better left to religion, literature, and metaphysics, and questions about the organization and structure of the material universe. With regard to the latter, he concludes, there are no limits to the possibilities of scientific achievement. "This is science's greatest glory," writes Medawar, "for it entails that everything which is possible in principle can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute and long sustained."

About the author (1988)

Peter Medawar was born as a British citizen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His mother was British and his father was Lebanese. He graduated from Oxford University in 1939 with a degree in zoology. Medawar taught at the University of Birmingham, England, and University College, London, before becoming the director of the National Institute for Medical Research in Great Britain. He then became head of the division of surgical science at the Clinical Research Centre, as well as professor of experimental medicine at the Royal Institution. A co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine (with Macfarlane Burnet) in 1960, Medawar focused his research mainly on tissue compatibility and the immune system. Although known as a scholar, administrator, and one of the world's great immunologists, he is equally famous for his popularizations of science.

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"The Mantle of Command," by Nigel Hamilton

 

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When:

7:30PM - 9:00PM Wed 18 Mar 2020, Eastern timezone

Where:

Bronte Cafe: Joseph Beth Booksellers
2692 Madison Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45208

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