Life Beyond the Gene

Lifelines

'Rose eloquently achieves his aim of reintroducing a philosophy to biology' Sunday Telegraph

In the current intellectual and political climate, there is a desperate need to return to the real biology of real organisms, including human beings, in a real world. For the general reader wanting to know how this might be done, there can be no better guide than Rose's book

Written with admirable clarity and force... I can't imagine anyone who wanted enlightenment coming away from this book empty-handed

Essential reading for anyone interested in biology and evolution

There is no denying his skill as a writer...a flowing, elegant scientific treatise

Steven Rose is Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at The Open University, Visiting Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London, and, jointly with sociologist Hilary Rose, was the Professor of Physic (genetics and society) at Gresham College, London. His previous books include The Chemistry of Life (1996), Science and Society (with Hilary Rose) (1973), The Conscious Brain (1973), Molecules and Minds: Essays on Biology and the Social Order (1988), and The Making of Memory (1992). The Making of Memory won the 1993 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize and he has received a variety of medals and international awards, most recently the Biochemical Society’s special medal for science communication, the Edinburgh Medal and the silver medal of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.

In Lifelines, neuroscientist Steven Rose offers a theory of life that insists that we as humans - along with all living creatures - create our own futures, though in circumstances not of our own choosing. Placing the organism at the centre of life, Rose directly confronts the ideology of reductionism and ultra-Darwinism, with its headline-grabbing insistence that all aspects of human life from sexual preference to infanticide, political orientation to violence, make domination to alcoholism, are in our genes and are the inevitable consequence of natural selection. Rose asserts that such claims are not merely socially naive, but fundamentally misunderstand the active and irreducible nature of living processes.

From Molecules to Mind

The Making Of Memory

Winner of the Rhône-Poulenc Science Prize.

Quite simply one of the most interesting books which I have ever perused

Rose introduces each topic with skill and clarity

Exceptionally well-written...a fascinating account of the current state of play in the neurosciences

Compelling... The job of demystifying science is completed with style, jargon-free and elegantly written

Steven Rose is Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at The Open University, Visiting Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London, and, jointly with sociologist Hilary Rose, Professor of Physic (genetics and society) at Gresham College, London. His previous books include The Chemistry of Life (1996), Science and Society (with Hilary Rose) (1973), The Conscious Brain (1973), Molecules and Minds: Essays on Biology and the Social Order (1988), and The Making of Memory (1992).

Steven Rose's The Making of Memory is about just that, in both its senses: the biological processes by which we humans - and other animals - learn and remember, and how researchers can explore these mechanisms. But it is also about much more. 
 
When the first edition of this fascinating book won the Science book Prize in 1993, the judges described it as 'a riveting read...a first-hand account by a practicing scientist working at the forefront of medical research and Rose does not duck the issues which that raises.' 
 
Now ten years on, research has itself moved forward, and Rose has taken the opportunity to fully revise the book. But this is more than mere revision. Where ten years ago he argued the case for research on memory because it is the most extraordinary of human attributes, Rose's own research has now opened the doors to a potential new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease undreamed of a decade ago, and in an entirely new chapter he describes how this potential breakthrough has occurred.

Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology

Alas Poor Darwin

The first comprehensible critique of Evolutionary Psychology and its key thinkers (Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, E.O. Wilson, etc.), written for the general reader

Steven Rose is Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London. From 1999 to 2002 he was joint Professor of Physiology at Gresham College, London with his wife, the sociologist Hilary Rose. She is currently Visiting Research Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Professor Emeritus of Physick, Gresham College, London, UK.

Today, genes are called upon to explain almost every aspect of our lives, from social inequalities to health, sexual preference and criminality. Based on Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection, Evolutionary Psychology with its claim that 'it's all in our genes' has become the most popular scientific theory of the late 20th century. Books such as Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, Edward O.Wilson's Consilience and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct have become bestsellers and frame the public debate on human life and development: we can see their influence as soon as we open a Sunday newspaper.      In recent years, however, many biologists and social scientists have begun to contest this new biological determinism and shown that Evolutionary Psychology rests on shaky empirical evidence, flawed premises and unexamined political presuppositions. In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Hilary and Steven Rose have gathered together the most eminent and outspoken critics of this fashionable ideology, ranging from Stephen Jay Gould and Patrick Bateson to Mary Midgley, Tim Ingold and Annette Karmiloff-Smith. What emerges is a new perspective on human development which acknowledges the complexity of life by placing at its centre the living organism rather than the gene.

The Chemistry of Life

Steven Rose is Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University. THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE (1966) was his first book. Since then he has written many others, including, in Penguin, NOT IN OUR GENES (1984) and LIFELINES (1997). He won the 1993 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize for THE MAKING OF MEMORY.

First published in 1966, THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE has held its own as a clear and authoritative introduction to the world of biochemistry. This fourth edition has been fully updated and revised to include the latest developments in DNA and protein synthesis, cell regulation, and their social and medical implications.

Steven Rose

While this book is a magisterial survey of what we currently understand about the human brain and mind, it is also a profoundly personal rumination on the sources and consequences of that knowledge

If you are interested in brains or having a mind you must read this

An excellent account of neuroscience today

An elegantly written and cogent guide to contemporary ideas about how and why the brain works

Rose has a subtle mind, a prose style of great clarity and a civilised and compassionate approach to what neuroscience tells us about human nature

Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind

A compelling and authoritative study of the brain - its past, present and future. 
 
The human brain is the most complex structure in the known universe. How it works, the relationship between mind and brain, is one of the most important of scientific questions. Researchers now claim to be able to explain the roots of human personality and behaviour and this new knowledge brings potential new powers; to cure mental illnesses, to control behaviour through tailor-made drugs, to develop human-machine hybrids. But just how seriously should we take these new threats and promises? 
 
In order to tackle these issues Steven Rose explores the evolutionary route by which brains emerged, from the origin of life to today's complex societies. He also investigates how brains develop from a single fertilised egg to the incredibly complex organ that each human possesses. Against this background he asks the challenging question: what does the future hold for the human brain?

Steven Rose

Praise for The 21st Century Brain

While this book is a magisterial survey of what we currently understand about the human brain and mind, it is also a profoundly personal rumination on the sources and consequences of that knowledge

Especially valuable

A timely book on a timely subject

While this book is a magisterial survey of what we currently understand about the human brain and mind, it is also a profoundly personal rumination on the sources and consequences of that knowledge

Especially valuable

A timely book on a timely subject

While this book is a magisterial survey of what we currently understand about the human brain and mind, it is also a profoundly personal rumination on the sources and consequences of that knowledge

Especially valuable

A timely book on a timely subject

Books by Steven Rose

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter