The Leading eBooks Store Online

for your Apple or Android device, Nook, Kobo, PC, Mac, Sony Reader...

New to eBooks.com?

Learn more

The Myths We Live by

The Myths We Live by
Add to cart
US$ 27.95 (+ tax)
Genetic engineering. Bulding blocks of life. Selfish genes These phrases, after all, are all imaginative metaphors. We are encouraged to think that the language of science opposes myth, but does it? Mary Midgley argues in her powerful new book that far from being the opposite of science, myth is a central part of it. In her customary brilliant prose, she argues that myths are neither lies nor mere stories but a network of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world. In The Myths We Live By she spells out how we go wrong about several of the most powerful, such as the myth of the Social Contract and points out how profoundly some of our strongest myths today are shaped by our favourite technologies, notably the microscope and the computer. There is also the myth of progress - now disguised as evolution - the myth of a body quite separate from the mind, and the myth of omnicompetent science.
Routledge; May 2003
224 pages; ISBN 9780203480922
Read online, or download in secure PDF format or MobiPocket