Books by Brights
Reality is enough: We don't need belief to know what's true and what's not
Author: James Merryweather
To Purchase:
Amazon USA: Kindle Edition
Amazon USA: Paperback Edition
Amazon UK: Kindle Edition
Amazon UK: Paperback Edition
Book Description
'REALITY is enough' consists of more than fifty essays – chapters – bundled into three themed sections: 1. Thinking about Thinking, 2. Wondering about Religion and 3. Defending Science. The author dissects the mind, exploring what it is to be an atheist in a religious world, and shows how science – particularly biology – is under attack from extreme religion. He explores aspects of brain behaviour that have interested him as he sorted out his own life and explored the extraordinarily baffling phenomenon of religion, paying special attention to its interaction with science. With reference to science as it really is and a dash of good humour, he demonstrates how religiously driven pseudo-scientists are, more often than not, just plain wrong when they prattle on about science they don’t or won’t understand. Merryweather explores belief versus reality and what different people mean when they refer to ‘truth’. He maintains that when belief agrees with reality it makes no difference and when it doesn’t, it still makes no difference – to reality.
About the Author
James Merryweather was thoroughly grounded and engrossed in biology from an early age, although he did not begin to achieve academically until late in life, when eventually he stormed forward, and through research, gained first his masters and then a triumphant doctorate. His research studies at the University of York involved Britain's favourite wildflower, bluebell, and fascinating soil fungi that inhabit its roots in the symbiotic partnership known as mycorrhiza. From this he learnt much about ecology and evolution, but not enough about the latter. He remedied that when he arrived in Scotland where there are people who argue with him, telling him the science he knows a lot better than they do is untrue! Hence this book. He retired early and in 2003 moved to the Scottish Highlands where he continued natural history study as well as teaching and preparing field guides, with the express desire to inform, not baffle users.