THE ACCIDENTAL MIND

Linden sets the record straight about the construction of the human brain; rather than the "e;beautifully-engineered optimized device, the absolute pinnacle of design"e; portrayed in many dumbed-down text books, pop-science tomes, and education televisions programs, Linden's organ is a complicated assembly of cobbled-together functionality that created the mind as a by-product of ad-hoc solutions to questions of survival. His guided tour of the glorious amalgam of "e;crummy parts"e; includes pit-stops in the histories and fundamentals of neurology, neural-psychology, physiology, molecular and cellular biology, and genetics.