The Science of Self

Professor Lee M. Silver ; Princeton University

ISBN 10: 1598035622 ISBN 13: 9781598035629

Publisher: The Great Courses, 2009

4 Disc DVD Set with Course Guidebook How does DNA instruct a single-celled embryo to create a body with a brain producing a self-conscious mind? What makes a human, human—its mind, genes, appearance, or something else? The capacity to contemplate questions such as these has been a deﬁning feature of Homo sapiens since its origin. But in the absence of scientiﬁc knowledge and tools, our capacity to formulate answers was severely limited. Today, limitations to understanding and modifying life of all kinds are rapidly receding. We are on the verge of a scientiﬁc revolution with enormous implications for us, our children, and humanity as a whole. This revolutionary science of biotechnology is deciphering and manipulating molecules of DNA, the universal storage material for digital operating systems that deﬁne both species-typical and individual attributes of every organism on Earth. This course will provide a foundation for understanding how life works at the level of genes and molecules, where complex networks interact to drive human development, evolution, and behavior. We begin with an overview of the core principles of scientiﬁc analysis and a historical survey of the ways in which science has been used to dissect the meanings of “life” and “human being.” From there we move on to the critical concept of the gene, from Mendel’s formulation of an abstract, atomlike unit of heredity to a physical association with chromosomes and DNA's digital code. This lead's us into the modern age of biotechnology, with development of tools for reading all 3 billion base pairs of sequence in the human genome, and the millions of DNA differences that distinguish people from each other. From there, we explore the origin of the human species and the genetic basis for diseases, with a focus on those that affect the mind. We will end up with a look at the potential of the biomedical sciences and the impact that they could have on the future of the human species

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