Beyond a World Divided

Thinkers as diverse as C.P. Snow, J. Bronowski, and Carl Sagan describe the rift between science and the humanities as the greatest barrier to solving the many problems threatening today's world. During the last two decades of his life, Nobel laureate Roger W. Sperry, best known for pioneering split-brain studies that highlighted the differing aptitudes of the two hemispheres of the human brain, turned his energies to this dilemma. Sperry's ideas about consciousness challenged the behaviorist orthodoxy that prevailed in psychology in the 1950s and 60s, and provided a way of understanding the relationship between brain and mind that not only more accurately reflected reality, but also promised a reconciliation between the conflicting claims of hard-edged objective fact and the realm of human emotion and subjective experience. Beyond A World Divided chronicles the neuroscientist's groundbreaking research and his efforts to refine and win acceptance for his ideas. The book concludes by surveying the continuing debate in the psychological and philosophical communities about the impact of Sperry's ideas.

Erika Erdmann, an independent scholar, worked as Roger Sperry's research associate for more than a decade, and wrote widely on evolution, futurism, and the relationship between science and religion. She died in 2006. David Stover, an author, editor, and publisher, is also the co-author with Erdmann of A Mind for Tomorrow: Facts, Values, and the Future (2000).