The McManus review is startlingly poor - sounds like classic grumpy territorial academicism at its miserable worst! Scientists won’t like stories, psychologists are better than ‘neurobabble’, this book won’t help people who are lame, Doidge attacks a straw man, Doidge claims that the brain is infinitely plastic (er, that’s a straw man of your own right there!) - and the line ‘When cures fail to appear, the interpretation may well be that the patients’ brains simply didn’t sufficiently want to change’ is an egregious misrepresentation of the book, which comments wherever relevant on the percentage of patients responding to particular treatments. It’s faintly hysterical throughout, and doesn’t make a single actual point - if the book is ‘misleading’, how about a specific example?!
None of this is aimed at you, Owain - I’m just responding to the McManus review because this thread has become a discussion of the book. There’s no reason why anyone should take my opinion of the book on trust, or indeed my opinion of McManus. But I’m very comfortable asserting that The Brain That Changes Itself is one of the most interesting and inspiring general science books I’ve read (and I’ve been an avid general science reader since I was a pre-teen, thanks largely to Isaac Asimov…;-)).
It has, hasn’t it! And so you should. As I said, good for differing opinions!
I didn’t find the McManus review hysterical (myself!- but that’s a very minor point, only relating to its tone [and perhaps definitions of words, which makes this sentence pointless!]-and the only thing I can comment on) but it could well be complete rubbish in the comments it makes! I don’t know. Thank you for your comments on it!
[I only printed it in partial response (along with a direct link to the very positive New York Times one) to your saying that you didn’t know of anyone who would give Doidge a bad review- (that immediately made me look up reviews for the book out of interest!)]
Same here- that man and Arthur C Clarke have responsibility for a lot of my time as a child being spent in second hand book shops!
Anyhow, very interesting to hear your opinions and knowledge on this subject as always!
Yup, I was quite a fan of Arthur C Clarke, too. Until he beat me fairly ruthlessly at table tennis in Sri Lanka, which I found hard to forgive. I wasn’t the most gracious of losers as an 11 year old…
