Books & ideas

Life as a Puzzle

Bertrand Vaillant — 2024-09-19T07:30:00Z

The complexity of contemporary biology is a source of wonder, fear, and misunderstanding. Thierry Hoquet reviews the major biological theories to help us think through the social implications of a science that is opening up fascinating, though not inevitable, horizons.

The First Biologist

Bertrand Vaillant — 2024-01-04T08:07:00Z

In a scholarly yet accessible study, Pierre Pellegrin argues that Aristotle is the true founder of biology, contrary to what a distorted perception of his finalism has long led us to believe.

A French History of Transhumanism

Stanislas Deprez — 2021-03-08T08:00:00Z

Transhumanism is usually thought of as emerging out of Silicon Valley and the GAFA—but might it be French in origin? This theory, which connects the utopia of artificial intelligence and of man-machine hybridisation to pre-war eugenicist biology, is open to debate.

The Inequality of Human Lives

Perig Pitrou — 2020-02-27T08:00:00Z

Between naturalism and humanism, midway between Perec and Adorno, Didier Fassin suggests considering human lives in terms of the evaluation variable accorded to them by the social environment. Thus, compassionate morality is replaced by the demand for justice.

The Politics of Antibiotics

Adrien Allorant & Jules Naudet — 2019-05-30T07:00:00Z

The growing resistance to antibiotics potentially threatens the future of mankind. Ramanan Laxminarayan suggests that this major political challenge requires as much international cooperation as the fight against global warming does.

The Glory of Carbon

Marc Fontecave — 2019-03-11T07:00:00Z

Although carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it is also—like carbon itself—a vital partner for humanity and life. Two philosophers of science have issued a sharp yet elegant reminder.

The Secret Life of Trees

Matthieu Calame — 2017-09-21T07:00:00Z

Did you think a tree was just branches and leaves? Then enter the fascinating world of spruces, lime trees and oaks, a forest in which trees support and compete with one other, thriving thanks to their boundless ingenuity.

The Rise of the New Pandora's Box?

Élodie Edwards-Grossi — 2016-03-03T08:00:00Z

In a well-researched book, the sociologist Sébastien Lemerle delivers a breakthrough analysis of the dissemination and reception of biologism in France from the 1960s until the 2000s. Through the frenetic output of best-sellers linking biological theories to the explanation of social behaviors, he shows how biologists came to be considered as intellectuals in the public arena.

Evolving Without Darwin

Rachel Mason Dentinger — 2014-01-13T08:00:00Z

What if Charles Darwin had never existed? In a recent book adopting the method of counterfactual history, Peter J. Bowler imagines how, in the absence of a theory of natural selection, other models of evolutionary change would certainly have gained more scientific and cultural power.