Background
THOMAS, Lewis was born on November 25, 1913 in Flushing, New York, United States. Son of late Joseph S. Thomas and late Grace Emma Peck.
(Elegant, suggestive, and clarifying, Lewis Thomas's profo...)
Elegant, suggestive, and clarifying, Lewis Thomas's profoundly humane vision explores the world around us and examines the complex interdependence of all things. Extending beyond the usual limitations of biological science and into a vast and wondrous world of hidden relationships, this provocative book explores in personal, poetic essays to topics such as computers, germs, language, music, death, insects, and medicine. Lewis Thomas writes, "Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good for us."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140047433/?tag=2022091-20
( Acclaimed biologist Lewis Wolpert eloquently narrates t...)
Acclaimed biologist Lewis Wolpert eloquently narrates the basics of human life through the lens of its smallest component: the cell. Everything about our existence-movement and memory, imagination and reproduction, birth, and ultimately death-is governed by our cells. They are the basis of all life in the universe, from bacteria to the most complex animals. In the tradition of the classic Lives of a Cell, but with the benefit of the latest research, Lewis Wolpert demonstrates how human life grows from a single cell into a body, an incredibly complex society of billions of cells. Wolpert goes on to examine the science behind topics that are much discussed but rarely understood―stem-cell research, cloning, DNA, cancer―and explains how all life on earth evolved from just one cell. Lively and passionate, this is an accessible guide to understanding the human body and life itself.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393339386/?tag=2022091-20
(Continuing the exploration of humanity and its world he b...)
Continuing the exploration of humanity and its world he began in The Lives of a Cell, the acclaimed scientist examines disease and natural death, cloning, making mistakes, and other timely topics with his trademark wonder and wit. Reprint.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140243194/?tag=2022091-20
(REVIEW by Andrew Parker (Toronto, Ontario Canada) This re...)
REVIEW by Andrew Parker (Toronto, Ontario Canada) This review is from: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (Paperback) This collection of essays has held a special place on my shelf and in my heart for many years. I return to it often for both the ideas and the wonderful sense of life that Lewis Thomas injects into his writing. I have read other reviews here questioning both the scientific value of these essays and the author's scientific creditials. As for the latter - this man has been a doctor, a field researcher, a lab director, a professor, the dean of Yale medical school, President of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and member of the Presidential Science Advisory Board. If you have an issue with these credentials your standards are a little too high. To speak of the scientific value of this book is difficult. Lewis Thomas didn't write like Steven Jay Gould, with clear theses, dates and names and cited research. He is more like Douglas Hofstadter. (if this comparison helps) I imagine that Lewis Thomas wrote these essays late at night after a day filled with details and the reductionism of modern science. These essays are the antithesis of what his days must have entailed. What we find on paper here are both the whimsical musisngs and deepest thoughts of a brilliant man whose whole life was devoted to practicing and teaching science. He writes beautifully, with humour, zest, and a sense of wonder that I find endlessly captivating. His love of the natural world is infectious. Please read this book. Of all the science books I've read (I have two science degrees) and all the fiction I've read, this book continues to inspire, teach, and amaze me.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055323398X/?tag=2022091-20
(1979 First edition Viking Press, pair of trade PBs with s...)
1979 First edition Viking Press, pair of trade PBs with slipcase. Two part series of classic essays, Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas. "Undogmatic, graceful, gently persuasive, these essays insist upon the interrelatedness of all life." Joyce Carol Oates
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C86O1E/?tag=2022091-20
(REVIEW by Andrew Parker (Toronto, Ontario Canada) This r...)
REVIEW by Andrew Parker (Toronto, Ontario Canada) This review is from: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (Paperback) This collection of essays has held a special place on my shelf and in my heart for many years. I return to it often for both the ideas and the wonderful sense of life that Lewis Thomas injects into his writing. I have read other reviews here questioning both the scientific value of these essays and the author's scientific creditials. As for the latter - this man has been a doctor, a field researcher, a lab director, a professor, the dean of Yale medical school, President of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and member of the Presidential Science Advisory Board. If you have an issue with these credentials your standards are a little too high. To speak of the scientific value of this book is difficult. Lewis Thomas didn't write like Steven Jay Gould, with clear theses, dates and names and cited research. He is more like Douglas Hofstadter. (if this comparison helps) I imagine that Lewis Thomas wrote these essays late at night after a day filled with details and the reductionism of modern science. These essays are the antithesis of what his days must have entailed. What we find on paper here are both the whimsical musisngs and deepest thoughts of a brilliant man whose whole life was devoted to practicing and teaching science. He writes beautifully, with humour, zest, and a sense of wonder that I find endlessly captivating. His love of the natural world is infectious. Please read this book. Of all the science books I've read (I have two science degrees) and all the fiction I've read, this book continues to inspire, teach, and amaze me.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IXNTPW/?tag=2022091-20
(From the 1920s when he watched his father, a general prac...)
From the 1920s when he watched his father, a general practitioner who made housecalls and wrote his prescriptions in Latin, to his days in medical school and beyond, Lewis Thomas saw medicine evolve from an art into a sophisticated science. The Youngest Science is Dr. Thomas's account of his life in the medical profession and an inquiry into what medicine is all about--the youngest science, but one rich in possibility and promise. He chronicles his training in Boston and New York, his war career in the South Pacific, his most impassioned research projects, his work as an administrator in hospitals and medical schools, and even his experiences as a patient. Along the way, Thomas explores the complex relationships between research and practice, between words and meanings, between human error and human accomplishment, More than a magnificent autobiography, The Youngest Science is also a celebration and a warning--about the nature of medicine and about the future life of our planet.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140243275/?tag=2022091-20
(This is a book about simple but important words, and how ...)
This is a book about simple but important words, and how they shed light on the way the human mind works. The author, winner of the National Book Award, examines the origin of words, the development of language, and tells us how language preserves us, binds us, and makes us a social species.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316840998/?tag=2022091-20
(The author of The Lives of a Cell and The Medusa and the ...)
The author of The Lives of a Cell and The Medusa and the Snail now raises challenging questions about some of the major issues of our time--AIDS, drug abuse, and aging. With extraordinary perception, he discusses topics such as evolutionary biology, the development of language, the therapeutic aspects of medicine, and his love for his profession.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684843021/?tag=2022091-20
( Acclaimed biologist Lewis Wolpert eloquently narrates t...)
Acclaimed biologist Lewis Wolpert eloquently narrates the basics of human life through the lens of its smallest component: the cell. Everything about our existence-movement and memory, imagination and reproduction, birth, and ultimately death-is governed by our cells. They are the basis of all life in the universe, from bacteria to the most complex animals. In the tradition of the classic Lives of a Cell, but with the benefit of the latest research, Lewis Wolpert demonstrates how human life grows from a single cell into a body, an incredibly complex society of billions of cells. Wolpert goes on to examine the science behind topics that are much discussed but rarely understood―stem-cell research, cloning, DNA, cancer―and explains how all life on earth evolved from just one cell. Lively and passionate, this is an accessible guide to understanding the human body and life itself.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393339386/?tag=2022091-20
(The Lives a Cell (isbn: 0670434426; 1974) with the twenty...)
The Lives a Cell (isbn: 0670434426; 1974) with the twenty-nine essays that are masterpieces of art, beauty, and the appeal of learning to see; and The Medusa and the Snail (isbn: 0670465682; 1979) also with twenty-nine essays on the poetry of the life of snails, ponds and thoughtful essays on disease, health care system, medical economics, and more. New York: Viking Press. 5.5"x8" tall; The Lives of a Cell - 153pp with Reference Notes; The Medusa and the Snail - 175pp.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004PH9WY4/?tag=2022091-20
(Book annotation not available for this title. Title: The ...)
Book annotation not available for this title. Title: The Youngest Science Author: Thomas, Lewis Publisher: Penguin Group USA Publication Date: 1995/05/01 Number of Pages: 269 Binding Type: PAPERBACK Library of Congress: BL 00005625
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AU9GOBK/?tag=2022091-20
(The medusa is a tiny jellyfish that lives on the ventral ...)
The medusa is a tiny jellyfish that lives on the ventral surface of a sea slug found in the Bay of Naples. These two organisms depend on each other for their survival. What a mix-up of selfness! "The Thought of these creatures gives me an odd feeling. They do not remind me of anything, really. They are bizarre, that's it, unique. And at the same time, like a vaguely remembered dream, they remind me of the whole earth at once." Readers and admirers of Lewis Thomas will not be surprised to find themselves bound up in the fate of the medusa and the snail; it is one of Dr. Thomas's genial qualities that he brings the most unlikely yet completely apposite observations to bear upon the eternal issues of life and death. These further "Notes of a Biology Watcher" extend the explorations of man and his world that readers of 'The Lives of a Cell' will remember with gratitude. Among other treasures in Dr. Thomas's magnificent new book are essays on the human genius for making mistakes, on disease and natural death, on cloning, on warts, and on Montaigne. "On Transcendental Metaworry" and "Notes on Punctuation" should win special awards for subversive and unexpected humor, and it is no surprise that one of America's most distinguished doctors also assesses the current state of medical science in essays on the premedical curriculum, the modern American health-care system, and, in a concluding chapter that should be required reading, "Medical Lessons from History."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010EUZI1G/?tag=2022091-20
(The author approaches the hidden relationships to be foun...)
The author approaches the hidden relationships to be found in the world of biological science in an unusual way. He examines the issues of life and death and some of the topics in between, including such diverse fields as bacteria, DNA, computers, insects, health care, cloning, language, pain, warts, embryos and the workings of the brain.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192830643/?tag=2022091-20
(Thomas, Lewis. Notes of a Biology watcher: The Lives of a...)
Thomas, Lewis. Notes of a Biology watcher: The Lives of a Cell / The Medusa and the Snail. New York, The Viking Press, 1955. 8°. XI, 122 and X, 175 pages. Softcover / Original Paperbacks in an illustrated slipcase. Boxed set containing 2 volumes. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. From the library of Graham Parkes. With his personal stamp on the half-title of both volumes. Underlined with pencil in places.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013D0JPT0/?tag=2022091-20
( THE STEM CELL IS SET TO DOMINATE POPULAR AWARENESS OF S...)
THE STEM CELL IS SET TO DOMINATE POPULAR AWARENESS OF SCIENCE LIKE THE ATOM BOMB DID A GENERATION AGO. No area of science holds such immediate promise for treating disease and improving human lives as stem cell research. But no area of science also causes such fundamental ethical concern and such ferocious political conflict.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131737988/?tag=2022091-20
THOMAS, Lewis was born on November 25, 1913 in Flushing, New York, United States. Son of late Joseph S. Thomas and late Grace Emma Peck.
Bachelor of Science, Princeton University, 1933. Doctor of Science (honorary), Princeton University, 1976. Doctor of Medicine, Harvard University, 1937.
Doctor of Science (honorary), Harvard University, 1986. Master of Arts, Yale University, 1969. Doctor of Science (honorary), University Rochester, 1974.
Doctor of Science (honorary), University of Toledo, 1976. Doctor of Science (honorary), Columbia University, Memorial University Newfoundland, 1978. Doctor of Science (honorary), University North Carolina, Worcester Foundation, 1979.
Doctor of Science (honorary), Williams College, 1982. Doctor of Science (honorary), Connecticut College, University Wales, 1983. Doctor of Science (honorary), University Arizona, 1985.
Doctor of Science (honorary), Long Island University, 1987. Doctor of Science (honorary), Rockefeller University, University Illinois, University Minnesota, 1989. Doctor of Laws (honorary), Johns Hopkins University, 1976.
Doctor of Laws (honorary), Trinity College, 1980. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Duke University, 1976. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Reed College, 1978.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Mount Sinai School Medicine, 1990. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Dickinson College, 1980. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Ursinus College, 1981.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), State University of New York-Stony Brook, 1983. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Drew University, 1983. Doctor of Music. (honorary), New England Conservatory Music, 1982.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), New York University School Medicine, 1983. Doctor of Philosophy, Weizmann Institute, 1984.
Assistant professor pediatrics Medical School Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1946-1948. Associate professor medicine Medical School Tulane University, New Orleans, 1948-1950, professor medicine, 195O. Professor pediatrics and medicine, director pediatric research laboratories Heart Hospital, University Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1950-1954.
Professor, chairman department pathology New York University School Medicine, 1954-1958, professor, chairman department medicine, 1958-1966, dean, 1966-1969. Professor, chairman department pathology Yale University, New Haven, 1969-1972, dean, School Medicine, 1972-1973. Professor medicine, pathology Medical School Cornell University, New York City, 1973-1993, professor biology Sloan Kettering Institute division, 1973-1993.
Adjunct professor Rockefeller University, 1975-1993. President, chief executive officer Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1973-1980, chancellor, 1980-1983. President emeritus Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1984-1993.
Professor State University of New York-Stony Brook Health Sciences Center, 1984-1993. Scholar-in-residence, Cornell University Medical College, 1988-1992. Director 3d and 4th medical divisions Bellevue Hospital, 1958-1966, president medical board, 1963-1966.
National advisory health council National Institutes of Health, 1960-1964, national advisory child health and human development council, 1964-1968. Member commission on streptococcal disease Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, 1950-1962. Member President's Science Advisory Committee, 1967-1970, Institute Medicine, 1971, National Academy of Sciences, 1972-1993, member council and governing board, 1979-1993.
Chairman overview cluster subcommittee President's biomedical Research Panel, 1975-1976. Member Technology Assessment Advisory Council, 1980-1986. Board directors, trustee Squibb Corporation Member New York City Board Health, 1956-1969.
Member board science consultant Sloan-Kettering Institute Cancer Research, 1966-1972. Member Sloan-Kettering Institute, 1973-1983. Board directors Josiah Macy Junior Foundation, 1975-1984.
Board science advisors Massachusetts General Hospital, 1970-1973, Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, 1969-1978. Board directors, research council Public Health Research Institute of City New York, 1964-1969. Board overseers Harvard College, 1976-1982.
Associate fellow Ezra Stiles College Yale University, 1978-1982. Member awards assembly General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, 1978-1983. Associate fellow Ezra Stiles College Yale University.
(The Lives a Cell (isbn: 0670434426; 1974) with the twenty...)
(From the 1920s when he watched his father, a general prac...)
(From the 1920s when he watched his father, a general prac...)
(REVIEW by Andrew Parker (Toronto, Ontario Canada) This re...)
(REVIEW by Andrew Parker (Toronto, Ontario Canada) This r...)
(Continuing the exploration of humanity and its world he b...)
(The author of The Lives of a Cell and The Medusa and the ...)
(Elegant, suggestive, and clarifying, Lewis Thomas's profo...)
( Acclaimed biologist Lewis Wolpert eloquently narrates t...)
( Acclaimed biologist Lewis Wolpert eloquently narrates t...)
(The author approaches the hidden relationships to be foun...)
(The medusa is a tiny jellyfish that lives on the ventral ...)
(The medusa is a tiny jellyfish that lives on the ventral ...)
(This is a book about simple but important words, and how ...)
(Set of two soft cover books in 8-1/4" by 5-1/2" slip case...)
( THE STEM CELL IS SET TO DOMINATE POPULAR AWARENESS OF S...)
(1979 First edition Viking Press, pair of trade PBs with s...)
(Book annotation not available for this title. Title: The ...)
(BRAND NEW hardcover as shown. Beautiful condition from Vi...)
(Two Volume paperack Box Set.)
(1979 175 pages. Hardbound, minor signs of use and age, ve...)
(Thomas, Lewis. Notes of a Biology watcher: The Lives of a...)
(Reprint)
Author: Lives of a Cell, 1974, Medusa and the Snail, 1979, The Youngest Science, 1983, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony, 1983, Et Cetera, Et Cetera, 1990, The Fragile Species, 1992. Member editorial board Daedalus, Cellular Immunology, American Journal Pathology.
Trustee New York City-Rand Institute, 1967-1971, The Rockefeller University, 1975-1988, Draper Laboratory, 1975-1981, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1975-1985, Mount Sinai School Medicine, 1979-1985, Educational Broadcasting Company, 1977-1983, Menninger Foundation, 1980-1993. Board directors Lounsbery Foundation, 1982-1993. Chairman board Monell Chemical Senses Center, 1982-1993.
Board advisors Kennedy Institute Ethics, Georgetown University, 1982-1993. Trustee National Hospice, 1978-1993. Member board overseers University Pennsylvania School Nursing, 1983-1993.
Advisory council Program in History of Science Princeton University, 1982-1993. Board directors American Friends Cambridge University, 1984-1993. Member advisory committee Aaron Diamond Foundation, 1985-1993.
Director Commonwealth Fund Book Program, 1982-1993. Served to lieutenant Commander Medical Corps United States Naval Reserve, 1941-1946. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences.
Member National Academy of Sciences, American Academy and Institute Arts and Letters, American Philosophical Association, American Academy Microbiology, Peripatetic Clinical Society, American Society Clinical Investigation, American Association Immunologists, Society of America Bacteriologists, Association American Physicians (Kober medal 1983), American Pediatric Society, New York Academy of Sciences (pres.1989), Harvey Society (councillor), Scientists' Institute for Public Info (chairman board 1982-1988, award for excellence in science communication 1982), Council on Foreign Relations, Interurban Clinical Club, Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Omega Alpha. Clubs: Century Association.
Music, literature, science.
Son of and Grace Emma (Peck) T. Married Beryl Dawson, January 1, 1941. Children: Abigail, Judith, Eliza.