IS SCIENCE NECESSARY?

Max perutz, who won the nobel prize for chemistry in 1962 has made major contributions in the field of molecular biology, and particularly on the structure and functions of proteins and nucleic acids. in this book, aimed at the general reader, he examines the role of science in society, and makes a powerful case for the essential benevolence and humanizing influence of the scientific process in its approach to the great problems of our world. he takes us into the three main areas in which science and human problems interact, the areas of food-production, health and medicine, and energy. in each case the problems we face - for example the endemic undernourishment and near-starvation throughout the third world, the unsolved problems of cancer and heart disease, the total dependence of our civilization on dwindling fossil-fuel supplies - are still, in his view, susceptible to scientific solutions.