Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press announces the publication of Inside Science by Benjamin Lewin

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (CSHL Press), a publisher of scientific books, journals, and electronic media, today announced the publication of Inside Science: Revolution in Biology and Its Impact by Benjamin Lewin.

For centuries, science has been driven by human intellect. But what will science look like with AI at its creative center? This is one of many questions Lewin asks in Inside Science, a new look at how science really works. It challenges widely held beliefs that are rarely examined even within the scientific enterprise.

Drawing on his 25 years of experience as the founding editor of Cell, the world’s leading journal in biology, Lewin questions the dogma that scientific papers describe how research was actually done, explores the distortions caused by pressure to publish, and considers the effects of changes in the way science is communicated as we move ever further into the digital era. The view that science protects itself by identifying and excluding work that is not reproducible is rigorously examined, as is the prevalence of fraud in science. Lewin argues that the move from research done in small teams to the much larger scale of big science has the potential to change the nature of science itself. He asks if science can continue in its present form or if new methods of evaluation will be needed for science to function in the future.

Lewin brings these general principles to life by considering the history of the genetics revolution, from the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA to the sequencing of the human genome and the possibilities of gene editing today. The book concludes by asking if the reductionist manifesto that has dominated biology for the past half-century can continue to hold, and revisits the much-debated question: What is science?

Foreword Reviews says Inside Science is “persuasive and thought-provoking…a brilliant analysis of the history of the scientific method alongside a clarion call to consider the changes underway with big data and AI.” Midwest Book Review calls it “an extraordinary study that will have immense appeal to academia and the scientific community. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented.”

Inside Science is available in both print and Kindle formats. For more information visit http://cshlpress.com/link/insidescience.htm