Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Sagan, Carl (Edward) - John Updike

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JOHN UPDIKE

Versatile though he is, [Sagan] is simply not enough saturated in his subject [in "The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence"] to speculate; what he can do is summarize and, to a limited degree, correlate the results of scattered and tentative modern research on the human brain. The research, from electroencephalograms of dreamers to endocranial casts of fossil skulls, is in progress, and Mr. Sagan, like the rest of us, must wait for sweeping conclusions. "If this result is confirmed, it would be quite an important finding," he writes in one iffy spot, and, in another, complains, "Very little work has been done in this field to date." He speaks of "many potential near-term developments in brain chemistry which hold great promise both for good and for evil," shamelessly woolgathers about how "one day we will have surgically implanted in our brains small replaceable computer modules or radio terminals which will provide us...

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1. Introduction
2. Edward Edelson
3. Richard Berendzen
4. Peter Stoler
5. Richard Restak
6. R. J. Herrnstein
7. John Updike
8. Stephen C. Reingold
9. Charles Weingartner
10. Edmund Fuller
11. Richard Berendzen
12. Dewey Schwartzenburg
13. James H. Booth
14. Isaac Asimov
15. David Roberts
16. William J. O'Malley, S.J.
17. Jeffrey Marsh
18. David Paul Rebovich
19. Copyright

1. John Updike