Lehrer stumbles eloquently through eight different artists of their time, from writers to chefs to yet more writers. The common theme of authors as truth-seekers makes itself apparent from page one. His chapters ostensibly follow as such; a step into the history and -isms of a particular artist's time, followed by the artists radical departure from contemporary truths into the realm of now-proven Science. And oh, if only this were the case. While Lehrer does an adequate job of rehashing scientific history and it's errors, he does little to establish each artist as precipitating the discoveries of modern science. Sure, Stein's illogical poems coincide with the later knowledge of deep language structure, but did that give her an advanced knowledge of syntax? (nevermind that this is linguistics, not neuroscience) Did Escoffier's love of hearty soup stock mean he understood our collective love of MSG? Did Cezanne's abstraction suggest our top-down visual processing? The answer to all of these questions is probably not. Without strong evidence for any chapter, Lehrer's theories are at best poetic conjecture.
In short, this is not neuroscience. In an ardent, perhaps belligerant attempt to find the glorious fusion between Art and Science, Lehrer has found nothing. But if you're looking for baseless whimsy from the mind of a literary failed lab tech, this book is for you.
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