In The Birth of the Mind , award-winning cognitive scientist Gary Marcus irrevocably alters the nature vs. nurture debate by linking the findings of the Human Genome project to the development of the brain.

Guitar Zero debunks the popular theory of an innate musical instinct while simultaneously challenging the idea that talent is only a myth.

On the eve of his 40th birthday, a professor of no discernible musical talentlearns to play the guitar and investigates how anyone of any age might mastera new skill.

A kluge is an engineering term for a makeshift solution, a clumsy construction that somehow works. This is Gary Marcus's analogy for the way the human mind has evolved.

The author describes how he was able to learn to play the guitar in midlife in spite of a limited musical aptitude, revealing what he learned about the brain's capacity for musical proficiency at any time of life and how his findings ...

The Algebraic Mind revamps our understanding of models in cognitive neuroscience and helps to set a new agenda for the field."--Jacket.