Jonah Lehrer wants scientists to bone up on the classics. A farmer neuroscience lab drone, the 26-year-old Rhodes scholar would devour pages of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way whenever he wasn't spinning down DNA. In the process, he made a discovery: Artists have something to teach researchers. In his new book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer argues that many artists have foretold the scientific future-Proust revealed the inaccuracy of memory, chef Auguste Escoff ier antici-rnpated the fifth taste sensation we now call umami, and post-impressionist Paul Cezanne proved that the brain fills in what a painting doesn't show, wired asked Lehrer to explain why the white coats should go all black-beret.
展开▼
