GARY MARCUS
Department of Psychology
New York University

How the Brain Develops

The Great Brain Debate: Nature or Nurture?*
By John E. Dowling. Science Essential Series of the National Academy of Sciences. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2004. 189 pp. Paper, $24.95.

The human brain has been described as the most elaborate structure in the known universe, biology's greatest challenge, and the last frontier (not to mention Woody Allen's second favorite organ). In The Great Brain Debate, Harvard neuroscientist John Dowling cautiously and clearly lays out what is known—and not known—about the fabrication and maintenance of the most enigmatic yet wonderfully elaborate of organs.