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Nature 447, 640 (7 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/447640a; Published online 6 June 2007

Open Innovation Challenges

Brain botch

Georg Striedter1

BOOK REVIEWEDThe Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God

by David Linden

Harvard University Press: 2007. 288 pp. $25.95, £16.95

The human brain, and hence the human mind, is not an optimal, designed-from-scratch apparatus. Rather, it is an imperfect amalgam of shoddy components.