Where Angels Fear to Tread

This is an autobiography with a difference, an unapologetic justification for asking questions, and never being satisfied with unsupported “expert opinion.” The author, now aged seventy-seven, counts himself fortunate to have lived in this time of unprecedented scientific advance. But when wandering into areas outside medicine—for example, the law and archeology—he is less sanguine over what he sees. He treasures the opportunities retirement has offered him and describes his life with an acerbic wit as he takes the reader through his erratic voyages of exploration. These range from fighting psychopathic bosses and WHO guidelines, to searching for China’s missing impact craters, to fighting for justice in obvious travesties in Italy and those that framed Stefan Kiszko in the UK and put Darlie Routier on death row in Texas. He argues that man’s collective psychopathology may have selected by balanced polymorphism for amygdala dysfunction, leading to a state where the most empathy-deficient hold most of the positions of power. The book is lightened by many entertaining anecdotes and illustrations, including sketches by the author, and an appendix of poetry and North Country recitations to which he is addicted.