Skip to main content
Uncategorized

Jesús Purroy presents his book “All you need to know to know it all” in Madrid

By 6 de February de 2009November 18th, 2020No Comments
< Back to news
 06.02.2009

Jesús Purroy presents his book “All you need to know to know it all” in Madrid

On Tuesday 10th February at 1930 hours, the Residencia de Estudiantes Foundation in Madrid (located at number 23, C/Pinar) hosted the presentation of the Spanish language version of the book "Tot el que cal saber per saber-ho tot" (All you need to know to know it all). The book won the XIVth "Estudi General" European Award for Science Communication, awarded by the University of Valencia and the City of Alzira. As well as the author (biologist Jesús Purroy who is the current director of Research and Innovation at the Barcelona Science Park) the Spanish Secretary for Universities, Màrius Rubiralta, and Fernando Sapiña, the director of the "Sin Fronteras" collection took part in the event. Entrance was free.

The award winning work, which is published in Catalan by Ed. Bromera, offers an “easy going” look –as the author himself puts it– at the foundations of scientific knowledge. He invites readers to reflect on how knowledge is generated, the relations between society and scientists and the responsibilities with regards to communication in the field of science. It also has a more personal angle and brings together everyday situations –in the fields of medicine, food or the environment– in which we come into contact with statements with different degrees of reliability and which we have to be able to assess and question with rigour in order to avoid making mistakes when it comes to taking decisions and deciding what is best for us.

According to Jesús Purroy , the idea for writing the book came form “the perception, which maybe mistaken, that many people do not have a very clear idea of what science is: how it is done, what we can expect from it, what its limits are and what advantages it offers compared to other systems for analyzing the world around us. This misunderstanding is at the heart of the lack of confidence which scientific progress and its technical application generate at times. My aim was to present the main characteristics of science in an entertaining way to all those people who would like to know more about this branch of human activity that is all around us and yet so unfathomable”.

Jesús Purroy (Barcelona, 1970) was awarded his doctorate in biology by the University of Barcelona. He has carried out research into genetically-based human diseases and neuroscience at both companies and universities in England, the United States and Catalonia in Spain. Since the publication of “La era del genoma” (The age of the genome; Salvat, 2001) he has combined his research with dissemination. He has worked on Mètode and other humanities journals and has given lectures to many different types of audiences.