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The Only Boy in the World, by his oddity and isolation, makes luminous so much that we take for granted: how we are instinctive mind-readers, how we perceive the physical world around us, how we make sense of other people, how we understand guilt and innocence.   Running throughout is an unsettling question: if Joe sets our humanity in such sharp relief, can we still say that he is part of it? If he shows by what he lacks all that is most remarkable in us, is he still one of us? The author who asks that outrageous question is Joe's father. 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In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think.   Filled with compelling stories from economics, genetics, business, and science, The Hidden Half is a warning that an explanation which works in one arena may not work in another. 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