Charlie Sharp (Outwood Academy Newbold) reviews Camilla Pang's 'Explaining Humans'

Dr Camilla Pang’s Explaining Humans offers a unique insight into the daily thoughts and feelings of someone with ADHD, ASD and GAD. Throughout the book, Pang explains these thoughts through scientific principles and topics, for example how relationships and emotional bonding in humans can be described through covalent and ionic bonds. Each chapter of the books focuses on a different aspect, beginning with the weirdness and individuality of humans and how this is similar to the unique folding of proteins, and my particular favourite was the entropy chapter. Pang discusses her struggles with OCD and she cleverly links in how in thermodynamics, the world favours disorder. One striking thing about this book was that Pang interlinked the everyday, mundane world and ordinary objects to unexpected areas of science that she has previously studied. Therefore, there is a clever balance between an autobiography-style book and a non-fiction science book. Subsequently, this engaging read is suitable for anyone, whether you have a niche for science or not. It is incredibly interesting to understand the thought process of someone with ADHD and ASD and how it affects their daily life.

Something I agreed with in this book...

Pang’s recognition of the complexity of science and how social and emotional patterns are mirrored in biochemical and physical concepts.

Something I disagreed with…

How Pang can categorise people she meets into specific proteins such as kinases which catalyse the transfer of energy and kick-start all the necessary functions for a cell to respond to change, which correlates to the extroverts, lovers of parties and attention in Pang’s opinion.

Something I learnt from reading this book that I didn’t know before…

Physics-related topics such as quantum particles, light and molecular dynamics, of which I learnt the importance of each and how they relate to human social issues and Pang made me consider how other aspects of science bridge with the non-science world and whether that is coincidental or not.