Not absolutely sure? Just keep talking  John Bowker claims
aesthetic judgments are underpinned by physiology in The Sacred
Neuron, but does he go far enough, asks Richard Harries  The
Sacred Neuron: Extraordinary New Discoveries Linking Science and
Religion by John Bowker 226pp, IB Tauris, £17.95  John Bowker is
a man with a very wide range of reference. This book is
illuminated by references to Chinese art, Japanese history,
modern science and early justifications of anthropology, as well
as to a variety of religions. For he is also the editor of the
invaluable Oxford Dictionary of World Religions and of a number
of other learned books on different aspects of religion.  In
this work he sets himself the ambitious task of undermining the
widespread contemporary assumption that ethical and aesthetic
judgments simply reflect personal preferences: we all have our
opinions, likes and dislikes, and there is no court of appeal to
adjudicate between them.  He does this in particular by looking
at what modern neurosci