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Author: Virginia Morell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439143870
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 644
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Book Description
This biography of the "First Family" of anthropology reveals how their discoveries, collaborations, and rivalries contributed to our own knowledge of the origins of humankind. In this fascinating and authoritative work, acclaimed science writer Virginia Morell brings to vivid life the famous and infamous Leakey family, pioneers in the field of paleoanthropology: Louis Leakey, the patriarch, who persisted through initial scientific failures and scandal-ridden divorce to achieve spectacular success in digs throughout East Africa; Mary, his second wife, who worked alongside Louis as they made their outstanding discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and elsewhere; and Richard, their son, who ascended to the top of the field in his parents’ wake, only to be threatened with both near-fatal illness and fierce professional rivalry. Morell transports us into the world of these compelling personalities, demonstrating how a small clan of highly talented and fiercely competitive people came to dominate an entire field of science and to contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the origins of humanity.
Author: Virginia Morell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439143870
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 644
Get Book Here
Book Description
This biography of the "First Family" of anthropology reveals how their discoveries, collaborations, and rivalries contributed to our own knowledge of the origins of humankind. In this fascinating and authoritative work, acclaimed science writer Virginia Morell brings to vivid life the famous and infamous Leakey family, pioneers in the field of paleoanthropology: Louis Leakey, the patriarch, who persisted through initial scientific failures and scandal-ridden divorce to achieve spectacular success in digs throughout East Africa; Mary, his second wife, who worked alongside Louis as they made their outstanding discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and elsewhere; and Richard, their son, who ascended to the top of the field in his parents’ wake, only to be threatened with both near-fatal illness and fierce professional rivalry. Morell transports us into the world of these compelling personalities, demonstrating how a small clan of highly talented and fiercely competitive people came to dominate an entire field of science and to contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the origins of humanity.
Author: Holly M. Dunsworth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031305987X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
What should the average person know about science? Because science is so central to life in the 21st century, science educators and other leaders of the scientific community believe that it is essential that everyone understand the basic concepts of the most vital and far-reaching disciplines. Human Origins 101 does exactly that. This accessible volume provides readers - whether students new to the field or just interested members of the lay public - with the essential ideas of the origins of humans using a minimum of jargon and mathematics. Concepts are introduced in a progressive order so that more complicated ideas build on simpler ones, and each is discussed in small, bite-sized segments so that they can be more easily understood. Human Origins 101 enables students and the general public to understand the basic concepts underlying our knowledge of our evolution as a species. This small volume covers: ; A brief history of paleoanthropology, and the discovery of human's place in nature ; Evolution and the Origin of Life ; Clues to human origins from genetics ; The fossil and archaeological records ; The distinctive traits that makes us human ; The diversity of modern humans With a bibliography, glossary, and discussion of hoaxes, fringe theories, and hot-button issues, Human Origins 101 provides the perfect starting point for anyone wishing to understand how scientists know how humans evolved.
Author: Oren Harman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022657007X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
What are the conditions that foster true novelty and allow visionaries to set their eyes on unknown horizons? What have been the challenges that have spawned new innovations, and how have they shaped modern biology? In Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, editors Oren Harman and Michael R. Dietrich explore these questions through the lives of eighteen exemplary biologists who had grand and often radical ideas that went far beyond the run-of-the-mill science of their peers. From the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who coined the word “biology” in the early nineteenth century, to the American James Lovelock, for whom the Earth is a living, breathing organism, these dreamers innovated in ways that forced their contemporaries to reexamine comfortable truths. With this collection readers will follow Jane Goodall into the hidden world of apes in African jungles and Francis Crick as he attacks the problem of consciousness. Join Mary Lasker on her campaign to conquer cancer and follow geneticist George Church as he dreams of bringing back woolly mammoths and Neanderthals. In these lives and the many others featured in these pages, we discover visions that were sometimes fantastical, quixotic, and even threatening and destabilizing, but always a challenge to the status quo.
Author: Annie E. Coombes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755627814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Kenya stands at a crossroads in its history and heritage, as the nation celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Britain in 2013. At this important juncture, what parts of its history, including the Mau Mau uprising, do citizens and state wish to remember and commemorate and what is best forgotten or occluded? What does heritage mean to ordinary Kenyans, and what role does it play in building nationhood and forging peace and reconciliation? Focusing on the 1990s to the present, "Managing Heritage, Making Peace" is a timely exploration of the ways in which Kenyans are engaging with the past in the present, including such local initiatives as the community peace museums movement, local and national monuments and other notable commemorative actions. The authors show how Kenya is facing a continuing crisis over nationhood, heritage, memory and identity, which must be resolved to achieve social cohesion and peace.
Author: Thomas E. Rodgerson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666716197
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
While the steady increase of the religiously unaffiliated Nones in America has generated anxious responses about rising secularism and loss of national identity, this book suggests a wider meaning-making approach wherein the Nones are seen as valuable dialogue partners necessary in this pivotal moment for the revealing of still hidden truths about culture, spirituality, and religion. Christians who overhear this dialogue may find upon self-reflection an emerging truth about their relationships, embedded stories, level of faith development, and susceptibility to a culturally conditioned, transactional religion. Nones who choose to engage in dialogue may find that the “nothingness” they bring to the dialogue is more significant than they realize, revealing truths of an apophatic spiritual path necessary for generating a transformational faith of freedom and capable of rebalancing a divisive, consumer-driven society. The religious and the not-religious, who are often seen as being on opposite sides of an imagined religious threshold, may instead be seen as standing together in a liminal space that opens in wordless silence to yet unseen possibilities and from which emerge new stories aligned with the heart of Creation.
Author: Erika Lorraine Milam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691210438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
How Cold War America came to attribute human evolutionary success to our species' unique capacity for murder After World War II, the question of how to define a universal human nature took on new urgency. Creatures of Cain charts the rise and precipitous fall in Cold War America of a theory that attributed man’s evolutionary success to his unique capacity for murder. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials and in-depth interviews, Erika Lorraine Milam reveals how the scientists who advanced this “killer ape” theory capitalized on an expanding postwar market in intellectual paperbacks and widespread faith in the power of science to solve humanity’s problems, even to answer the most fundamental questions of human identity. The killer ape theory spread quickly from colloquial science publications to late-night television, classrooms, political debates, and Hollywood films. Behind the scenes, however, scientists were sharply divided, their disagreements centering squarely on questions of race and gender. Then, in the 1970s, the theory unraveled altogether when primatologists discovered that chimpanzees also kill members of their own species. While the discovery brought an end to definitions of human exceptionalism delineated by violence, Milam shows how some evolutionists began to argue for a shared chimpanzee-human history of aggression even as other scientists discredited such theories as sloppy popularizations. A wide-ranging account of a compelling episode in American science, Creatures of Cain argues that the legacy of the killer ape persists today in the conviction that science can resolve the essential dilemmas of human nature.
Author: Frank R. Wilson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679740473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
"A startling argument . . . provocative . . . absorbing." --The Boston Globe "Ambitious . . . arresting . . . celebrates the importance of hands to our lives today as well as to the history of our species." --The New York Times Book Review The human hand is a miracle of biomechanics, one of the most remarkable adaptations in the history of evolution. The hands of a concert pianist can elicit glorious sound and stir emotion; those of a surgeon can perform the most delicate operations; those of a rock climber allow him to scale a vertical mountain wall. Neurologist Frank R. Wilson makes the striking claim that it is because of the unique structure of the hand and its evolution in cooperation with the brain that Homo sapiens became the most intelligent, preeminent animal on the earth. In this fascinating book, Wilson moves from a discussion of the hand's evolution--and how its intimate communication with the brain affects such areas as neurology, psychology, and linguistics--to provocative new ideas about human creativity and how best to nurture it. Like Oliver Sacks and Stephen Jay Gould, Wilson handles a daunting range of scientific knowledge with a surprising deftness and a profound curiosity about human possibility. Provocative, illuminating, and delightful to read, The Hand encourages us to think in new ways about one of our most taken-for-granted assets. "A mark of the book's excellence [is that] it makes the reader aware of the wonder in trivial, everyday acts, and reveals the complexity behind the simplest manipulation." --The Washington Post
Author: Natalia O'Sullivan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1849837570
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Our ancestry influences more than just our physical characteristics - it can also have a profound effect on who we are as people. The success of TV shows likeWho Do You Think You Are?has prompted a massive interest in people tracing their family roots. But researching into our forebears' lives can often unearth turbulent histories. The past 250 years has seen more change and upheaval on a global scale than at any other point in history. The legacy of the holocaust, of slavery, indentured servitude and of two world wars, has seen a massive migration of peoples across the world, and almost all families know of a recent ancestor whose life was turned upside down by these events. Discovering more about our forebears, and identifying inherited traits, can help us realise our potential and assist us in overcoming obstacles that may be holding us back. As we learn about and honour our ancestors, we can reclaim who we are, discover our creativity, and find our true soul path. In this extraordinary book, readers will find out how to: discover and honour their ancestors, heal their family histories, reveal inherited creative and inspirational gifts, discover their guardian ancestors and learn from inspiring case studies of personal growth. The Ancestral Continuumwill take each reader on a journey through the labyrinth of their own ancestral legacy. As we explore our family tree, we can begin to see ourselves as just one strand in a never-ending tapestry of history and emotion, personality and achievement, birth and death, that will continue into infinity. The book is a powerful and revolutionary blueprint for transforming how we feel about ourselves.
Author: Shelley L. Smith
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040134645
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
This book focuses on the development of the National Museum of Natural History’s David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins. As one of the most visited human evolution exhibits in the world and the largest such exhibit in the United States, it has tremendous influence on public perception and knowledge of human evolution. The chapters explore how this exhibit came about, how it has changed since opening, and the associated educational and public outreach activities of members of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program. The author uses the term “adaptive resilience” to describe a central theme of the exhibit, our species’ adaptation to changing environments as a key feature of our success, and to refer to the resilience of Richard B. Potts in creating his vision for the hall. Contextual sections situate the hall’s development within the history of paleoanthropology, the politics of evolution and climate change, and African contributions. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of anthropology and museum studies as well as the history of science and science communication.
Author: Ralph D. Hermansen
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429880170
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Down from the Trees: Man’s Amazing Transition from Tree-Dwelling Ape Ancestors covers the evolution of man from tree-dwelling ape to Homo sapiens as he is today. Using easy-to-read language, the author takes complex, jargon-filled material and extracts the essence of the topic and coveys it in a clear and engaging manner. He approaches the subject of human evolution from three different disciplines: fossil evidence and its interpretation, evolutionary theory and its applicability, and genetic evidence and its ability to unlock prehistoric information. The third discipline has advanced unbelievably in the last few years, and this book includes the most up-to-date research. There is nothing more interesting to humans than the story of their origins. The evolutionary process of a tree-dwelling ape becoming a walking, talking man who has developed the technology to walk on the moon, transplant hearts, or modify living things is no trivial story. This book provides a fascinating and comprehensive view of what science has learned of human evolution.
