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Author: Pascal Boyer
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800642091
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
This volume brings together a collection of seven articles previously published by the author, with a new introduction reframing the articles in the context of past and present questions in anthropology, psychology and human evolution. It promotes the perspective of ‘integrated’ social science, in which social science questions are addressed in a deliberately eclectic manner, combining results and models from evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, economics, anthropology and history. It thus constitutes a welcome contribution to a gradually emerging approach to social science based on E. O. Wilson’s concept of ‘consilience’. Human Cultures through the Scientific Lens spans a wide range of topics, from an examination of ritual behaviour, integrating neuro-science, ethology and anthropology to explain why humans engage in ritual actions (both cultural and individual), to the motivation of conflicts between groups. As such, the collection gives readers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the applications of an evolutionary paradigm in the social sciences. This volume will be a useful resource for scholars and students in the social sciences (particularly psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology and the political sciences), as well as a general readership interested in the social sciences.
Author: Pascal Boyer
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800642091
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Get Book Here
Book Description
This volume brings together a collection of seven articles previously published by the author, with a new introduction reframing the articles in the context of past and present questions in anthropology, psychology and human evolution. It promotes the perspective of ‘integrated’ social science, in which social science questions are addressed in a deliberately eclectic manner, combining results and models from evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, economics, anthropology and history. It thus constitutes a welcome contribution to a gradually emerging approach to social science based on E. O. Wilson’s concept of ‘consilience’. Human Cultures through the Scientific Lens spans a wide range of topics, from an examination of ritual behaviour, integrating neuro-science, ethology and anthropology to explain why humans engage in ritual actions (both cultural and individual), to the motivation of conflicts between groups. As such, the collection gives readers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the applications of an evolutionary paradigm in the social sciences. This volume will be a useful resource for scholars and students in the social sciences (particularly psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology and the political sciences), as well as a general readership interested in the social sciences.
Author: Sven Erik Jørgensen
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080559972
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
Evolution is nature's most fascinating process, the possibility given sufficient time to combine simple inorganic compounds to more and more complex biochemical compounds, which make up more and more complex organisms. It is therefore crucial in our effort to understand the evolution to see it from as many different angles as possible. This books draw an image of evolution from the thermodynamic viewpoint, which gives new and surprising insights into the processes and mechanisms that have driven evolution. This new thermodynamic interpretation has made it possible to quantify the various steps of evolution and to show that evolution has followed an exponential growth curve. - The first comprehensive thermodynamic interpretation and explanation of evolution - This thermodynamic interpretation makes it possible to quantify the various steps of evolution - This interpretation explains the wide spectrum of different mechanisms on which the evolution has been based
Author: Kyle Lance Proudfoot
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1496980824
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
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Book Description
Evolutionary Essays Evolutionary Essays are essays which I started to write at York University in Toronto, Canada and finished the FREE Draft's on 05-02-2012. They are in the genres of Philosophy, Psychology, Politic's, Economic's, Religion, Culture, History and Evolution with a good dosage of Humor and Intellect. Evolutionary Essays is what I see as positive for this Planet and what is wrong especially in the Modern Western Civilization's. This is not just pure optimism and will use sound, logical, argumentational and factual structures. This is also to dispel highly prevalent pessimisms and reveal realities, to regain constructive positivism which we have lost so many times nullifying our productivity; life is a sine wave, it is not about your success and failures but the fact you keep getting up again, it is not if you win or lose but how you fight your battles, it is not how you die but how you lived your life: Debts not paid in this one are incurred in the next one... This is to try and bring clarity and solutions from Observation and Experience, the distinct realm of Philosophy. This is a philosophical discourse, description and narration using logic, reason, reduction, deduction, facts and argumentation to provide a point of view with constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement which may be adopted and/or applied to Citizen's, Government's or Corporation's. A Philosopher's position is to ask questions, not per se answer anything or be a Guide but rather point in the correct direction of the past, present and future giving no more than a Guideline for you can only find your own will and way. Where possible, though it is highly relative, one can try and reveal Truth. Like Light versus Shadow it will always win in the end... Truth is Commonality.
Author: Jonathan B. Losos
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171874
Category : Ethnology
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
" It is easy to think of evolution as something that happened long ago, or that occurs only in "nature," or that is so slow that its ongoing impact is virtually nonexistent when viewed from the perspective of a single human lifetime. But we now know that when natural selection is strong, evolutionary change can be very rapid. In this book, some of the world's leading scientists explore the implications of this reality for human life and society. With some twenty-five essays, this volume provides authoritative yet accessible explorations of why understanding evolution is crucial to human life--from dealing with climate change and ensuring our food supply, health, and economic survival to developing a richer and more accurate comprehension of society, culture, and even what it means to be human itself. Combining new essays with ones revised and updated from the acclaimed Princeton Guide to Evolution, this collection addresses the role of evolution in aging, cognition, cooperation, religion, the media, engineering, computer science, and many other areas. The result is a compelling and important book about how evolution matters to humans today. The contributors include Francisco J. Ayala, Dieter Ebert, Elizabeth Hannon, Richard E. Lenski, Tim Lewens, Jonathan B. Losos, Jacob A. Moorad, Mark Pagel, Robert T. Pennock, Daniel E. L. Promislow, Robert C. Richardson, Alan R. Templeton, and Carl Zimmer."--
Author: James K. Beilby
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801487637
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Plantinga's argument is aimed at metaphysical naturalism or roughly the view that no supernatural beings exist. Naturalism is typically conjoined with evolution as an explanation of the existence and diversity of life. Plantinga's claim is that one who holds to the truth of both naturalism and evolution is irrational in doing so. More specifically, because the probability that unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive faculties is either low or inscrutable, one who holds both naturalism and evolution acquires a "defeater" for every belief he/she holds, including the beliefs associated with naturalism and evolution.
Author: Ernst Mayr
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674862500
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
This study, first published in 1942, helped to revolutionize evolutionary biology by offering a new approach to taxonomic principles, and correlating the ideas and findings of modern systematics with those of other life disciplines. This book is one of the foundational documents of the Evolutionary Synthesis. It is the book in which Ernst Mayr pioneered his concept of species based chiefly on such biological factors as interbreeding and reproductive isolation, taking into account ecology, geography and life history. In the introduction to this edition, Mayr reflects on the place of this work in the subsequent history of his field.
Author: Jonathan Losos
Publisher: Roberts
ISBN: 9780981519494
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A collection of essays by leading scientists, and includes essays by science writer Carl Zimmer, historian Janet Browne, and a foreword by journalist David Quammen. As Quammen says in his foreword, the book collects "reports from the field, plainspoken descriptions of lifetime obsessions, hard-earned bits of wisdom, and works in progress, pried loose from some of the most interesting, eminent researchers in evolutionary biology...” The book is intended for anyone with an interest in evolution, and it can be used in a wide variety of courses, including major's and non-major's introductory biology and evolution classes. For anyone who is fascinated by evolutionary biology and who desire to understand better the day-by-day, species, ecosystem-by-ecosystem texture of its practice as a scientific profession.
Author: Loren C. Eiseley
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1598535056
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"A paleontologist with the spirit of a poet."--Publisher.
Author: Robert J. Richards
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022605909X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
In tracing the history of Darwin’s accomplishment and the trajectory of evolutionary theory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most scholars agree that Darwin introduced blind mechanism into biology, thus banishing moral values from the understanding of nature. According to the standard interpretation, the principle of survival of the fittest has rendered human behavior, including moral behavior, ultimately selfish. Few doubt that Darwinian theory, especially as construed by the master’s German disciple, Ernst Haeckel, inspired Hitler and led to Nazi atrocities. In this collection of essays, Robert J. Richards argues that this orthodox view is wrongheaded. A close historical examination reveals that Darwin, in more traditional fashion, constructed nature with a moral spine and provided it with a goal: man as a moral creature. The book takes up many other topics—including the character of Darwin’s chief principles of natural selection and divergence, his dispute with Alfred Russel Wallace over man’s big brain, the role of language in human development, his relationship to Herbert Spencer, how much his views had in common with Haeckel’s, and the general problem of progress in evolution. Moreover, Richards takes a forceful stand on the timely issue of whether Darwin is to blame for Hitler’s atrocities. Was Hitler a Darwinian? is intellectual history at its boldest.
Author: Elliott Sober
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521477536
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Elliott Sober is one of the leading philosophers of science and is a former winner of the Lakatos Prize, the major award in the field. This new collection of essays will appeal to a readership that extends well beyond the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Sober shows how ideas in evolutionary biology bear in significant ways on traditional problems in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Amongst the topics addressed are psychological egoism, solipsism, and the interpretation of belief and utterance, empiricism, Ockham's razor, causality, essentialism, and scientific laws. The collection will prove invaluable to a wide range of philosophers, primarily those working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology.
