Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology PDF full book. Access full book title Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology by Rick C. Looijen. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Rick C. Looijen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401595607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 362
Get Book Here
Book Description
Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology. Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.
Author: Rick C. Looijen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401595607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 362
Get Book Here
Book Description
Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology. Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.
Author: Gerard M. Verschuuren
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781542888486
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is an introduction into the reductionism-holism debate, for aspiring as well as accomplished scientists. It is intended for those working in, or preparing for, research in any scientific field-ranging from the physical sciences to the life sciences to the behavioral sciences and the social sciences. It is certainly not meant for people specialized in areas dealing with the specific issue of reductionism in a strict philosophical sense; they won't learn much new from this book. In other words, this is not a monograph with specialized, original research, but rather an initiation into the debate-more like an introductory textbook, if you will.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Jan Christiaan Smuts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Danail D. Bonchev
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 038725871X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Get Book Here
Book Description
The book offers new concepts and ideas that broaden reader’s perception of modern science. Internationally established experts present the inspiring new science of complexity, which discovers new general laws covering wide range of science areas. The book offers a broader view on complexity based on the expertise of the related areas of chemistry, biochemistry, biology, ecology, and physics. Contains methodologies for assessing the complexity of systems that can be directly applied to proteomics and genomics, and network analysis in biology, medicine, and ecology.
Author: Astrid Schwarz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048197449
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Get Book Here
Book Description
As concerns about humankind’s relationship with the environment move inexorably up the agenda, this volume tells the story of the history of the concept of ecology itself and adds much to the historical and philosophical debate over this multifaceted discipline. The text provides readers with an overview of the theoretical, institutional and historical formation of ecological knowledge. The varied local conditions of early ecology are considered in detail, while epistemological problems that lie on the borders of ecology, such as disunity and complexity, are discussed. The book traces the various phases of the history of the concept of ecology itself, from its 19th century origins and antecedents, through the emergence of the environmental movement in the later 20th century, to the future, and how ecology might be located in the environmental science framework of the 21st century. The study of ‘ecological’ phenomena has never been confined solely to the work of researchers who consider themselves ecologists. It is rather a field of knowledge in which a plurality of practices, concepts and theories are developed. Thus, there exist numerous disciplinary subdivisions and research programmes within the field, the boundaries of which remain blurred. As a consequence, the deliberation to adequately identify the ecological field of knowledge, its epistemic and institutional setting, is still going on. This will be of central importance not only in locating ecology in the frame of 21st century environmental sciences but also for a better understanding of how nature and culture are intertwined in debates about pressing problems, such as climate change, the protection of species diversity, or the management of renewable resources.
Author: Richard Levins
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674255313
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Get Book Here
Book Description
Scientists act within a social context and from a philosophical perspective that is inherently political. Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.
Author: Michael J Reiss
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 981120750X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366
Get Book Here
Book Description
'Rethinking Biology offers many useful perspectives on a range of topics: why neuroscience and brain imaging threaten to create a reductive view of self and behaviour every bit as misleading as the genetic one, why adaptationism needs taming in evolutionary narratives …'Public Understanding of ScienceBiologists always need to grapple with integrating two explanatory approaches. On the one hand, there is necessarily an effort to drill down to the lowest possible level to explain what is happening in whatever is being studied. That involves looking at how higher-level processes arise from lower level ones. On the other hand, there is a need to consider how the broader context influences bottom-up processes; that involves looking at how the whole influences the parts. Neither approach is satisfactory on its own. There is always a need to integrate the consideration of how parts influence wholes with how wholes influence parts.This book arises from a concern that in the public dissemination of biology the need to integrate these different perspectives is not coming across well. In popularisations, simplistic micro explanations always seem to arouse most interest and to capture the headlines. That risks distorting and simplifying the complexity of biological processes, and can mislead people. In this book we are urging a concerted attempt to come to grips with the interactive complexity of biology, and to find ways of conveying it to the public accessibly and effectively.We are particularly concerned with how biology is communicated to the public. Too often, what comes over to the public is a crude, out-of-date, simplistic, mono-causal, reductionist biology. Why so? Why is biology so misrepresented? Who is responsible? It is partly the media, of course, but we suggest that biologists themselves are often partly responsible. When it comes to communication with the public, they tend to over-simplify in a way that distorts.Related Link(s)
Author: Fritjof Capra
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107011361
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 513
Get Book Here
Book Description
The first volume to integrate life's biological, cognitive, social, and ecological dimensions into a single, coherent framework.
Author: Denis Noble
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107176247
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 315
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book formulates a relativistic theory of biology, challenging the common gene-centred view of organisms.
