Can Science Make Sense of Life?

Can Science Make Sense of Life? PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509522743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
Since the discovery of the structure of DNA and the birth of the genetic age, a powerful vocabulary has emerged to express science’s growing command over the matter of life. Armed with knowledge of the code that governs all living things, biology and biotechnology are poised to edit, even rewrite, the texts of life to correct nature’s mistakes. Yet, how far should the capacity to manipulate what life is at the molecular level authorize science to define what life is for? This book looks at flash points in law, politics, ethics, and culture to argue that science’s promises of perfectibility have gone too far. Science may have editorial control over the material elements of life, but it does not supersede the languages of sense-making that have helped define human values across millennia: the meanings of autonomy, integrity, and privacy; the bonds of kinship, family, and society; and the place of humans in nature.

Can Science Make Sense of Life?

Can Science Make Sense of Life? PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509522743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the discovery of the structure of DNA and the birth of the genetic age, a powerful vocabulary has emerged to express science’s growing command over the matter of life. Armed with knowledge of the code that governs all living things, biology and biotechnology are poised to edit, even rewrite, the texts of life to correct nature’s mistakes. Yet, how far should the capacity to manipulate what life is at the molecular level authorize science to define what life is for? This book looks at flash points in law, politics, ethics, and culture to argue that science’s promises of perfectibility have gone too far. Science may have editorial control over the material elements of life, but it does not supersede the languages of sense-making that have helped define human values across millennia: the meanings of autonomy, integrity, and privacy; the bonds of kinship, family, and society; and the place of humans in nature.

Making Sense of Life

Making Sense of Life PDF Author: Evelyn Fox KELLER
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039440
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
What do biologists want? How will we know when we have 'made sense' of life? Explanations in the biological sciences are provisional and partial, judged by criteria as heterogenous as their subject matter. This text accounts for this diversity.

The Seventh Sense

The Seventh Sense PDF Author: William Duggan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539436
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Flashes of insight—the "Eureka!" moments that produce new and useful ideas in a single thought—are behind some of the world's most creative and practical innovations. This book shows how to cultivate more and better flashes of insight by harnessing the science and practice of the "seventh sense." Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, Asian philosophy, and military strategy, William Duggan illustrates the power of the seventh sense to help readers aspire to and achieve more in their personal and professional lives. His examples include Gandhi, Joan of Arc, Starbucks founder Howard Shultz, and executives and students he has taught in his classes. His book presents specific steps in the form of three practical tools to help prepare the mind, see and seize opportunity, and follow through on one's resolution. Based on Duggan's perennially popular Columbia Business School course, this book teaches the mental skills and discipline that power the seventh sense.

Making Sense of Science

Making Sense of Science PDF Author: Steven Yearley
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780803986923
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This volume demystifies science studies and bridges the divide between social theory and the sociology of science.

Making Sense of Everyday Life

Making Sense of Everyday Life PDF Author: Susie Scott
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745658458
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
This accessible, introductory text explains the importance of studying 'everyday life' in the social sciences. Susie Scott examines such varied topics as leisure, eating and drinking, the idea of home, and time and schedules in order to show how societies are created and reproduced by the apparently mundane 'micro' level practices of everyday life. Each chapter is organized around three main themes: 'rituals and routines', 'social order', and 'challenging the taken-for-granted', with intriguing examples and illustrations. Theoretical approaches from ethnomethodology, Symbolic Interactionism and social psychology are introduced and applied to real-life situations, and there is clear emphasis on empirical research findings throughout. Social order depends on individuals following norms and rules which are so familiar as to appear natural; yet, as Scott encourages the reader to discover, these are always open to question and investigation. This user-friendly book will appeal to undergraduate students across the social sciences, including the sociology of everyday life, the sociology of emotions, social psychology and cultural studies, and will reveal the fascinating significance our everyday habits hold.

Drawing Life

Drawing Life PDF Author: Thomas J. Cottle
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761862234
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
In Drawing Life, Thomas J. Cottle examines the ways people interpret their life experiences and construct meanings for the events they have encountered. In this manner, they discover their various identities and the essence of what we call the self. In reading the sixteen life studies contained in this volume, we encounter both inner reflections as well the power of culture to shape the meanings people give to their circumstances and the events that befall them. The stories also reflect the role of human relationships and social institutions in defining our personal identities and sense of justice. What makes us unique, therefore, is the personal story we tell as it reveals our constructions of the world and of ourselves. The stories recounted in Drawing Life illuminate not only our past, but also our perceptions of the present and our imaginings of the future. In this way, they become anthologies of our life experiences.

Evolution

Evolution PDF Author: Carl Zimmer
Publisher: W. H. Freeman
ISBN: 9781936221691
Category : Evolution (Biology)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Science writer Carl Zimmer and evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen have produced a thoroughly revised new edition of their widely praised evolution textbook. Emlen, an award-winning evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, has infused Evolution: Making Sense of Life with the technical rigor and conceptual depth that today’s biology majors require. Zimmer, an award-winning New York Times columnist, brings compelling storytelling to the book, bringing evolutionary research to life. Students will learn the fundamental concepts of evolutionary theory, such as natural selection, genetic drift, phylogeny, and coevolution. The book also drives home the relevance of evolution for disciplines ranging from conservation biology to medicine. With riveting stories about evolutionary biologists at work everywhere from the Arctic to tropical rainforests to hospital wards, the book is a reading adventure designed to grab the imagination of students, showing them exactly why it is that evolution makes such brilliant sense of life."--

Making Sense in Life and Literature

Making Sense in Life and Literature PDF Author: Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452901138
Category : Aesthetics, Modern
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description


Designs on Nature

Designs on Nature PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837316
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Biology and politics have converged today across much of the industrialized world. Debates about genetically modified organisms, cloning, stem cells, animal patenting, and new reproductive technologies crowd media headlines and policy agendas. Less noticed, but no less important, are the rifts that have appeared among leading Western nations about the right way to govern innovation in genetics and biotechnology. These significant differences in law and policy, and in ethical analysis, may in a globalizing world act as obstacles to free trade, scientific inquiry, and shared understandings of human dignity. In this magisterial look at some twenty-five years of scientific and social development, Sheila Jasanoff compares the politics and policy of the life sciences in Britain, Germany, the United States, and in the European Union as a whole. She shows how public and private actors in each setting evaluated new manifestations of biotechnology and tried to reassure themselves about their safety. Three main themes emerge. First, core concepts of democratic theory, such as citizenship, deliberation, and accountability, cannot be understood satisfactorily without taking on board the politics of science and technology. Second, in all three countries, policies for the life sciences have been incorporated into "nation-building" projects that seek to reimagine what the nation stands for. Third, political culture influences democratic politics, and it works through the institutionalized ways in which citizens understand and evaluate public knowledge. These three aspects of contemporary politics, Jasanoff argues, help account not only for policy divergences but also for the perceived legitimacy of state actions.

The Sense of Dissonance

The Sense of Dissonance PDF Author: David Stark
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831008
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
What counts? In work, as in other areas of life, it is not always clear what standards we are being judged by or how our worth is being determined. This can be disorienting and disconcerting. Because of this, many organizations devote considerable resources to limiting and clarifying the logics used for evaluating worth. But as David Stark argues, firms would often be better off, especially in managing change, if they allowed multiple logics of worth and did not necessarily discourage uncertainty. In fact, in many cases multiple orders of worth are unavoidable, so organizations and firms should learn to harness the benefits of such "heterarchy" rather than seeking to purge it. Stark makes this argument with ethnographic case studies of three companies attempting to cope with rapid change: a machine-tool company in late and postcommunist Hungary, a new-media startup in New York during and after the collapse of the Internet bubble, and a Wall Street investment bank whose trading room was destroyed on 9/11. In each case, the friction of competing criteria of worth promoted an organizational reflexivity that made it easier for the company to change and deal with market uncertainty. Drawing on John Dewey's notion that "perplexing situations" provide opportunities for innovative inquiry, Stark argues that the dissonance of diverse principles can lead to discovery.