Author: Michael A. Susko
Publisher: AllrOneofUs Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 57
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Book Description
his work offers an alternative paradigm for viewing life and its dynamic capacity for change. Rather than focusing on the end result of evolution with concepts such as resilience and fitness, it focuses on the actual process of change, in which life goes through a fragile period. Using plain-spoken language and based on an earlier scholarly work, it examines six biological domains which exhibit fragility and make for evolutionary novelty. They are: 1) the organism's dynamic genome, which exhibits a remarkable fluidity; 2) Symbiosis, involving the creative merger of two types of organisms; 3) Sexuality, in which the merger of sexes produces unique offspring; 4) Multicellularity, which makes for most of earth's macroscopic life; 5) Development, change resulting from the fragile period of immaturity of organisms; 6) The principle of the "head", a holistic/controlling dimension of the organism which is inherently fragile and dynamic; 7) The social dimension with the fragility of cooperative and competitive interactions, and; 8) ecological dimension with its interwoven, delicate web of connections. To this we add a "cumulative dimension" which embraces a spirituality of biology. Teaching our youth and having the public become aware of such a model which focuses on the fragility and sacrificial dimension of dynamic change, would serve to enhance our personal lives and work to increase the chances for the earth and humanity's survival.
Author: Michael Behe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781936599912
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 556
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Book Description
In 1996 Darwin's Black Box thrust Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe into the national spotlight. The book, and his subsequent two, sparked a firestorm of criticism, and his responses appeared in everything from the New York Times to science blogs and the journal Science. His replies, along with a handful of brand-new essays, are now collected in A Mousetrap for Darwin. In engaging his critics, Behe extends his argument that much recent evidence, from the study of evolving microbes to mutations in dogs and polar bears, shows that blind evolution cannot build the complex machinery essential to life. Rather, evolution works principally by breaking things for short-term benefit. It can't construct anything fundamentally new. What can? Behe's money is on intelligent design.
Author: Lewis Thomas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684843021
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
The author's insights about a variety of natural phenomena contribute to our understanding of some of the great medical puzzles of the era. -- Back cover.
Author: David Carment
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 082144686X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
State fragility is a much-debated yet underinvestigated concept in the development and international security worlds. Based on years of research as part of the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy project at Carleton University, Exiting the Fragility Trap marks a major step toward remedying the lack of research into the so-called fragility trap. In examining the nature and dynamics of state transitions in fragile contexts, with a special emphasis on states that are trapped in fragility, David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy ask three questions: Why do some states remain stuck in a fragility trap? What lessons can we learn from those states that have successfully transitioned from fragility to stability and resilience? And how can third-party interventions support fragile state transitions toward resilience? Carment and Samy consider fragility’s evolution in three state types: countries that are trapped, countries that move in and out of fragility, and countries that have exited fragility. Large-sample empirical analysis and six comparative case studies—Pakistan and Yemen (trapped countries), Mali and Laos (in-and-out countries), and Bangladesh and Mozambique (exited countries)—drive their investigation, which breaks ground toward a new understanding of why some countries fail to see sustained progress over time.
Author: Jonathan B. Losos
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399184937
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution works Earth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary flukes? And what does that say about life on other planets? Jonathan Losos reveals what the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology can tell us about one of the greatest ongoing debates in science. He takes us around the globe to meet the researchers who are solving the deepest mysteries of life on Earth through their work in experimental evolutionary science. Losos himself is one of the leaders in this exciting new field, and he illustrates how experiments with guppies, fruit flies, bacteria, foxes, and field mice, along with his own work with anole lizards on Caribbean islands, are rewinding the tape of life to reveal just how rapid and predictable evolution can be. Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos's insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.
Author: Michael Tennesen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451677537
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
“Simultaneously sobering and exhilarating, Michael Tennesen’s wide-ranging survey of disasters highlights both life’s fragility and its metamorphosing persistence” (Booklist) and describes what life on earth could look like after the next mass extinction. A growing number of scientists agree we are headed toward a mass extinction, perhaps in as little as 300 years. Already there have been five mass extinctions in the last 600 million years, including the Cretaceous Extinction, during which an asteroid knocked out the dinosaurs. Though these events were initially destructive, they were also prime movers of evolutionary change in nature. And we can see some of the warning signs of another extinction event coming, as our oceans lose both fish and oxygen, and our lands lose both predators and prey. In The Next Species, Michael Tennesen questions what life might be like after it happens. In thoughtful, provocative ways, Tennesen discusses the future of nature and whether humans will make it through the bottleneck of extinction. Could life suddenly get very big as it did before the arrival of humans? Could the conquest of Mars lead to another form of human? Could we upload our minds into a computer and live in a virtual reality? How would we recognize the next humans? Are they with us now? Tennesen delves into the history of the planet and travels to rainforests, canyons, craters, and caves all over the world to explore the potential winners and losers of the next era of evolution. His predictions, based on reports and interviews with top scientists, have vital implications for life on earth today. The Next Species is “an engrossing history of life, the dismal changes wrought by man, and a forecast of life after the sixth mass extinction” (Kirkus Reviews).
Author: Gary Marcus
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780547238241
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
A New York University psychologist argues that the mind is a "kluge"-a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption-as he ponders the accidents of evolution that caused this structure and what we can do about it.
Author: Simon Conway Morris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139440802
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
The assassin's bullet misses, the Archduke's carriage moves forward, and a catastrophic war is avoided. So too with the history of life. Re-run the tape of life, as Stephen J. Gould claimed, and the outcome must be entirely different: an alien world, without humans and maybe not even intelligence. The history of life is littered with accidents: any twist or turn may lead to a completely different world. Now this view is being challenged. Simon Conway Morris explores the evidence demonstrating life's almost eerie ability to navigate to a single solution, repeatedly. Eyes, brains, tools, even culture: all are very much on the cards. So if these are all evolutionary inevitabilities, where are our counterparts across the galaxy? The tape of life can only run on a suitable planet, and it seems that such Earth-like planets may be much rarer than hoped. Inevitable humans, yes, but in a lonely Universe.
Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822377160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
In The Fragility of Things, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264302077
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
Three years into the 2030 Agenda it is already apparent that those living in fragile contexts are the furthest behind. Not all forms of fragility make it to the public’s eye: fragility is an intricate beast, sometimes exposed, often lurking underneath, but always holding progress back. Conflict ...
