Author: Neil Shubin
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307377164
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
Your Inner Fish
Author: Neil Shubin
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307377164
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307377164
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
Metal and Flesh
Author: Ollivier Dyens
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262262422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
A poetic exploration of the new world created by the collision of the biological body with technology and culture. For more than 3,000 years, humans have explored uncharted geographic and spiritual realms. Present-day explorers face new territories born from the coupling of living tissue and metal, strange lifeforms that are intelligent but unconscious, neither completely alive nor dead. Our bodies are now made of machines, images, and information. We are becoming cultural bodies in a world inhabited by cyborgs, clones, genetically modified animals, and innumerable species of human/information symbionts. Ollivier Dyens's Metal and Flesh is about two closely related phenomena: the technologically induced transformation of our perceptions of the world and the emergence of a cultural biology. Culture, according to Dyens, is taking control of the biosphere. Focusing on the twentieth century—which will be remembered as the century in which the living body was blurred, molded, and transformed by technology and culture—Dyens ruminates on the undeniable and irreversible human/machine entanglement that is changing the very nature of our lives.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262262422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
A poetic exploration of the new world created by the collision of the biological body with technology and culture. For more than 3,000 years, humans have explored uncharted geographic and spiritual realms. Present-day explorers face new territories born from the coupling of living tissue and metal, strange lifeforms that are intelligent but unconscious, neither completely alive nor dead. Our bodies are now made of machines, images, and information. We are becoming cultural bodies in a world inhabited by cyborgs, clones, genetically modified animals, and innumerable species of human/information symbionts. Ollivier Dyens's Metal and Flesh is about two closely related phenomena: the technologically induced transformation of our perceptions of the world and the emergence of a cultural biology. Culture, according to Dyens, is taking control of the biosphere. Focusing on the twentieth century—which will be remembered as the century in which the living body was blurred, molded, and transformed by technology and culture—Dyens ruminates on the undeniable and irreversible human/machine entanglement that is changing the very nature of our lives.
The Story of the Human Body
Author: Daniel Lieberman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030774180X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482
Book Description
A landmark book of popular science that gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years—with charts and line drawings throughout. “Fascinating.... A readable introduction to the whole field and great on the making of our physicality.”—Nature In this book, Daniel E. Lieberman illuminates the major transformations that contributed to key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering; and how cultural changes like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have impacted us physically. He shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning a paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment and pursue better lifestyles.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030774180X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482
Book Description
A landmark book of popular science that gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years—with charts and line drawings throughout. “Fascinating.... A readable introduction to the whole field and great on the making of our physicality.”—Nature In this book, Daniel E. Lieberman illuminates the major transformations that contributed to key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering; and how cultural changes like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have impacted us physically. He shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning a paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment and pursue better lifestyles.
Aspects of Human Evolution
Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 9780880102520
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
8 lectures, Berlin, May 29-July 24, 1917 (CW 176) How to Keep Your Soul Alive after Twenty-Seven This could have been the title of this book. The author shows that the natural development of the soul stops at around the age of twenty-seven. After that, nothing happens for our inner being unless we learn to make it happen. Part of the tragic nature of our time is that more and more people allow their soul life to die at twenty-seven, so that the remainder of their life becomes a kind of mummification. Steiner explains how, by exerting our thinking and feeling, we can keep our soul alive and growing. This is ultimately the only way we can make this incarnation a satisfactory one. Through such effort, we can continue to develop inwardly until a very advanced age--each year, becoming richer and more interesting than the one before. Aspects of Human Evolutionis a book that gives real meaning to the idea that we live in a state of becoming This book is a translation from German of Menschliche und menschheitliche Entwicklungswahrheiten. Das Karma des Materialismus (vol. 176 in the Bibliographic Survey).
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 9780880102520
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
8 lectures, Berlin, May 29-July 24, 1917 (CW 176) How to Keep Your Soul Alive after Twenty-Seven This could have been the title of this book. The author shows that the natural development of the soul stops at around the age of twenty-seven. After that, nothing happens for our inner being unless we learn to make it happen. Part of the tragic nature of our time is that more and more people allow their soul life to die at twenty-seven, so that the remainder of their life becomes a kind of mummification. Steiner explains how, by exerting our thinking and feeling, we can keep our soul alive and growing. This is ultimately the only way we can make this incarnation a satisfactory one. Through such effort, we can continue to develop inwardly until a very advanced age--each year, becoming richer and more interesting than the one before. Aspects of Human Evolutionis a book that gives real meaning to the idea that we live in a state of becoming This book is a translation from German of Menschliche und menschheitliche Entwicklungswahrheiten. Das Karma des Materialismus (vol. 176 in the Bibliographic Survey).
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live
Author: Marlene Zuk
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039308986X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
“With…evidence from recent genetic and anthropological research, [Zuk] offers a dose of paleoreality.” —Erin Wayman, Science News We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence. Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized, meaning that we are not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors. Contrary to what the glossy magazines would have us believe, we do not enjoy potato chips because they crunch just like the insects our forebears snacked on. And women don’t go into shoe-shopping frenzies because their prehistoric foremothers gathered resources for their clans. As Zuk compellingly argues, such beliefs incorrectly assume that we’re stuck—finished evolving—and have been for tens of thousands of years. She draws on fascinating evidence that examines everything from adults’ ability to drink milk to the texture of our ear wax to show that we’ve actually never stopped evolving. Our nostalgic visions of an ideal evolutionary past in which we ate, lived, and reproduced as we were “meant to” fail to recognize that we were never perfectly suited to our environment. Evolution is about change, and every organism is full of trade-offs. From debunking the caveman diet to unraveling gender stereotypes, Zuk delivers an engrossing analysis of widespread paleofantasies and the scientific evidence that undermines them, all the while broadening our understanding of our origins and what they can really tell us about our present and our future.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039308986X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
“With…evidence from recent genetic and anthropological research, [Zuk] offers a dose of paleoreality.” —Erin Wayman, Science News We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence. Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized, meaning that we are not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors. Contrary to what the glossy magazines would have us believe, we do not enjoy potato chips because they crunch just like the insects our forebears snacked on. And women don’t go into shoe-shopping frenzies because their prehistoric foremothers gathered resources for their clans. As Zuk compellingly argues, such beliefs incorrectly assume that we’re stuck—finished evolving—and have been for tens of thousands of years. She draws on fascinating evidence that examines everything from adults’ ability to drink milk to the texture of our ear wax to show that we’ve actually never stopped evolving. Our nostalgic visions of an ideal evolutionary past in which we ate, lived, and reproduced as we were “meant to” fail to recognize that we were never perfectly suited to our environment. Evolution is about change, and every organism is full of trade-offs. From debunking the caveman diet to unraveling gender stereotypes, Zuk delivers an engrossing analysis of widespread paleofantasies and the scientific evidence that undermines them, all the while broadening our understanding of our origins and what they can really tell us about our present and our future.
Man in Evolution
Author: Hobart Lorenz Gottfried De Purucker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Theosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Theosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
The Evolution of the Human Head
Author: Daniel Lieberman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674046366
Category : MEDICAL
Languages : en
Pages : 769
Book Description
Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many components of the head function, how they evolved since we diverged from the apes, and how they interact in diverse ways both functionally and developmentally, causing them to be highly integrated. This integration not only permits the head's many units to accommodate each other as they grow and work, but also facilitates evolutionary change. Lieberman shows how, when, and why the major transformations evident in the evolution of the human head occurred. The special way the head is integrated, Lieberman argues, made it possible for a few developmental shifts to have had widespread effects on craniofacial growth, yet still permit the head to function exquisitely. --
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674046366
Category : MEDICAL
Languages : en
Pages : 769
Book Description
Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many components of the head function, how they evolved since we diverged from the apes, and how they interact in diverse ways both functionally and developmentally, causing them to be highly integrated. This integration not only permits the head's many units to accommodate each other as they grow and work, but also facilitates evolutionary change. Lieberman shows how, when, and why the major transformations evident in the evolution of the human head occurred. The special way the head is integrated, Lieberman argues, made it possible for a few developmental shifts to have had widespread effects on craniofacial growth, yet still permit the head to function exquisitely. --
Evolution and the Fall
Author: Cavanaugh & Smith
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802873790
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
What does it mean for the Christian doctrine of the Fall if there was no historical Adam? If humanity emerged from nonhuman primates--as genetic, biological, and archaeological evidence seems to suggest--then what are the implications for a Christian understanding of human origins, including the origin of sin? Evolution and the Fall gathers a multidisciplinary, ecumenical team of scholars to address these difficult questions and others like them from the perspectives of biology, theology, history, Scripture, philosophy, and politics CONTRIBUTORS: William T. Cavanaugh Celia Deane-Drummond Darrel R. Falk Joel B. Green Michael Gulker Peter Harrison J. Richard Middleton Aaron Riches James K. A. Smith Brent Waters Norman Wirzba
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802873790
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
What does it mean for the Christian doctrine of the Fall if there was no historical Adam? If humanity emerged from nonhuman primates--as genetic, biological, and archaeological evidence seems to suggest--then what are the implications for a Christian understanding of human origins, including the origin of sin? Evolution and the Fall gathers a multidisciplinary, ecumenical team of scholars to address these difficult questions and others like them from the perspectives of biology, theology, history, Scripture, philosophy, and politics CONTRIBUTORS: William T. Cavanaugh Celia Deane-Drummond Darrel R. Falk Joel B. Green Michael Gulker Peter Harrison J. Richard Middleton Aaron Riches James K. A. Smith Brent Waters Norman Wirzba
Sex on Six Legs
Author: Marlene Zuk
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547549172
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
A biologist presents a “consistently delightful” look at the mysteries of insect behavior (The New York Times Book Review). Insects have inspired fear, fascination, and enlightenment for centuries. They are capable of incredibly complex behavior, even with brains often the size of a poppy seed. How do they accomplish feats that look like human activity—personality, language, childcare—with completely different pathways from our own? What is going on inside the mind of those ants that march like boot-camp graduates across your kitchen floor? How does the lead ant know exactly where to take her colony, to that one bread crumb that your nightly sweep missed? Can insects be taught new skills as easily as your new puppy? Sex on Six Legs is a startling and exciting book that provides answers to these questions and many more, examining not only the bedroom lives of creepy crawlies but also some of our own long-held assumptions about learning, the nature of personality, and what our own large brains might be for. “Smart, engaging . . . Zuk approaches her subject with such humor and enthusiasm for the intricacies of insect life, even bug-phobes will relish her account.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547549172
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
A biologist presents a “consistently delightful” look at the mysteries of insect behavior (The New York Times Book Review). Insects have inspired fear, fascination, and enlightenment for centuries. They are capable of incredibly complex behavior, even with brains often the size of a poppy seed. How do they accomplish feats that look like human activity—personality, language, childcare—with completely different pathways from our own? What is going on inside the mind of those ants that march like boot-camp graduates across your kitchen floor? How does the lead ant know exactly where to take her colony, to that one bread crumb that your nightly sweep missed? Can insects be taught new skills as easily as your new puppy? Sex on Six Legs is a startling and exciting book that provides answers to these questions and many more, examining not only the bedroom lives of creepy crawlies but also some of our own long-held assumptions about learning, the nature of personality, and what our own large brains might be for. “Smart, engaging . . . Zuk approaches her subject with such humor and enthusiasm for the intricacies of insect life, even bug-phobes will relish her account.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution
Author: Peter Demianovich Ouspensky
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465505873
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
I SHALL speak about the study of psychology, but I must warn you that the psychology about which I speak is very different from anything you may know under this name. To begin with I must say that practically never in history has psychology stood at so low a level as at the present time. It has lost all touch with its origin and its meaning so that now it is even difficult to define the term psychology: that is, to say what psychology is and what it studies. And this is so in spite of the fact that never in history have there been so many psychological theories and so many psychological writings. Psychology is sometimes called a new science. This is quite wrong. Psychology is, perhaps, the oldest science, and, unfortunately, in its most essential features a forgotten science. In order to understand how psychology can be denned it is necessary to realise that psychology except in modern times has never existed under its own name. For one reason or another psychology always was suspected of wrong or subversive tendencies either religious or political or moral and had to use different disguises. For thousands of years psychology existed under the name of philosophy. In India all forms of Yoga, which are essentially psychology, are described as one of the six systems of philosophy. Sufi teachings. which again are chiefly psychological, are regarded as partly religious and partly metaphysical. In Europe, even quite recently in the last decades of the nineteenth century, many works on psychology were referred to as philosophy. And in spite of the fact that almost all sub-divisions of philosophy such as logic, the theory of cognition, ethics, aesthetics, referred to the work of the human mind or senses, psychology was regarded as inferior to philosophy and as relating only to the lower or more trivial sides of human nature. Parallel with its existence under the name of philosophy, psychology existed even longer connected with one or another religion. It does not mean that religion and psychology ever were one and the same thing, or that the fact of the connection between religion and psychology was recognised. But there is no doubt that almost every known religion—certainly I do not mean modern sham religions—developed one or another kind of psychological teaching connected often with a certain practice, so that the study of religion very often included in itself the study of psychology. There are many excellent works on psychology in quite orthodox religious literature of different countries and epochs. For instance, in early Christianity there was a collection of books of different authors under the general name of Philokalia, used in our time in the Eastern Church, especially for the instruction of monks. During the time when psychology was connected with philosophy and religion it also existed in the form of Art. Poetry, Drama, Sculpture, Dancing, even Architecture, were means for transmitting psychological knowledge. For instance, the Gothic Cathedrals were in their chief meaning works on psychology. In the ancient times before philosophy, religion and art had taken their separate forms as we now know them, psychology had existed in the form of Mysteries, such as those of Egypt and of ancient Greece. Later, after the disappearance of the Mysteries, psychology existed in the form of Symbolical Teachings which were sometimes connected with the religion of the period and sometimes not connected, such as Astrology, Alchemy, Magic, and the more modern: Masonry, Occultism and Theosophy. And here it is necessary to note that all psychological systems and doctrines, those that exist or existed openly and those that were hidden or disguised, can be divided into two chief categories. First: systems which study man as they find him, or such as they suppose or imagine him to be. Modern ‘scientific’ psychology or what is known under that name belongs to this category. Second: systems which study man not from the point of view of what he is, or what he seems to be, but from the point of view of what he may become; that is, from the point of view of his possible evolution.
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465505873
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
I SHALL speak about the study of psychology, but I must warn you that the psychology about which I speak is very different from anything you may know under this name. To begin with I must say that practically never in history has psychology stood at so low a level as at the present time. It has lost all touch with its origin and its meaning so that now it is even difficult to define the term psychology: that is, to say what psychology is and what it studies. And this is so in spite of the fact that never in history have there been so many psychological theories and so many psychological writings. Psychology is sometimes called a new science. This is quite wrong. Psychology is, perhaps, the oldest science, and, unfortunately, in its most essential features a forgotten science. In order to understand how psychology can be denned it is necessary to realise that psychology except in modern times has never existed under its own name. For one reason or another psychology always was suspected of wrong or subversive tendencies either religious or political or moral and had to use different disguises. For thousands of years psychology existed under the name of philosophy. In India all forms of Yoga, which are essentially psychology, are described as one of the six systems of philosophy. Sufi teachings. which again are chiefly psychological, are regarded as partly religious and partly metaphysical. In Europe, even quite recently in the last decades of the nineteenth century, many works on psychology were referred to as philosophy. And in spite of the fact that almost all sub-divisions of philosophy such as logic, the theory of cognition, ethics, aesthetics, referred to the work of the human mind or senses, psychology was regarded as inferior to philosophy and as relating only to the lower or more trivial sides of human nature. Parallel with its existence under the name of philosophy, psychology existed even longer connected with one or another religion. It does not mean that religion and psychology ever were one and the same thing, or that the fact of the connection between religion and psychology was recognised. But there is no doubt that almost every known religion—certainly I do not mean modern sham religions—developed one or another kind of psychological teaching connected often with a certain practice, so that the study of religion very often included in itself the study of psychology. There are many excellent works on psychology in quite orthodox religious literature of different countries and epochs. For instance, in early Christianity there was a collection of books of different authors under the general name of Philokalia, used in our time in the Eastern Church, especially for the instruction of monks. During the time when psychology was connected with philosophy and religion it also existed in the form of Art. Poetry, Drama, Sculpture, Dancing, even Architecture, were means for transmitting psychological knowledge. For instance, the Gothic Cathedrals were in their chief meaning works on psychology. In the ancient times before philosophy, religion and art had taken their separate forms as we now know them, psychology had existed in the form of Mysteries, such as those of Egypt and of ancient Greece. Later, after the disappearance of the Mysteries, psychology existed in the form of Symbolical Teachings which were sometimes connected with the religion of the period and sometimes not connected, such as Astrology, Alchemy, Magic, and the more modern: Masonry, Occultism and Theosophy. And here it is necessary to note that all psychological systems and doctrines, those that exist or existed openly and those that were hidden or disguised, can be divided into two chief categories. First: systems which study man as they find him, or such as they suppose or imagine him to be. Modern ‘scientific’ psychology or what is known under that name belongs to this category. Second: systems which study man not from the point of view of what he is, or what he seems to be, but from the point of view of what he may become; that is, from the point of view of his possible evolution.