Author: Adrian Woolfson
Publisher: Overlook Press
ISBN: 9781585678105
Category : Genetic engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Nadia Abu El-Haj
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226201422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The Genealogical Science analyzes the scientific work and social implications of the flourishing field of genetic history. A biological discipline that relies on genetic data in order to reconstruct the geographic origins of contemporary populations—their histories of migration and genealogical connections to other present-day groups—this historical science is garnering ever more credibility and social reach, in large part due to a growing industry in ancestry testing. In this book, Nadia Abu El-Haj examines genetic history’s working assumptions about culture and nature, identity and biology, and the individual and the collective. Through the example of the study of Jewish origins, she explores novel cultural and political practices that are emerging as genetic history’s claims and “facts” circulate in the public domain and illustrates how this historical science is intrinsically entangled with cultural imaginations and political commitments. Chronicling late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century understandings of race, nature, and culture, she identifies continuities and shifts in scientific claims, institutional contexts, and political worlds in order to show how the meanings of biological difference have changed over time. In so doing she gives an account of how and why it is that genetic history is so socially felicitous today and elucidates the range of understandings of the self, individual and collective, this scientific field is making possible. More specifically, through her focus on the history of projects of Jewish self-fashioning that have taken place on the terrain of the biological sciences, The Genealogical Science analyzes genetic history as the latest iteration of a cultural and political practice now over a century old.

Author: June Boyce-Tillman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134936419
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Early Christianity saw women in positions of authority and a fluid theology that included feminine figures in the notion of the Divine. However, for centuries a male trinity has dominated theology with the characteristics of triumphalism, clarity, order, eternality and unity. Unconventional Wisdom examines the attempt within the last half of the twentieth century to unearth the hidden theological tradition of feminine Wisdom. The book presents the work of influential theorists, notably Foucault, Belenky and Dorothy Smith. The recovery of the feminine in the divine is linked with the rediscovery of subjugated value systems and what this might mean for ecclesiology.

Author: Michael Specter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101151021
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In this provocative and headline-making book, Michael Specter confronts the widespread fear of science and its terrible toll on individuals and the planet. In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter reveals that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and especially the institution of science more today than ever before. For centuries, the general view had been that science is neither good nor bad—that it merely supplies information and that new information is always beneficial. Now, science is viewed as a political constituency that isn’t always in our best interest. We live in a world where the leaders of African nations prefer to let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains. Childhood vaccines have proven to be the most effective public health measure in history, yet people march on Washington to protest their use. In the United States a growing series of studies show that dietary supplements and “natural” cures have almost no value, and often cause harm. We still spend billions of dollars on them. In hundreds of the best universities in the world, laboratories are anonymous, unmarked, and surrounded by platoons of security guards—such is the opposition to any research that includes experiments with animals. And pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed. As Michael Specter sees it, this amounts to a war against progress. The issues may be complex but the choices are not: Are we going to continue to embrace new technologies, along with acknowledging their limitations and threats, or are we ready to slink back into an era of magical thinking? In Denialism, Specter makes an argument for a new Enlightenment, the revival of an approach to the physical world that was stunningly effective for hundreds of years: What can be understood and reliably repeated by experiment is what nature regarded as true. Now, at the time of mankind’s greatest scientific advances—and our greatest need for them—that deal must be renewed.

Author: Christopher Southgate
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0567041441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
Contributors include: Christopher Southgate John Hedley Brooke Celia Deane-Drummond Paul D. Murray Michael Robert Negus Lawrence Osborn Michael Poole Jacqui Stewart Fraser Watts David Wilkinson This fully revised and updated edition of God, Humanity and the Cosmos includes new chapters by John Hedley Brooke, Paul D. Murray and David Wilkinson. In addition to a systematic exploration of contemporary perspectives in physics, evolutionary biology and psychology as they relate to theological descriptions of the universe, humanity and consciousness, the book now provides a thorough survey of the theological, philosophical and historical issues underpinning the science-religion debate. Contributors also examine such issues as theological responses to the ecological crisis and to biotechnology; how science is treated and valued in education; and the relation of science to Islamic thought. Dr Christopher Southgate is Lecturer in Theology at the University of Exeter.'

Author: Michael Bowman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139494953
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 783

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Book Description
The development of international wildlife law has been one of the most significant exercises in international law-making during the last fifty years. This second edition of Lyster's International Wildlife Law coincides with both the UN Year of Biological Diversity and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Simon Lyster's first edition. The risk of wildlife depletion and species extinction has become even greater since the 1980s. This new edition provides a clear and authoritative analysis of the key treaties which regulate the conservation of wildlife and habitat protection, and of the mechanisms available to make them work. The original text has also been significantly expanded to include analysis of the philosophical and welfare considerations underpinning wildlife protection, the cross-cutting themes of wildlife and trade, and the impact of climate change and other anthropogenic interferences with species and habitat. Lyster's International Wildlife Law is an indispensable reference work for scholars, practitioners and policy-makers alike.

Author: Christopher Carlisle, M.Div
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440626049
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
An objective overview of the biggest controversy in American education. Intelligent Design is one of the hottest issues facing parents and educators to day, but it can be hard to separate the facts from the heated rhetoric. This expert and objective guide gets to the bottom of the questions: What is Intelligent Design? Should it replace or complement traditional science? What's all the fuss about? * Explains the terms, the controversy, and the involvement of the American courts * Indispensable guide for concerned educators and parents * Written by an expert in the field

Author: Colin Tudge
Publisher: Floris Books
ISBN: 086315977X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The modern world is dominated by ideas that are threatening to kill us: that life is one long battle from conception to grave; that all creatures, including human beings, are driven by their selfish DNA; that the universe is just stuff, for us to use at will. These ideas are seen as emerging from science and hard-nosed philosophy, and become self-fulfilling. They have led us to create a world in perpetual strife,that is unjust and in many ways precarious. This remarkable book by an experienced author and thinker argues there's another way of looking at the world that is just as rooted in modern science, and yet says precisely the opposite: that life is in fact cooperative; all creatures, including human beings, are basically nice; that there's more to the 'stuff' of the world than meets the eye. This book is both a powerful call to rethink our assumptions, and a message of hope for those who believe we're doomed to self-destruction.

Author: Jeanette Edwards
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845455736
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Interest in the study of kinship, a key area of anthropological enquiry, has recently reemerged. Dubbed 'the new kinship', this interest was stimulated by the 'new genetics' and revived interest in kinship and family patterns. This volume investigates the impact of biotechnology on contemporary understandings of kinship, of family and 'belonging' in a variety of European settings and reveals similarities and differences in how kinship is conceived. What constitutes kinship for different publics? How significant are biogenetic links? What does family resemblance tell us? Why is genetically modified food an issue? Are 'genes' and 'blood' interchangeable? It has been argued that the recent prominence of genetic science and genetic technologies has resulted in a 'geneticization' of social life; the ethnographic examples presented here do show shifts occurring in notions of 'nature' and of what is 'natural'. But, they also illustrate the complexity of contemporary kinship thinking in Europe and the continued interconnectedness of biological and sociological understandings of relatedness and the relationship between nature and nurture.

Author: Nancy R. Pearcey
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493412825
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Why the call to Love Thy Body? To counter a pervasive hostility toward the body and biology that drives today's headline stories: Transgenderism: Activists detach gender from biology. Kids down to kindergarten are being taught their bodies are irrelevant. Is this affirming--or does it demean the body? Homosexuality: Advocates disconnect sexuality from biological identity. Is this liberating--or does it denigrate biology? Abortion: Supporters deny the fetus is a person, though it is biologically human. Does this mean equality for women--or does it threaten the intrinsic value of all humans? Euthanasia: Those who lack certain cognitive abilities are said to be no longer persons. Is this compassionate--or does it ultimately put everyone at risk? In Love Thy Body, bestselling author Nancy Pearcey goes beyond politically correct slogans with a riveting exposé of the dehumanizing worldview that shapes current watershed moral issues. Pearcey then turns the tables on media boilerplate that misportrays Christianity as harsh or hateful. A former agnostic, she makes a surprising and persuasive case that Christianity is holistic, sustaining the dignity of the body and biology. Throughout she entrances readers with compassionate stories of people wrestling with hard questions in their own lives--their pain, their struggles, their triumphs. "Liberal secularist ideology rests on a mistake and Nancy Pearcey in her terrific new book puts her finger right on it. In embracing abortion, euthanasia, homosexual conduct and relationships, transgenderism, and the like, liberal secularism . . . is philosophically as well as theologically untenable."--Robert P. George, Princeton University "Wonderful guide."--Sam Allberry, author, Is God Anti-Gay? "A must-read."--Rosaria Butterfield, former professor, Syracuse University; author, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert "An astute but accessible analysis of the intellectual roots of the most important moral ills facing us today: abortion, euthanasia, and redefining the family."--Richard Weikart, California State University, Stanislaus "Highly readable, insightful, and informative."--Mary Poplin, Claremont Graduate University; author, Is Reality Secular? "Unmasks the far-reaching practical consequences of mind-body dualism better than anyone I have ever seen."--Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president, The Ruth Institute "Love Thy Body richly enhances the treasure box that is Pearcey's collective work."--Glenn T. Stanton, Focus on the Family "Essential reading . . . Love Thy Body brings clarity and understanding to the multitude of complex and confusing views in discussions about love and sexuality."--Becky Norton Dunlop, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow, The Heritage Foundation "Pearcey gets straight to the issue of our day: What makes humans valuable in the first place? You must get this book. Don't just read it. Master it."--Scott Klusendorf, president, Life Training Institute