Author: Denis R. Alexander
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226608425
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461
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Book Description
Over the course of human history, the sciences, and biology in particular, have often been manipulated to cause immense human suffering. For example, biology has been used to justify eugenic programs, forced sterilization, human experimentation, and death camps—all in an attempt to support notions of racial superiority. By investigating the past, the contributors to Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins hope to better prepare us to discern ideological abuse of science when it occurs in the future. Denis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers bring together fourteen experts to examine the varied ways science has been used and abused for nonscientific purposes from the fifteenth century to the present day. Featuring an essay on eugenics from Edward J. Larson and an examination of the progress of evolution by Michael J. Ruse, Biology and Ideology examines uses both benign and sinister, ultimately reminding us that ideological extrapolation continues today. An accessible survey, this collection will enlighten historians of science, their students, practicing scientists, and anyone interested in the relationship between science and culture.
Author: Andrew P. Jackson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040166083
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
This book brings Maximus the Confessor’s logoi doctrine into dialogue with modern-day evolutionary biology. It explores the extent to which the logoi, as described by Maximus, exhibit features that are concordant with evolution before going on to consider more discordant aspects that cannot be ignored. The author addresses the curious resonance between the logoi and evolution in a systematic way through a close reading of primary textual material allied with a deep understanding of both the classical Darwinian and ‘extended’ evolutionary syntheses. The study joins with other Maximian interpreters in attesting to the incarnational and theophanic nature of the logoi, but seeks to extend this distinctively Eastern Christo-cosmology into the problematic territory of biological evolution, a territory historically dominated by Western scholarship. The book will be of interest to scholars of religion and science, as well as Patristics and the Eastern Orthodox theological traditions.
Author: Griet Vandermassen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 146164707X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Why should feminism and the biological sciences be at odds? And what might be gained from a reconciliation? In Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin? Vandermassen shows that, rather than continuing this enmity, feminism and the biological sciences—and in particular evolutionary psychology—have the need and the potential to become powerful allies. Properly understood, the Darwinian perspective proposed in this volume will become essential to tackling the major issues in feminism.
Author: Richard Lewontin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781608467273
Category : Behavior genetics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.
Author: Jessica Riskin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022630292X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 571
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Book Description
A core principle of modern science holds that a scientific explanation must not attribute will or agency to natural phenomena. "The Restless Clock" examines the origins and history of this, in particular as it applies to the science of living things. This is also the story of a tradition of radicals--dissenters who embraced the opposite view, that agency is an essential and ineradicable part of nature. Beginning with the church and courtly automata of early modern Europe, Jessica Riskin guides us through our thinking about the extent to which animals might be understood as mere machines. We encounter fantastic robots and cyborgs as well as a cast of scientific and philosophical luminaries, including Descartes and Leibnitz, Lamarck and Darwin, whose ideas gain new relevance in Riskin's hands. The book ends with a riveting discussion of how the dialectic continues in genetics, epigenetics, and evolutionary biology, where work continues to naturalize different forms of agency. "The Restless Clock "reveals the deeply buried roots of current debates in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology.
Author: Mark Walker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136466622
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
Does science work best in a democracy? Were 'Soviet' or 'Nazi' science fundamentally different from science in the USA? These questions have been passionately debated in the recent past. Particular developments in science took place under particular political regimes, but they may or may not have been directly determined by them. Science and Ideology brings together a number of comparative case studies to examine the relationship between science and the dominant ideology of a state. Cybernetics in the USA is compared to France and the Soviet Union. Postwar Allied science policy in occupied Germany is juxtaposed to that in Japan. The essays are narrowly focussed, yet cover a wide range of countries and ideologies. The collection provides a unique comparative history of scientific policies and practices in the 20th century.
Author: David B. McEwan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 153266723X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 162
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Book Description
In the Gospels we encounter many people who were shunned by their society because they lived with some form of impairment. In stark contrast, Jesus embraces these people and offers compassion without condescension, relationship without ulterior motive, and provides them with practical help. Subsequent history has rarely matched his ministry, particularly for people living with intellectual impairment and their families. Based on personal interviews with a number of families who have children living with intellectual impairment, two major challenges constantly impacted them--a longing for people to treat their child as a person and to form genuine friendships with them. Written from a Wesleyan perspective, this book seeks to address these two issues from a theological and pastoral perspective. It offers practical help for anyone to initiate and develop healthy friendships with people who live with moderate to severe intellectual impairment, their families, and carers.
Author: Keith Baker
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442630264
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
For many years, scholars have been moving away from the idea of a singular, secular, rationalistic, and mechanistic “Enlightenment project.” Historian Peter Reill has been one of those at the forefront of this development, demonstrating the need for a broader and more varied understanding of eighteenth-century conceptions of nature. Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century is a unique reappraisal of Enlightenment thought on nature, biology, and the organic world that responds to Reill’s work. The ten essays included in the collection analyse the place of historicism, vitalism, and esotericism in the eighteenth century – three strands of thought rarely connected, but all of which are central to Reill’s innovative work. Working across national and regional boundaries, they engage not only French and English but also Italian, Swiss, and German writers.
Author: Loren Graham
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674089057
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index.
Author: James Poskett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226820645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
Phrenology was the most popular mental science of the Victorian age. From American senators to Indian social reformers, this new mental science found supporters stretching around the globe. Materials of the Mind tells the story of how phrenology changed the world--and how the world changed phrenology. This is a story of skulls from the Arctic, plaster casts from Haiti, books from Bengal, and letters from the Pacific. Drawing on far-flung museum and archival collections, and addressing sources in six different languages, Materials of the Mind is the first substantial account of science in the nineteenth century as part of global history. It shows how the circulation of material culture underpinned the emergence of a new materialist philosophy of the mind, while also demonstrating how a global approach to history could help us reassess issues such as race, technology, and politics today.
