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 : 113

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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 : 113

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 Varieties of Scientific Experience

The Varieties of Scientific Experience PDF Author: Carl Sagan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101201835
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
“Ann Druyan has unearthed a treasure. It is a treasure of reason, compassion, and scientific awe. It should be the next book you read.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith “A stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being. I miss him so.” —Kurt Vonnegut Carl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as "informed worship." Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.

Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices

Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices PDF Author: Christina V. Schwarz
Publisher: NSTA Press
ISBN: 1941316956
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
When it’s time for a game change, you need a guide to the new rules. Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices provides a play-by-play understanding of the practices strand of A Framework for K–12 Science Education (Framework) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Written in clear, nontechnical language, this book provides a wealth of real-world examples to show you what’s different about practice-centered teaching and learning at all grade levels. The book addresses three important questions: 1. How will engaging students in science and engineering practices help improve science education? 2. What do the eight practices look like in the classroom? 3. How can educators engage students in practices to bring the NGSS to life? Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices was developed for K–12 science teachers, curriculum developers, teacher educators, and administrators. Many of its authors contributed to the Framework’s initial vision and tested their ideas in actual science classrooms. If you want a fresh game plan to help students work together to generate and revise knowledge—not just receive and repeat information—this book is for you.

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.

Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life PDF Author: Dacher Keltner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393073351
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
“A landmark book in the science of emotions and its implications for ethics and human universals.”—Library Journal, starred review In this startling study of human emotion, Dacher Keltner investigates an unanswered question of human evolution: If humans are hardwired to lead lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short,” why have we evolved with positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe, and compassion that promote ethical action and cooperative societies? Illustrated with more than fifty photographs of human emotions, Born to Be Good takes us on a journey through scientific discovery, personal narrative, and Eastern philosophy. Positive emotions, Keltner finds, lie at the core of human nature and shape our everyday behavior—and they just may be the key to understanding how we can live our lives better. Some images in this ebook are not displayed owing to permissions issues.

The Honest Broker

The Honest Broker PDF Author: Roger A. Pielke, Jr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464825
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Scientists have a choice concerning what role they should play in political debates and policy formation, particularly in terms of how they present their research. This book is about understanding this choice, what considerations are important to think about when deciding, and the consequences of such choices for the individual scientist and the broader scientific enterprise. Rather than prescribing what course of action each scientist ought to take, the book aims to identify a range of options for individual scientists to consider in making their own judgments about how they would like to position themselves in relation to policy and politics. Using examples from a range of scientific controversies and thought-provoking analogies from other walks of life, The Honest Broker challenges us all - scientists, politicians and citizens - to think carefully about how best science can contribute to policy-making and a healthy democracy.

The Intelligibility of Nature

The Intelligibility of Nature PDF Author: Peter Dear
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226139506
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Throughout the history of the Western world, science has possessed an extraordinary amount of authority and prestige. And while its pedestal has been jostled by numerous evolutions and revolutions, science has always managed to maintain its stronghold as the knowing enterprise that explains how the natural world works: we treat such legendary scientists as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein with admiration and reverence because they offer profound and sustaining insight into the meaning of the universe. In The Intelligibility of Nature, Peter Dear considers how science as such has evolved and how it has marshaled itself to make sense of the world. His intellectual journey begins with a crucial observation: that the enterprise of science is, and has been, directed toward two distinct but frequently conflated ends—doing and knowing. The ancient Greeks developed this distinction of value between craft on the one hand and understanding on the other, and according to Dear, that distinction has survived to shape attitudes toward science ever since. Teasing out this tension between doing and knowing during key episodes in the history of science—mechanical philosophy and Newtonian gravitation, elective affinities and the chemical revolution, enlightened natural history and taxonomy, evolutionary biology, the dynamical theory of electromagnetism, and quantum theory—Dear reveals how the two principles became formalized into a single enterprise, science, that would be carried out by a new kind of person, the scientist. Finely nuanced and elegantly conceived, The Intelligibility of Nature will be essential reading for aficionados and historians of science alike.

The Island of Knowledge

The Island of Knowledge PDF Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0465031714
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Why discovering the limits to science may be the most powerful discovery of allHow much can we know about the world? In this book, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know. Gleiser shows that by aband.

Spiritual Science

Spiritual Science PDF Author: Steve Taylor
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1786781921
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
A mindfulness expert whose work has been hailed by Eckhart Tolle as “an important contribution to the shift in consciousness” offers a new vision of reality—one that is compatible with modern science and ancient spirituality. “With elegance and lucidity, Steve Taylor explains why spiritual science is the only hope for humanity.” —Deepak Chopra It is often assumed that there are two ways of interpreting the world: a rational scientific way, or an irrational religious way. Mindfulness expert, Steve Taylor, shows that there is a third possibility—a spiritual, or “panspiritist”, view of reality that transcends both conventional science and religion, recognizes spirit or consciousness as fundamental, and answers many of the riddles that neither can explain. Here, Taylor puts forward the evidence for a spiritual view of reality and examines the development and consequences of the materialist model. Drawing on the insights of philosophers, physicists, mystics, as well as spiritual traditions and indigenous cultures, he also systematically shows how a ‘panspiritist’ view can explain many puzzling aspects of science and the world such as: • human consciousness • altruism • near-death experiences • telepathy and pre-cognition • quantum physics • the placebo effect • neuroplasticity A compelling argument for a new vision of reality, Spiritual Science offers a bright vision of the world as sacred and interconnected, and of human life as meaningful and purposeful.