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Author: James Lawrence Powell
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538456
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, scientists came to accept four counterintuitive yet fundamental facts about the Earth: deep time, continental drift, meteorite impact, and global warming. When first suggested, each proposition violated scientific orthodoxy and was quickly denounced as scientific—and sometimes religious—heresy. Nevertheless, after decades of rejection, scientists came to accept each theory. The stories behind these four discoveries reflect more than the fascinating push and pull of scientific work. They reveal the provocative nature of science and how it raises profound and sometimes uncomfortable truths as it advances. For example, counter to common sense, the Earth and the solar system are older than all of human existence; the interactions among the moving plates and the continents they carry account for nearly all of the Earth's surface features; and nearly every important feature of our solar system results from the chance collision of objects in space. Most surprising of all, we humans have altered the climate of an entire planet and now threaten the future of civilization. This absorbing scientific history is the only book to describe the evolution of these four ideas from heresy to truth, showing how science works in practice and how it inevitably corrects the mistakes of its practitioners. Scientists can be wrong, but they do not stay wrong. In the process, astonishing ideas are born, tested, and over time take root.
Author: James Lawrence Powell
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538456
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Get Book Here
Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, scientists came to accept four counterintuitive yet fundamental facts about the Earth: deep time, continental drift, meteorite impact, and global warming. When first suggested, each proposition violated scientific orthodoxy and was quickly denounced as scientific—and sometimes religious—heresy. Nevertheless, after decades of rejection, scientists came to accept each theory. The stories behind these four discoveries reflect more than the fascinating push and pull of scientific work. They reveal the provocative nature of science and how it raises profound and sometimes uncomfortable truths as it advances. For example, counter to common sense, the Earth and the solar system are older than all of human existence; the interactions among the moving plates and the continents they carry account for nearly all of the Earth's surface features; and nearly every important feature of our solar system results from the chance collision of objects in space. Most surprising of all, we humans have altered the climate of an entire planet and now threaten the future of civilization. This absorbing scientific history is the only book to describe the evolution of these four ideas from heresy to truth, showing how science works in practice and how it inevitably corrects the mistakes of its practitioners. Scientists can be wrong, but they do not stay wrong. In the process, astonishing ideas are born, tested, and over time take root.
Author: James Lawrence Powell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231164481
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
How does science advance from entrenched orthodoxy to embrace new ideas? How do we come to accept as truths propositions that at first seem like heresies?
Author: Tim Lenton
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191501778
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 440
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Book Description
The Earth that sustains us today was born out of a few remarkable, near-catastrophic revolutions, started by biological innovations and marked by global environmental consequences. The revolutions have certain features in common, such as an increase in complexity, energy utilization, and information processing by life. This book describes these revolutions, showing the fundamental interdependence of the evolution of life and its non-living environment. We would not exist unless these upheavals had led eventually to 'successful' outcomes - meaning that after each one, at length, a new stable world emerged. The current planet-reshaping activities of our species may be the start of another great Earth system revolution, but there is no guarantee that this one will be successful. The book explains what a successful transition through it might look like, if we are wise enough to steer such a course. This book places humanity in context as part of the Earth system, using a new scientific synthesis to illustrate our debt to the deep past and our potential for the future.
Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 1524758876
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolution, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wearable sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manufacturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individuals. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frameworks that advance progress.
Author: John Micklethwait
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143127608
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
From the bestselling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state Dysfunctional government: It’s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world. The West has led these revolutions, but now we are in the midst of a fourth revolution, and it is Western government that is in danger of being left behind. Now, things really are different. The West’s debt load is unsustainable. The developing world has harvested the low-hanging fruits. Industrialization has transformed all the peasant economies it had left to transform, and the toxic side effects of rapid developing world growth are adding to the bill. From Washington to Detroit, from Brasilia to New Delhi, there is a dual crisis of political legitimacy and political effectiveness. The Fourth Revolution crystallizes the scope of the crisis and points forward to our future. The authors enjoy extraordinary access to influential figures and forces the world over, and the book is a global tour of the innovators in how power is to be wielded. The age of big government is over; the age of smart government has begun. Many of the ideas the authors discuss seem outlandish now, but the center of gravity is moving quickly. This tour drives home a powerful argument: that countries’ success depends overwhelmingly on their ability to reinvent the state. And that much of the West—and particularly the United States—is failing badly in its task. China is making rapid progress with government reform at the same time as America is falling badly behind. Washington is gridlocked, and America is in danger of squandering its huge advantages from its powerful economy because of failing government. And flailing democracies like India look enviously at China’s state-of-the-art airports and expanding universities. The race to get government right is not just a race of efficiency. It is a race to see which political values will triumph in the twenty-first century—the liberal values of democracy and liberty or the authoritarian values of command and control. The stakes could not be higher.
Author: Luciano Floridi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191667692
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Who are we, and how do we relate to each other? Luciano Floridi, one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy, argues that the explosive developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is changing the answer to these fundamental human questions. As the boundaries between life online and offline break down, and we become seamlessly connected to each other and surrounded by smart, responsive objects, we are all becoming integrated into an "infosphere". Personas we adopt in social media, for example, feed into our 'real' lives so that we begin to live, as Floridi puts in, "onlife". Following those led by Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud, this metaphysical shift represents nothing less than a fourth revolution. "Onlife" defines more and more of our daily activity - the way we shop, work, learn, care for our health, entertain ourselves, conduct our relationships; the way we interact with the worlds of law, finance, and politics; even the way we conduct war. In every department of life, ICTs have become environmental forces which are creating and transforming our realities. How can we ensure that we shall reap their benefits? What are the implicit risks? Are our technologies going to enable and empower us, or constrain us? Floridi argues that we must expand our ecological and ethical approach to cover both natural and man-made realities, putting the 'e' in an environmentalism that can deal successfully with the new challenges posed by our digital technologies and information society.
Author: Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
Author: Joaquim Franch
Publisher: Aula Magna Proyecto clave McGraw Hill
ISBN: 8419187585
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
There is a lot of buzz on creativity and there are many ways to look at it but, in this book, you will not find a methodology for “unlocking your inner creative soul.” Instead, you will be immersed in a thought-provoking dive into neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and a variety of references from arts and sciences. Creativity takes courage (and it also takes time): one must take the existential approach of becoming (a meaningful engagement with life). Enjoy creativity as a process, not as a tool to conquer a goal. "Most people read one or two books on creativity in a lifetime, Joaquim Franch has probably read them all! In this book, he has broken them down, sorted out the common denominators, and put them in order to produce a book that is both thought proving and practical. An essential read for anyone interested in creativity". Ian Gibbs, with a degree in astrophysics and a postgrad in education, is an entrepreneur working as a learning-strategies specialist. Author of The Sorites Principle and the 2022 TEDx Talk, The Secret Key to Learning Hidden in Plain Sight. "I consider it of great value that the author has made use of creative parameters to address its nature. The result is a useful and original book that undoubtedly helps to take a step further in understanding creativity". Matilde Obradors, Professor in the Department of Communication at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). Author of Creatividad y generación de ideas. "My friend Joaquim is a true generalist (and a systems thinker) and, not surprisingly, with this work he has achieved a balanced vision of a widely studied subject in the Anglo-American world. It’s an honest intellectual analysis of diverse sources". Pere Marés, former Professor in the Automatic Control Department at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona).
Author: Robert Jervis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400885116
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544
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Book Description
Since its original publication in 1976, Perception and Misperception in International Politics has become a landmark book in its field, hailed by the New York Times as "the seminal statement of principles underlying political psychology." This new edition includes an extensive preface by the author reflecting on the book's lasting impact and legacy, particularly in the application of cognitive psychology to political decision making, and brings that analysis up to date by discussing the relevant psychological research over the past forty years. Jervis describes the process of perception (for example, how decision makers learn from history) and then explores common forms of misperception (such as overestimating one's influence). He then tests his ideas through a number of important events in international relations from nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history. Perception and Misperception in International Politics is essential for understanding international relations today.
Author: R. Gareth Wyn Jones
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786834251
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
1. Energy, the Great Driver takes a very broad perspective on life both in relation to time span [4 billion years], and subject areas/disciplines. The latter range from physics through biology to anthropology, agricultural science, sociology and behavioural psychology to economics. 2. The book seeks to explore common cross-disciplinary threads and the integration of our understanding not its atomization. Jones suggests some threads which run though biological and human history over the billennia and narrative which underpins much of planetary life. 3. It reinforces the importance of the seven revolution i.e. energising human society while drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But it offers a new perspective on our reluctance to do so. 4. Although many of the conclusions appear gloomy, the book asserts that a recognition of the underlying problems and trends is the beginning of wisdom and a new relationship with energy can enhance human well-being and our interaction with the rest of the natural world.
