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Author: Salvatore J. Agosta Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030520862 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
This book presents a unified evolutionary framework based on three sets of metaphors that will help to consolidate discussions on evolutionary transitions. Evolution is the unifying principle of life, making identifying ways to apply evolutionary principles to tackle existence-threatening crises such as climate change crucial. A more cohesive evolutionary framework will further the discussions in this regard and also accelerate the process itself. This book lays out a framework based on three dualistic classes of metaphors – time, space, and conflict resolution. Evolutionary transitions theory shows how metaphors can help us understand selective diversification, as Darwin described with his “tree of life”. Moreover, the recently proposed Stockholm paradigm demonstrates how metaphors can help shed light on the emergence of complex ecosystems that Darwin highlighted with his “tangled bank” metaphor. Taken together, these ideas offer proactive measures for coping with existential crises for humanity, such as climate change. The book will appeal to biologists, philosophers and historians alike.
Author: Salvatore J. Agosta Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030520862 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
This book presents a unified evolutionary framework based on three sets of metaphors that will help to consolidate discussions on evolutionary transitions. Evolution is the unifying principle of life, making identifying ways to apply evolutionary principles to tackle existence-threatening crises such as climate change crucial. A more cohesive evolutionary framework will further the discussions in this regard and also accelerate the process itself. This book lays out a framework based on three dualistic classes of metaphors – time, space, and conflict resolution. Evolutionary transitions theory shows how metaphors can help us understand selective diversification, as Darwin described with his “tree of life”. Moreover, the recently proposed Stockholm paradigm demonstrates how metaphors can help shed light on the emergence of complex ecosystems that Darwin highlighted with his “tangled bank” metaphor. Taken together, these ideas offer proactive measures for coping with existential crises for humanity, such as climate change. The book will appeal to biologists, philosophers and historians alike.
Author: Mae-Wan Ho Publisher: ISBN: Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
Evolutionary Processes and Metaphors Edited by Mae-Wan Ho, Department of Biology, The Open University, UK Sidney W. Fox, Institute for Molecular and Cellular Evolution, University of Miami, USA The current evolutionary debate encompasses protobiotic chemistry at one extreme and human sociobiology at the other. Meanwhile, significant advances continue to be made in many scientific disciplines which have far-reaching implications on our view of nature. Although it is now generally felt that neo-Darwinism, at least in its orthodox form, is no longer an adequate theory of evolution, very few attempts have yet been made to articulate a coherent alternative out of the many voices of dissent. The purpose of the present volume is two-fold: to work towards a new evolutionary synthesis which takes full account of contemporary knowledge in all disciplines; and to examine explicitly the metaphorical basis of evolutionary theories old and new, as this has a powerful impact on our humanistic perspectives which underpin all social and political actions. We have brought together representatives of two groups of workers: those who ultimately believe in working within a transformed neo-Darwinism, and others who advocate a more radical reorientation away from the orthodoxy. Despite their fundamentally different affiliations, they are nonetheless able to communicate on questions of evolutionary concepts and mechanisms and their wider relevance to science and society. New insights are presented on major issues such as the physicochemical underpinnings of life processes, the meaning of natural selection, the nature of variation, heredity and morphogenesis, the integration of organism and environment, the active role of the organism in evolution and the evolution of human society. The new synthesis which is emerging is an integrated, multilevel and multidisciplinary approach to evolution which accords not only with the state of present-day knowledge, but with our deepest experience of nature.
Author: J. David. Archibald Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231164122 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
Leading paleontologist David Archibald explores the rich history of visual metaphors for biological order from ancient times to the present and their influence on human beingsÕ perception of their place in nature. Specifically, Archibald focuses on ladders and trees, and the first appearance of trees to represent seasonal life cycles. Their use in ancient Roman decorations and genealogies was then appropriated by the early Christian Church to represent biblical genealogies. The late eighteenth century saw the idea of a tree reappropriated to visualize relationships in the natural world, sometimes with a creationist view, but in some instances suggesting evolution. Charles DarwinÕs On the Origin of Species (1859) exorcised the exclusively creationist view of the Òtree of life.Ó His ideas sparked an explosion of trees, mostly by younger acolytes in Europe. Although DarwinÕs influence waned in the early twentieth century, by midcentury his ideas held sway once again in time for another and even greater explosion of tree building, generated by the development of new theories on how to assemble trees, the birth of powerful computing, and the emergence of molecular technology. Throughout his far-reaching study, and with the use of many figures, Archibald connects the evolution of Òtree of lifeÓ iconography to our changing perception of the world and ourselves, offering uncommon insight into how we went from standing on the top rung of the biological ladder to embodying just one tiny twig on the tree of life.
Author: Daniel R. Brooks Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022663258X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 423
Book Description
The contemporary crisis of emerging disease has been a century and a half in the making. Human, veterinary, and crop health practitioners convinced themselves that disease could be controlled by medicating the sick, vaccinating those at risk, and eradicating the parts of the biosphere responsible for disease transmission. Evolutionary biologists assured themselves that coevolution between pathogens and hosts provided a firewall against disease emergence in new hosts. Most climate scientists made no connection between climate changes and disease. None of these traditional perspectives anticipated the onslaught of emerging infectious diseases confronting humanity today. As this book reveals, a new understanding of the evolution of pathogen-host systems, called the Stockholm Paradigm, explains what is happening. The planet is a minefield of pathogens with preexisting capacities to infect susceptible but unexposed hosts, needing only the opportunity for contact. Climate change has always been the major catalyst for such new opportunities, because it disrupts local ecosystem structure and allows pathogens and hosts to move. Once pathogens expand to new hosts, novel variants may emerge, each with new infection capacities. Mathematical models and real-world examples uniformly support these ideas. Emerging disease is thus one of the greatest climate change–related threats confronting humanity. Even without deadly global catastrophes on the scale of the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, emerging diseases cost humanity more than a trillion dollars per year in treatment and lost productivity. But while time is short, the danger is great, and we are largely unprepared, the Stockholm Paradigm offers hope for managing the crisis. By using the DAMA (document, assess, monitor, act) protocol, we can “anticipate to mitigate” emerging disease, buying time and saving money while we search for more effective ways to cope with this challenge.
Author: Michael Osborn Publisher: Michigan State University Press ISBN: 9781611862874 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This volume features two dimensions of Michael Osborn’s work with rhetorical metaphor. The first focuses on his early efforts to develop a conception of metaphor to advance the understanding of rhetoric, while the second concerns more recent efforts to apply this enriched conception in the analysis and criticism of significant rhetorical practice. The older emphasis features four of Osborn’s more prominent published essays, revealing the personal context in which they were generated, their strengths and shortcomings, and how they may have inspired the work of others. His more recent unpublished work analyzes patterns of metaphor in the major speeches of Demosthenes, the evolution of metaphors of illness and cure in speeches across several millennia, the exploitation of the birth-death-rebirth metaphor in Riefenstahl’s masterpiece of Nazi propaganda Triumph of the Will, and the contrasting forms of spatial imagery in the speeches of Edmund Burke and Barack Obama and what these contrasts may portend.
Author: David Sloan Wilson Publisher: Delacorte Press ISBN: 0440336805 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
With stories that entertain as much as they inform, renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, when properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion. What is the biological reason for gossip? For laughter? For the creation of art? Why do dogs have curly tails? What can microbes tell us about morality? These and many other questions are tackled by Wilson in this witty and groundbreaking new book. Now everyone can move beyond the sterile debates about creationism and intelligent design to share Darwin’s panoramic view of animal and human life, seamlessly connected to each other. Evolution, as Wilson explains, is not just about dinosaurs and human origins, but about why all species behave as they do—from beetles that devour their own young, to bees that function as a collective brain, to dogs that are smarter in some respects than our closest ape relatives. And basic evolutionary principles are also the foundation for humanity’s capacity for symbolic thought, culture, and morality. In example after example, Wilson sheds new light on Darwin’ s grand theory and how it can be applied to daily life. By turns thoughtful, provocative, and daringly funny, Evolution for Everyone addresses some of the deepest philosophical and social issues of this or any age. In helping us come to a deeper understanding of human beings and our place in the world, it might also help us to improve that world.
Author: Stephen Jay Gould Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674417925 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 1460
Book Description
The world’s most revered and eloquent interpreter of evolutionary ideas offers here a work of explanatory force unprecedented in our time—a landmark publication, both for its historical sweep and for its scientific vision. With characteristic attention to detail, Stephen Jay Gould first describes the content and discusses the history and origins of the three core commitments of classical Darwinism: that natural selection works on organisms, not genes or species; that it is almost exclusively the mechanism of adaptive evolutionary change; and that these changes are incremental, not drastic. Next, he examines the three critiques that currently challenge this classic Darwinian edifice: that selection operates on multiple levels, from the gene to the group; that evolution proceeds by a variety of mechanisms, not just natural selection; and that causes operating at broader scales, including catastrophes, have figured prominently in the course of evolution. Then, in a stunning tour de force that will likely stimulate discussion and debate for decades, Gould proposes his own system for integrating these classical commitments and contemporary critiques into a new structure of evolutionary thought. In 2001 the Library of Congress named Stephen Jay Gould one of America’s eighty-three Living Legends—people who embody the “quintessentially American ideal of individual creativity, conviction, dedication, and exuberance.” Each of these qualities finds full expression in this peerless work, the likes of which the scientific world has not seen—and may not see again—for well over a century.
Author: Jeffery Donaldson Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 0773582118 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 507
Book Description
We look for missing links in the sciences and humanities, but the essential missing link - metaphor - is always in front of us. In Missing Link, Jeffery Donaldson unites literary criticism and evolutionary and cognitive science to show how metaphor has been with us since the beginning of time as a seed in the nature of things. With examples from centuries of poets, critics, philosophers, and scientists, he details how metaphor is a chemistry, an exchange of energies forming and dissolving, and an openness in the spaces between things. He considers the ways in which DNA learns how to liken things that have been, how mutation makes errors and then tries them on, and how evolution is hypothesis - nature's way of "thinking more." The mind is a matrix of relations: neural synapses cascade into ever-changing pathways and patterns. Metaphor is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It is the unbroken thread between matter and spirit. Whether offering analysis of a turn of phrase or chemical reaction, Missing Link presents a vision of literature that is also a vision of the cosmos, and vice versa. It enters the debate between evolution and religion, and challenges scientists, literary theorists, and religious advocates to rethink the relations between their disciplines.
Author: Joan Roughgarden Publisher: Island Press ISBN: 1597261572 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 167
Book Description
Click here to visit evolutionandchristianfaith.org "I'm an evolutionary biologist and a Christian," states Stanford professor Joan Roughgarden at the outset of her groundbreaking new book, Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist. From that perspective, she offers an elegant, deeply satisfying reconciliation of the theory of evolution and the wisdom of the Bible. Perhaps only someone with Roughgarden's unique academic standing could examine so well controversial issues such as the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, or the potential flaws in Darwin's theory of evolution. Certainly Roughgarden is uniquely suited to reference both the minutiae of scientific processes and the implication of Biblical verses. Whether the topic is mutation rates and lizards or the hidden meanings behind St. Paul's letters, Evolution and Christian Faith distils complex arguments into everyday understanding. Roughgarden has scoured the Bible and scanned the natural world, finding examples time and again, not of conflict, but of harmony. The result is an accessible and intelligent context for a Christian vision of the world that embraces science. In the ongoing debates over creationism and evolution, Evolution and Christian Faith will be seen as a work of major significance, written for contemporary readers who wonder how-or if-they can embrace scientific advances while maintaining their traditional values.
Author: Evelyn Fox Keller Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 9780231102056 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 164
Book Description
Refiguring Life begins with the history of genetics and embryology, showing how discipline-based metaphors have directed scientists' search for evidence. Keller continues with an exploration of the border traffic between biology and physics, focusing on the question of life and the law of increasing entropy. In a final section she traces the impact of new metaphors, born of the computer revolution, on the course of biological research. Keller shows how these metaphors began as objects of contestation between competing visions of the life sciences, how they came to be recast and appropriated by already established research agendas, and how in the process they ultimately came to subvert those same agendas. Refiguring Life explains how the metaphors and machinery of research are not merely the products of scientific discovery but actually work together to map out the territory along which new metaphors and machines can be constructed. Through their dynamic interaction, Keller points out, they define the realm of the possible in science. Drawing on a remarkable spectrum of theoretical work ranging from Schroedinger to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Refiguring Life fuses issues already prominent in the humanities and social sciences with those in the physical and natural sciences, transgressing disciplinary boundaries to offer a broad view of the natural sciences as a whole. Moving gracefully from genetics to embryology, from physics to biology, from cyberscience to molecular biology, Evelyn Fox Keller demonstrates that scientific inquiry cannot pretend to stand apart from the issues and concerns of the larger society in which it exists.
Author: Salvatore J. Agosta
Author: Salvatore J. Agosta
Author: Mae-Wan Ho
Author: J. David. Archibald
Author: Daniel R. Brooks
Author: Michael Osborn
Author: David Sloan Wilson
Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Author: Jeffery Donaldson
Author: Joan Roughgarden
Author: Evelyn Fox Keller