Snakes Sunrises And Shakespeare

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Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare

Author : Gordon H. Orians
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022600337X
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare by : Gordon H. Orians

Download or read book Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare written by Gordon H. Orians and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-04-14 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eminent zoologist “extends his pioneering work in evolutionary biology” to examine “our preferences, predilections, fears, hopes, and aspirations” (Stephen R. Kellert, author of Birthright). Why do we jump in fear at the sight of a snake and marvel at the beauty of a sunrise? These impulsive reactions are no accident; in fact, many of our human responses to nature are steeped in our evolutionary past—we fear snakes because of the danger of venom, and we welcome the assurances of sun as the predatory dangers of night disappear. According to evolutionary biologist Gordon Orians, many of our aesthetic preferences—from the kinds of gardens we build to the foods we enjoy and the entertainment we seek—are the lingering result of natural selection. In Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare, Orians explores the role of evolution in human responses to the environment, applying biological perspectives ranging from Darwin to current neuroscience. Orians reveals how our emotional lives today are shaped by decisions our ancestors made centuries ago on African savannas as they selected places to live, sought food and safety, and socialized in small hunter-gatherer groups. During this time our likes and dislikes became wired in our brains, as the appropriate responses to the environment meant the difference between survival or death. His rich analysis explains why we mimic the tropical savannas of our ancestors in our parks and gardens, why we are simultaneously attracted to and repelled by danger, and how paying close attention to nature’s sounds has made us an unusually musical species.

The Origins of Creativity

Author : Edward O. Wilson
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631493191
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis The Origins of Creativity by : Edward O. Wilson

Download or read book The Origins of Creativity written by Edward O. Wilson and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Brimming with ideas. . . . The Origins of Creativity approach[es] creativity scientifically but sensitively, feeling its roots without pulling them out.”—Economist In a stirring exploration of human nature recalling his foundational work Consilience, Edward O. Wilson offers a “luminous” (Kirkus Reviews) reflection on the humanities and their integral relationship to science. Both endeavors, Wilson argues, have their roots in human creativity—the defining trait of our species. By studying fields as diverse as paleontology, evolution, and neurobiology, Wilson demonstrates that creative expression began not 10,000 years ago, as we have long assumed, but more than 100,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Age. A provocative investigation into what it means to be human, The Origins of Creativity reveals how the humanities have played an unexamined role in defining our species. With the eloquence, optimism, and pioneering inquiry we have come to expect from our leading biologist, Wilson proposes a transformational “Third Enlightenment” in which the blending of science and humanities will enable a deeper understanding of our human condition, and how it ultimately originated.

Impact

Author : Christen Brandt
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1541756770
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (417 download)

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Book Synopsis Impact by : Christen Brandt

Download or read book Impact written by Christen Brandt and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you've ever felt too overwhelmed to make a difference, or just unsure of how to apply your unique skills to a bigger purpose, this book is ready to unlock your potential. When you feel that pull to be part of social change, where do you start? How can you ensure that your good intentions create a positive impact? How do you focus your scattered efforts? And how do you sustain yourself throughout? Impact brings you the answers. Drawing on their network and experience as founders of She's the First, Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts show you how to create your own impact strategy, one that fits into your life and allows you to match what you have with what the world needs. Their guidance, paired with interactive activities, will lead you to identify your North Star, find the right partners, and plug into movements for long-term, systemic change. Equally important, you'll learn how to address biases, practice allyship, and shift power to become more inclusive and effective in your journey.

Beasts at Bedtime

Author : Liam Heneghan
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022643141X
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Beasts at Bedtime by : Liam Heneghan

Download or read book Beasts at Bedtime written by Liam Heneghan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] fresh new look at animal tales, often classic, and how they pertain to the present-day and our often fraught relationship to our environment.” —Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach Trilogy Talking lions, philosophical bears, very hungry caterpillars, wise spiders, altruistic trees, companionable moles, urbane elephants: this is the magnificent menagerie that delights our children at bedtime. Within the entertaining pages of many children’s books, however, also lie profound teachings about the natural world that can help children develop an educated and engaged appreciation of the dynamic environment they inhabit. In Beasts at Bedtime, scientist (and father) Liam Heneghan examines the environmental underpinnings of children’s stories. From Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter, Heneghan unearths the universal insights into our inextricable relationship with nature that underlie so many classic children’s stories. Some of the largest environmental challenges in coming years—from climate instability, the extinction crisis, freshwater depletion, and deforestation—are likely to become even more severe as this generation of children grows up. Though today’s young readers will bear the brunt of these environmental calamities, they will also be able to contribute to environmental solutions if prepared properly. And all it takes is an attentive eye: Heneghan shows how the nature curriculum is already embedded in bedtime stories, from the earliest board books like The Rainbow Fish to contemporary young adult classics like The Hunger Games. This book enthralls as it engages. Beasts at Bedtime will help parents, teachers, and guardians extend those cozy times curled up together with a good book into a lifetime of caring for our planet. “Beasts at Bedtime is proof that most kidlit has teachable moments embedded in it.” —Toronto Star

Evolution, Games, and God

Author : Martin A. Nowak
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674075536
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution, Games, and God by : Martin A. Nowak

Download or read book Evolution, Games, and God written by Martin A. Nowak and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics. Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning. The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.

Nature by Design

Author : Stephen R. Kellert
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300214537
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Nature by Design by : Stephen R. Kellert

Download or read book Nature by Design written by Stephen R. Kellert and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gorgeously illustrated, accessible book that provides a holistic summary of the key elements for good biophilic design

Walking to Australia

Author : David Robbins
Publisher : Book Guild Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1912575493
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (125 download)

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Book Synopsis Walking to Australia by : David Robbins

Download or read book Walking to Australia written by David Robbins and published by Book Guild Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Robbins published his first short story at 19 and his first book 25 years later. In 1986, for The 29thParallel, he was awarded South Africa’s prestigious CNA Literary Award, after having been shortlisted with Christopher Hope and J M Coetzee. Since then he has published extensively on southern African themes, becoming established as a writer of extraordinary perception in the literary travel and short fiction genres. In 1995 he published the first of two travel books covering 22 countries on the African continent, which enjoyed international success; and in 2010 he received a Lifetime Achievement Literary Award from the South African Ministry of Arts and Culture. A year before receiving this acknowledgement of his contribution to local literature, he had already embarked on the major project currently under discussion. Several visits to Australia had ignited his interest in the ‘Out-of-Africa’ hypothesis of modern humanity’s peopling of the world. Walking to Australia has been the result of extensive travel in the countries occupying the northern shores of the Indian Ocean, and of seven years of intermittent researching and writing. The book describes a 21st century journey following the direction taken by anatomically modern humans who left the African nursery around 80000 years ago and reached Australia 20000 years later. Along the way, they laid the genetic foundations for humanity’s oldest civilizations – and ultimately inhabited every corner of the globe. The result of these travels is not a scientific treatise. Although the science is not ignored, the centre lies elsewhere. The author undertakes this west-to-east endeavor in the imagined company of his autistic grandson, who serves both as confidant and as a human archetype. This allows the book to verge upon a unique blend of factual travel writing and an almost magical internalised interpretation. What the two travellers find together is a tangle of new experiences and responses, from which the linkages between primeval past and complex present gradually emerge. Here is a work of literary travel writing that describes an enchanted journey through some of the ancient places of the world and into the currently deeply troubled heart of the human adventure. The evidence encountered on the journey suggests that a fundamental universality of humanity’s place in the cosmos lies beneath all regional differences and is characterised as much by humility and co-operation as it is by the imperative to survive and/or the will to power. The book does not set out to prove a point, however, but to celebrate the complexity of human responses. It is more a creative work than it is a dissertation with an unambiguous conclusion. Nevertheless, the bibliography gives an indication of some of the sources used, which includes the work of historians, archaeologists, political scientists, biographers and psychologists, as well as authors writing on the various religions of the world.

Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture

Author : Joseph Carroll
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030461904
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture by : Joseph Carroll

Download or read book Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture written by Joseph Carroll and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-28 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering volume offers an expansive introduction to the relatively new field of evolutionary studies in imaginative culture. Contributors from psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and the humanities probe the evolved human imagination and its artefacts. The book forcefully demonstrates that imagination is part of human nature. Contributors explore imaginative culture in seven main areas: Imagination: Evolution, Mechanisms and Functions Myth and Religion Aesthetic Theory Music Visual and Plastic Arts Video Games and Films Oral Narratives and Literature Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture widens the scope of evolutionary cultural theory to include much of what “culture” means in common usage. The contributors aim to convince scholars in both the humanities and the evolutionary human sciences that biology and imaginative culture are intimately intertwined. The contributors illuminate this broad theoretical argument with comprehensive insights into religion, ideology, personal identity, and many particular works of art, music, literature, film, and digital media. The chapters “Imagination, the Brain’s Default Mode Network, and Imaginative Verbal Artifacts” and “The Role of Aesthetic Style in Alleviating Anxiety About the Future” are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Evolution by Natural Selection

Author : Michaelis Michael
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1498700888
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution by Natural Selection by : Michaelis Michael

Download or read book Evolution by Natural Selection written by Michaelis Michael and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-11-18 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A persistent argument among evolutionary biologists and philosophers revolves around the nature of natural selection. Evolution by Natural Selection: Confidence, Evidence and the Gap explores this argument by using a theory of persistence as an intentional foil to examine ways in which similar theories can be misunderstood. It discusses Charles Dar

The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy

Author : Richard Joyce
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317655567
Total Pages : 569 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy by : Richard Joyce

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy written by Richard Joyce and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-16 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the relation between contemporary academic philosophy and evolutionary theory has become ever more active, multifaceted, and productive. The connection is a bustling two-way street. In one direction, philosophers of biology make significant contributions to theoretical discussions about the nature of evolution (such as "What is a species?"; "What is reproductive fitness?"; "Does selection operate primarily on genes?"; and "What is an evolutionary function?"). In the other direction, a broader group of philosophers appeal to Darwinian selection in an attempt to illuminate traditional philosophical puzzles (such as "How could a brain-state have representational content?"; "Are moral judgments justified?"; "Why do we enjoy fiction?"; and "Are humans invariably selfish?"). In grappling with these questions, this interdisciplinary collection includes cutting-edge examples from both directions of traffic. The thirty contributions, written exclusively for this volume, are divided into six sections: The Nature of Selection; Evolution and Information; Human Nature; Evolution and Mind; Evolution and Ethics; and Evolution, Aesthetics, and Art. Many of the contributing philosophers and psychologists are international leaders in their fields.

Human Interface and the Management of Information

Author : Hirohiko Mori
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031351290
Total Pages : 618 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (313 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Interface and the Management of Information by : Hirohiko Mori

Download or read book Human Interface and the Management of Information written by Hirohiko Mori and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-07-08 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume set LNCS 14015 - 14016 constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the thematic area Human Interface and the Management of Information, HIMI 2023, which was held as part of HCI International 2023 which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, during July 23-28, 2023. A total of 1578 papers and 396 posters have been accepted for publication in the HCII 2023 proceedings from a total of 7472 submissions. The papers included in the HCII-HIMI volume set were organized in topical sections as follows: Part I: Information design and user experience; data visualization and big data; multimodal interaction; interacting with AI and intelligent systems; Part II: Service design; knowledge in eLearning and eEducation; supporting work and collaboration.

Cognitive Architecture

Author : Ann Sussman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317932307
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis Cognitive Architecture by : Ann Sussman

Download or read book Cognitive Architecture written by Ann Sussman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Winner of the Environmental Design Research Association 2016 Place Research Award!* In Cognitive Architecture, the authors review new findings in psychology and neuroscience to help architects and planners better understand their clients as the sophisticated mammals they are, arriving in the world with built-in responses to the environment that have evolved over millennia. The book outlines four main principles---Edges Matter, the fact people are a thigmotactic or a 'wall-hugging' species; Patterns Matter, how we are visually-oriented; Shapes Carry Weight, how our preference for bilateral symmetrical forms is biological; and finally, Storytelling is Key, how our narrative proclivities, unique to our species, play a role in successful place-making. The book takes an inside-out approach to design, arguing that the more we understand human behavior, the better we can design for it. The text suggests new ways to analyze current designs before they are built, allowing the designer to anticipate a user's future experience. More than one hundred photographs and drawings illustrate its key concepts. Six exercises and additional case studies suggest particular topics - from the significance of face-processing in the human brain to our fascination with fractals - for further study.

Integrative Explorations of the Creative Mind

Author : Leonid Dorfman
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1527540898
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (275 download)

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Book Synopsis Integrative Explorations of the Creative Mind by : Leonid Dorfman

Download or read book Integrative Explorations of the Creative Mind written by Leonid Dorfman and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is about creativity and relates to the field of creative cognition, divergent thinking, and innovation. The essays collected here highlight new and exciting explorations of ideas and theories of integrative approaches to the creative mind. This singularity allows a unique and fresh look at the concept of creativity. The primary markets for this book are universities and professional bodies in the field of psychology, humanities and social sciences, and it will also appeal to specialists in the fields of cognitive psychology, sociology, culturology, the arts studies, physiology, and other areas of the humanities.

Comic Democracies

Author : Angus Fletcher
Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
ISBN 13 : 1421419351
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Comic Democracies by : Angus Fletcher

Download or read book Comic Democracies written by Angus Fletcher and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2016-06-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Invites its readers to note the leaders and people who are willing and able to laugh, with and at themselves . . . Our political life may depend upon it.” —The Review of Politics For two thousand years, democratic authors treated comedy as a toolkit of rhetorical practices for encouraging problem-solving, pluralism, risk-taking, and other civic behaviors that increased minority participation in government. Over the past two centuries, this pragmatic approach to extending the franchise has been displaced by more idealistic democratic philosophies that focus instead on promoting liberal principles and human rights. But in the wake of the recent “democracy recession” in the Middle East, the Third World, and the West itself, there has been renewed interest in finding practical sources of popular rule. Comic Democracies joins in the search by exploring the value of the old comic tools for growing democracy today. Drawing on new empirical research from the political and cognitive sciences, Angus Fletcher deftly analyzes the narrative elements of two dozen stage plays, novels, romances, histories, and operas written by such authors as Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, William Congreve, John Gay, Henry Fielding, and Washington Irving. He unearths five comic techniques used to foster democratic behaviors in antiquity and the Renaissance, then traces the role of these techniques in Tom Paine’s Common Sense, Jefferson’s preamble to the Declaration of Independence, Washington’s farewell address, Mercy Otis Warren’s federalist history of the Revolution, Frederick Douglass’s abolitionist orations, and other documents that played a pivotal role in the development of the American Republic. After recovering these lost chapters of our democratic past, Comic Democracies concludes with a draft for the future, using the old methods of comedy to envision a modern democracy—rooted in the diversity, ingenuity, and power of popular art. “Fletcher’s main theory is convincing and will open up new fields of inquiry. This accessible work is for those interested in political science, cultural history, and comic theory as well as classical literature.” —Choice

Tastes We Live By

Author : Marco Bagli
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110630400
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Tastes We Live By by : Marco Bagli

Download or read book Tastes We Live By written by Marco Bagli and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taste is considered one of the lowest sensory modalities, and the most difficult to express in language. Recently, an increasing body of research in perception language and in Food Studies has been sparkling new interest and new perspectives on the importance of this sense. Merging anthropology, evolutionary physiology and philosophy, this book investigates the language of Taste in English, and its relationship with our embodied minds. In the first part of the book, the author explores the semantic dimensions of Taste terms with a usage-based approach. With the application of experimental protocols, Bagli enquires their possible organization in a radial network and calculates the Salience index of gustatory terms in both American and British English. The second part of the book is an overview of the metaphorical extensions that motivate the polysemy of Taste terms, with the aid of corpus analysis methods and various texts. This book is the first to review systematically and in a usage-based perspective the role of the sensory domain of Taste in English, showing a more complicated picture and suggesting that its under-representation and difficulty of encoding does not correspond to lack of importance.

Lizard Tales

Author : Bayard H. Brattstrom
Publisher : Outskirts Press
ISBN 13 : 147879397X
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (787 download)

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Book Synopsis Lizard Tales by : Bayard H. Brattstrom

Download or read book Lizard Tales written by Bayard H. Brattstrom and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Lizard Tales, People and Events in the Life of a Naturalist” consists of stories that I told in my ecology, evolution, ornithology, herpetology, natural history, and general biology classes or around campfires, and includes many that have never been told to anyone until now. The book is autobiographical and geographic: Chicago, Hollywood, San Diego, UCLA, Cal. Tech., New York, Arizona and also Australia, Mexico, and Central America. The stories are about animals, fieldwork, people, and weird or exciting events. Because I have met and interacted with many people, there are personal stories about Debbie Reynolds, Natalie Wood, John Steinbeck, Margaret Meade, Cellist Gregory Piatagorsky, Charles Richter (Earthquake Scale), U.S. Grant IV, The Emperor of Japan, and artist Charles Russell! Some of the fun stories include: Playing badminton with the world’s champion, Cobras getting loose at UCLA, Nobel Laureates in my class, How I invented the stent, Origin of the first elephant race in human history, Why salamanders helped Custer lose the Battle of Little Big Horn, The girl that peed with rattlesnakes, Sliding off the side of a whale, Drinking beer with the Emperor of Japan, Can lizards predict earthquakes, Three gringos and a dead horse (Costa Rica), and Attempted murder using a rattlesnake.

Why Conserve Nature?

Author : Stephen Trudgill
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108963137
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Conserve Nature? by : Stephen Trudgill

Download or read book Why Conserve Nature? written by Stephen Trudgill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we view nature transforms the world around us. People rehearse stories about nature which make sense to them. If we ask the question 'why conserve nature?', and the answers are based on myths, then are these good myths to have? Scientific knowledge about the environment is fundamental to ideas about how nature works. It is essential to the conservation endeavour. However, any conservation motivation is nested within a society's meanings of nature and the way society values it. Given the therapeutic and psychological significance of nature for us and our culture, this book considers the meanings derived from the poetic and emotional attachment to a sense of place, which is arguably just as important as scientific evidence. The functional significance of species is important, but so too is the therapeutic value of nature, together with the historic and spiritual meanings entwined in a human feeling for landscape and wildlife.