Unity And Disunity In Evolutionary Biology

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Biological Individuality

Author : Scott Lidgard
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022644659X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Biological Individuality by : Scott Lidgard

Download or read book Biological Individuality written by Scott Lidgard and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-24 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Individuals are things that everybody knows—or thinks they do. Yet even scholars who practice or analyze the biological sciences often cannot agree on what an individual is and why. One reason for this disagreement is that the many important biological individuality concepts serve very different purposes—defining, classifying, or explaining living structure, function, interaction, persistence, or evolution. Indeed, as the contributors to Biological Individuality reveal, nature is too messy for simple definitions of this concept, organisms too quirky in the diverse ways they reproduce, function, and interact, and human ideas about individuality too fraught with philosophical and historical meaning. Bringing together biologists, historians, and philosophers, this book provides a multifaceted exploration of biological individuality that identifies leading and less familiar perceptions of individuality both past and present, what they are good for, and in what contexts. Biological practice and theory recognize individuals at myriad levels of organization, from genes to organisms to symbiotic systems. We depend on these notions of individuality to address theoretical questions about multilevel natural selection and Darwinian fitness; to illuminate empirical questions about development, function, and ecology; to ground philosophical questions about the nature of organisms and causation; and to probe historical and cultural circumstances that resonate with parallel questions about the nature of society. Charting an interdisciplinary research agenda that broadens the frameworks in which biological individuality is discussed, this book makes clear that in the realm of the individual, there is not and should not be a direct path from biological paradigms based on model organisms through to philosophical generalization and historical reification.

The Disunity of Science

Author : Peter Louis Galison
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804725620
Total Pages : 584 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (256 download)

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Book Synopsis The Disunity of Science by : Peter Louis Galison

Download or read book The Disunity of Science written by Peter Louis Galison and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is science unified or disunified? Over the last century, the question has raised the interest (and hackles) of scientists, philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, for at stake is how science and society fit together. Recent years have seen a turn largely against the rhetoric of unity, ranging from the please of condensed matter physicists for disciplinary autonomy all the way to discussions in the humanities and social sciences that involve local history, feminism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, scientific relativism and realism, and social constructivism. Many of these varied aspects of the debate over the disunity of science are reflected in this volume, which brings together a number of scholars studying science who otherwise have had little to say to each other: feminist theorists, philosophers of science, sociologists of science. How does the context of discover shape knowledge? What are the philosophical consequences of a disunified science? Does, for example, an antirealism, a realism, or an arealism become defensible within a picture of local scientific knowledge? What politics lies behind and follows from a picture of the world of science more like a quilt than a pyramid? Who gains and loses if representation of science has standards that vary from place to place, field to field, and practitioner to practitioner.

Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology

Author : Richard G. Delisle
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031426290
Total Pages : 591 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology by : Richard G. Delisle

Download or read book Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology written by Richard G. Delisle and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 591 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Unity of Evolutionary Biology

Author : Elizabeth Corning Dudley
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 484 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (318 download)

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Book Synopsis The Unity of Evolutionary Biology by : Elizabeth Corning Dudley

Download or read book The Unity of Evolutionary Biology written by Elizabeth Corning Dudley and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Rethinking Human Evolution

Author : Jeffrey H. Schwartz
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262546744
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking Human Evolution by : Jeffrey H. Schwartz

Download or read book Rethinking Human Evolution written by Jeffrey H. Schwartz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributors from a range of disciplines consider the disconnect between human evolutionary studies and the rest of evolutionary biology. The study of human evolution often seems to rely on scenarios and received wisdom rather than theory and methodology, with each new fossil or molecular analysis interpreted as supporting evidence for the presumed lineage of human ancestry. We might wonder why we should pursue new inquiries if we already know the story. Is paleoanthropology an evolutionary science? Are analyses of human evolution biological? In this volume, contributors from disciplines that range from paleoanthropology to philosophy of science consider the disconnect between human evolutionary studies and the rest of evolutionary biology. All of the contributors reflect on their own research and its disciplinary context, considering how their fields of inquiry can move forward in new ways. The goal is to encourage a more multifaceted intellectual environment for the understanding of human evolution. Topics discussed include paleoanthropology's history of procedural idiosyncrasies; the role of mind and society in our evolutionary past; humans as large mammals rather than a special case; genomic analyses; computational approaches to phylogenetic reconstruction; descriptive morphology versus morphometrics; and integrating insights from archaeology into the interpretation of human fossils. Contributors Markus Bastir, Fred L. Bookstein, Claudine Cohen, Richard G. Delisle, Robin Dennell, Rob DeSalle, John de Vos, Emma M. Finestone, Huw S. Groucutt, Gabriele A. Macho, Fabrizzio Mc Manus, Apurva Narechania, Michael D. Petraglia, Thomas W. Plummer, J.W. F. Reumer, Jeff Rosenfeld, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Dietrich Stout, Ian Tattersall, Alan R. Templeton, Michael Tessler, Peter J. Waddell, Martine Zilversmit

Instrumental Biology, Or The Disunity of Science

Author : Alexander Rosenberg
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226727257
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (272 download)

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Book Synopsis Instrumental Biology, Or The Disunity of Science by : Alexander Rosenberg

Download or read book Instrumental Biology, Or The Disunity of Science written by Alexander Rosenberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do the sciences aim to uncover the structure of nature, or are they ultimately a practical means of controlling our environment? In Instrumental Biology, or the Disunity of Science, Alexander Rosenberg argues that while physics and chemistry can develop laws that reveal the structure of natural phenomena, biology is fated to be a practical, instrumental discipline. Because of the complexity produced by natural selection, and because of the limits on human cognition, scientists are prevented from uncovering the basic structure of biological phenomena. Consequently, biology and all of the disciplines that rest upon it—psychology and the other human sciences—must aim at most to provide practical tools for coping with the natural world rather than a complete theoretical understanding of it.

Mapping the Future of Biology

Author : Anouk Barberousse
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402096364
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Mapping the Future of Biology by : Anouk Barberousse

Download or read book Mapping the Future of Biology written by Anouk Barberousse and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-02-26 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carving Nature at its Joints? In order to map the future of biology we need to understand where we are and how we got there. Present day biology is the realization of the famous metaphor of the organism as a bete ˆ machine elaborated by Descartes in Part V of the Discours,a realization far beyond what anyone in the seventeenth century could have im- ined. Until the middle of the nineteenth century that machine was an articulated collection of macroscopic parts, a system of gears and levers moving gasses, solids, and liquids, and causing some parts of the machine to move in response to the force produced by others. Then, in the nineteenth century, two divergent changes occurred in the level at which the living machine came to be investigated. First, with the rise of chemistry and the particulate view of the composition of matter, the forces on macroscopic machine came to be understood as the ma- festation of molecular events, and functional biology became a study of molecular interactions. That is, the machine ceased to be a clock or a water pump and became an articulated network of chemical reactions. Until the ?rst third of the twentieth century this chemical view of life, as re?ected in the development of classical b- chemistry treated the chemistry of biological molecules in much the same way as for any organic chemical reaction, with reaction rates and side products that were the consequence of statistical properties of the concentrations of reactants.

The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 030913417X
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology by : National Research Council

Download or read book The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-01-22 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although its importance is not always recognized, theory is an integral part of all biological research. Biologists' theoretical and conceptual frameworks inform every step of their research, affecting what experiments they do, what techniques and technologies they develop and use, and how they interpret their data. By examining how theory can help biologists answer questions like "What are the engineering principles of life?" or "How do cells really work?" the report shows how theory synthesizes biological knowledge from the molecular level to the level of whole ecosystems. The book concludes that theory is already an inextricable thread running throughout the practice of biology; but that explicitly giving theory equal status with other components of biological research could help catalyze transformative research that will lead to creative, dynamic, and innovative advances in our understanding of life.

Cultural Phylogenetics

Author : Larissa Mendoza Straffon
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319259288
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (192 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultural Phylogenetics by : Larissa Mendoza Straffon

Download or read book Cultural Phylogenetics written by Larissa Mendoza Straffon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-10 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the potential and challenges of implementing evolutionary phylogenetic methods in archaeological research, by discussing key concepts and presenting concrete applications of these approaches. The volume is divided into two parts: The first covers the theoretical and conceptual implications of using evolution-based models in the sociocultural domain, illustrates the sorts of questions that these methods can help answer, and invites the reader to reflect on the opportunities and limitations of these perspectives. The second part comprises case studies that address relevant empirical issues, such as inferring patterns and rates of cultural transmission, detecting selective pressures in cultural evolution, and explaining the nature of cultural variation. This book will appeal to archaeologists interested in applying evolutionary thinking and inferential methods to their field, and to anyone interested in cultural evolution studies.

Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology

Author : Richard G. Delisle
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9783031426285
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology by : Richard G. Delisle

Download or read book Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology written by Richard G. Delisle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2024-09-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not uncommon to see in major areas of research concerned with science that historical studies are accompanied by the rise of complementary or contradictory historiographies. With time, it seems, scholars discover new approaches to study topics, thus questioning old concepts, traditions, periodizations and historical labels. Apparently, this has not been the case in evolutionary thought. In that area, the main historiographic labels such as Darwinian Revolution, Eclipse of Darwinism, and Modern Synthesis have been in place and largely uncontested for about 50 years. Such labels seem to work as irrefutable, and often hidden, premises of many historical reconstructions, philosophical analyses, and scientific conceptualizations. This volume aims to move beyond this state of affair, opening new thinking avenues by revisiting the traditional historiography and laying the groundwork for establishing a “new historiography” that considers the intertwined threads that compose evolutionary biology. Notably, evolutionary studies seem to have been marked by the tension between unification attempts and the proliferation of approaches, methodologies, and styles of thinking. As the contributors to this volume illustrate, research traditions branched off throughout the history of evolutionary thought, before and after Charles Darwin. The resulting complexity challenges traditional thinking categories, throwing a somewhat different light on a more recent label like the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. More than 40 years after the now classic, The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology (1980), edited by Ernst Mayr and William Provine, the contributors to this volume aim to reevaluate where evolutionary biology stands today.

Lost Sex

Author : Isa Schön
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 904812770X
Total Pages : 617 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis Lost Sex by : Isa Schön

Download or read book Lost Sex written by Isa Schön and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. Generations of researchers have investigated one of the last remaining evolutionary paradoxes: why sex exists at all. Given that sexual reproduction is costly from an evolutionary point of view, one could wonder why not all animals and plants reproduce asexually. Dozens of contemporary hypotheses attempt to explain the prevalence of sex and its advantages and predict the early extinction of fully asexual lineages. The major theme of this book is: what is the fate of animal and plant groups in which sex is lost? Initial chapters discuss theory behind asexual life: what major disadvantages do asexual groups have to face, what are the genetic and ecological consequences and what does this theory predict for more applied aspects of asexual life, for example in agricultural pests, diseases as well as in cultural crops such as grapes. Cases studies in many animals (focusing on both invertebrates and vertebrates) and plants reveal parallel, but also singularly novel adaptations to the absence of meiosis and syngamy. And last but not least, are asexuals really doomed to early extinction or do genuine ancient asexuals exist? This book assembles contributions from the most important research groups dealing with asexual evolution in eukaryotes. It is a milestone in research on parthenogenesis and will be useful to undergraduate as well as graduate students and to senior researchers in all fields of evolutionary biology, as the paradox of sex remains its queen of problems.

Agents and Goals in Evolution

Author : Samir Okasha
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192546732
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Agents and Goals in Evolution by : Samir Okasha

Download or read book Agents and Goals in Evolution written by Samir Okasha and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Samir Okasha approaches evolutionary biology from a philosophical perspective in Agents and Goals in Evolution, analysing a mode of thinking in biology called agential thinking. He considers how the paradigm case involves treating an evolved organism as if it were an agent pursuing a goal, such as survival or reproduction, and seeing its phenotypic traits as strategies for achieving that goal or furthering its biological interests. As agential thinking deliberately transposes a set of concepts--goals, interests, strategies--from rational human agents and to the biological world more generally, Okasha's enquiry firstly looks at the justification for this: is it mere anthropomorphism, or does it play a genuine intellectual role in the science? From this central question, key points are considered such as: how do we identify the 'goal' that evolved organisms will behave as if they are trying to achieve? Can agential thinking ever be applied to groups rather than to individual organisms? And how does agential thinking relate to the controversies over fitness-maximization in evolutionary biology? In addition, Okasha examines the relation between the adaptive and the rational by considering whether organisms can validly be treated as agent-like. Should we expect their evolved behaviour to correspond with that of rational agents as codified in the theory of rational choice? If so, does this mean that the fitness-maximizing paradigm of the evolutionary biologist can be mapped directly to the utility-maximizing paradigm of the rational choice theorist? All of these important questions are engagingly raised and discussed at length.

The Philosophy of Science

Author : Sahotra Sarkar
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 0415939275
Total Pages : 1012 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (159 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Science by : Sahotra Sarkar

Download or read book The Philosophy of Science written by Sahotra Sarkar and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 1012 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in-depth reference to the field that combines scientific knowledge with philosophical inquiry, this encyclopedia brings together a team of leading scholars to provide nearly 150 entries on the essential concepts in the philosophy of science. The areas covered include biology, chemistry, epistemology and metaphysics, physics, psychology and mind, the social sciences, and key figures in the combined studies of science and philosophy. (Midwest).

New Frontier In Evolutionary Algorithms: Theory And Applications

Author : Hitoshi Iba
Publisher : Imperial College Press
ISBN 13 : 1911299557
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis New Frontier In Evolutionary Algorithms: Theory And Applications by : Hitoshi Iba

Download or read book New Frontier In Evolutionary Algorithms: Theory And Applications written by Hitoshi Iba and published by Imperial College Press. This book was released on 2011-08-26 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book delivers theoretical and practical knowledge of Genetic Algorithms (GA) for the purpose of practical applications. It provides a methodology for a GA-based search strategy with the integration of several Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence techniques, such as memetic concepts, swarm intelligence, and foraging strategies. The development of such tools contributes to better optimizing methodologies when addressing tasks from areas such as robotics, financial forecasting, and data mining in bioinformatics.The emphasis of this book is on applicability to the real world. Tasks from application areas - optimization of the trading rule in foreign exchange (FX) and stock prices, economic load dispatch in power system, exit/door placement for evacuation planning, and gene regulatory network inference in bioinformatics - are studied, and the resultant empirical investigations demonstrate how successful the proposed approaches are when solving real-world tasks of great importance.

BIO2010

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309085357
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis BIO2010 by : National Research Council

Download or read book BIO2010 written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-02-13 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological sciences have been revolutionized, not only in the way research is conductedâ€"with the introduction of techniques such as recombinant DNA and digital technologyâ€"but also in how research findings are communicated among professionals and to the public. Yet, the undergraduate programs that train biology researchers remain much the same as they were before these fundamental changes came on the scene. This new volume provides a blueprint for bringing undergraduate biology education up to the speed of today's research fast track. It includes recommendations for teaching the next generation of life science investigators, through: Building a strong interdisciplinary curriculum that includes physical science, information technology, and mathematics. Eliminating the administrative and financial barriers to cross-departmental collaboration. Evaluating the impact of medical college admissions testing on undergraduate biology education. Creating early opportunities for independent research. Designing meaningful laboratory experiences into the curriculum. The committee presents a dozen brief case studies of exemplary programs at leading institutions and lists many resources for biology educators. This volume will be important to biology faculty, administrators, practitioners, professional societies, research and education funders, and the biotechnology industry.

The Disunity of American Culture

Author : John C. Caiazza
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351483544
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis The Disunity of American Culture by : John C. Caiazza

Download or read book The Disunity of American Culture written by John C. Caiazza and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Disunity of American Culture describes culture now, when different forces are influencing it than in the past, altering it to near incomprehensibility. Identity issues have an effect on culture and politics; more influential is the question of what support the state is obligated to provide the individual. John C. Caiazza seeks to explain how this situation came to be.He begins with an explanation of the origins of Protestantism in America. Caiazza describes how the American religion has declined and the recent responses the decline has provoked. Caiazza follows with an analysis of science as it presently exists in American culture. The work of three scientists prominent in their respective fields—Steven Weinberg in physics, E. O. Wilson in biology, and Stanley Milgram in psychology—are examined with respect to how their work has influenced culture.The author examines the failure of America's school of philosophy, pragmatism, to explain the relationship between religion, science, and general culture, even though its founders, Charles S. Peirce and William James, made serious efforts to do so. He concludes by making the case that there is a contradiction between scientific reason and the claim of state power. Caiazza argues that cultural disharmony will guarantee that the secular state never achieves the dominance over culture and political life it desires.

Environmental Colloids and Particles

Author : Kevin J. Wilkinson
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 047002433X
Total Pages : 702 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Environmental Colloids and Particles by : Kevin J. Wilkinson

Download or read book Environmental Colloids and Particles written by Kevin J. Wilkinson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-01-30 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents the current knowledge of environmental colloids and includes reviews of the current understanding of structure, role and behaviour of environmental colloids and particles, whilst focussing directly on aquatic systems and soils. In addition, there is substantial critical assessment of the techniques employed for the sampling, size fractionation and characterisation of colloids and particles. Chemical, physical and biological processes and interactions involving colloids are described, and particular attention is paid to quantitative approaches that take account of particle heterogeneity and polydispersity. Presents critical reviews of the state-of-the-art knowledge of environmental colloids Critical assessment of techniques employed for the sampling, size fractionation and characterisation of colloids and particles are given Theoretical and experimental aspects of the methods as well as the required developments and possible recommendations are discussed Each chapter gives a brief introduction general enough for the non-specialist Written by a internationally recognized group of contributors