Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Philosophy & Social Aspects

Genetics and its related technologies are revolutionizing the world. The media is regularly dominated by controversy over the latest genetically modified (GM) food, human gene therapy or cancer chip technology. Maverick scientists are in the process of cloning humans, and the human genome sequence is available on the Internet. Fifty years ago we did not know what a gene was; today the awesome power of genetics is being released on an unsuspecting public, and with it a whole series of ethical dilemmas undreamt of even ten years ago. The question now has become not "can we?" but "should we?" By...

Genetic science has advanced rapidly in recent years; things happen now that might have seemed like science fiction only ten years ago. Genetics and Society looks at the history of this science and the wide-ranging impact it has had on contemporary society. Using fascinating and cutting-edge examples throughout, Anne Kerr examines topics as diverse as:

• the institutional structures that have grown up around the diagnosis and treatment of genetic disorders
• the media representation of genetic debates from designer babies to the genetic sources of...

Genetic science has advanced rapidly in recent years; things happen now that might have seemed like science fiction only ten years ago. Genetics and Society looks at the history of this science and the wide-ranging impact it has had on contemporary society. Using fascinating and cutting-edge examples throughout, Anne Kerr examines topics as diverse as:

• the institutional structures that have grown up around the diagnosis and treatment of genetic disorders
• the media representation of genetic debates from designer babies to the genetic sources of...

Is life a purely physical process? What is human nature? Which of our traits is essential to us? In this volume, Daniel McShea and Alex Rosenberg - a biologist and a philosopher, respectively - join forces to create a new gateway to the philosophy of biology; making the major issues accessible and relevant to biologists and philosophers alike.

Exploring concepts such as supervenience; the controversies about genocentrism and genetic determinism; and the debate about major transitions central to contemporary thinking about macroevolution; the authors lay out the broad terms in which...

What is the nature of scientific progress and what makes it possible? When we look back at the scientific theories of the past and compare them to the state of science today, there seems little doubt that we have made progress. But is it a continuous process which gradually incorporates past successes into present theories, or are entrenched theories overthrown by superior competitors in a revolutionary manner?
Theories of Scientific Progress is the ideal introduction to this topic. It is clearly organized, with suggestions for further reading that point the way to both primary...

What is the nature of scientific progress and what makes it possible? When we look back at the scientific theories of the past and compare them to the state of science today, there seems little doubt that we have made progress. But how have we made this progress? Is it a continuous process which gradually incorporates past successes into present theories, or are entrenched theories overthrown by superior competitors in a revolutionary manner? Theories of Scientific Progress presents the arguments for and against both these extremes, and the positions in between. It covers the interpretations...

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science is an illuminating journey from the very foundations of philosophy of science through to contemporary issues in philosophy of language.

What are scientists working on today? What do they worry about? What do they think about the working of the brain, climate change, animal experimentation, cancer, and mental illness? Is science progressing or in retreat? Is this century humankind's last?
These are just some of the compelling and provocative questions tackled here by twelve of the world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the most urgent scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today.

Essential reading for anyone interested in popular...

What are leading scientists working on now? What do they think about the working of the brain, climate change, animal experimentation, cancer, and mental illness? Is science progressing or in retreat? Is this century humankind's last?
These are just some of the compelling questions discussed by twelve of world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers in this fascinating book. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the complex scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today. They also explain what drives their interest in science, revealing something of the...

Exploring the role of values in scientific inquiry, Hugh Lacey examines the nature and meaning of values, and looks at challenges to the view, posed by postmodernists, feminists, radical ecologists, Third-World advocates and religious fundamentalists, that science is value free. He also focuses on discussions of 'development', especially in Third World countries. This paperback edition includes a new preface.

Nancy Cartwright is one of the distinguished and influential contemporary philosophers of science. This book is devoted to a critical assessment of Cartwright's philosophy of science and contains contributions from Cartwright's champions and critics. It is suitable for philosophers of science the world over.

Original and interdisciplinary, this is the first book to explore the relationship between a neoliberal mode of governance and the so-called genetic revolution.

Looking at the knowledge-power relations in the post-genomic era and addressing the pressing issues of genetic privacy and discrimination in the context of neoliberal governance, this book demonstrates and explains the mechanisms of mutual production between biotechnology and cultural, political, economic and legal frameworks.

In the first part Antoinette Rouvroy explores the social, political and economic...

New concepts are constantly being introduced into our thinking. Conceptual Systems explores how these new concepts are entered into our systems along with sufficient continuity with older ideas to ensure understanding. The encyclopaedic breadth of this text highlights the many different aspects and disciplines that together present an insightful view into the various theories of concepts. Harold Brown, a reputable author in the philosophy of science examines several historically influential theories of concepts as well as providing a clear view on the general theory of conceptual change....

This text tracks the process of reproducing children in symbiosis with pervasive technology and offers a range of perspectives, from resistance to ethnographic analysis to science fiction. Contributors, who include Sherry Turkle, Joseph Dumit, Lisa Mitchell and Mizuko Ito, offer ethnographies, critiques, and personal narratives of cyborg conceptions (sperm banks, IVF, surrogacy) and prenatal (mis)diagnosis (DES, ultrasound, amniocentesis); the technological de- and reconstruction of birth in the hospital (electronic foetal monitors, epidurals); and the effects of computer simulation games an...

This text explores the increasingly pervasive role of technology in childrens lives, from conception to birth to childcare. From foetuses scanned electronically to wired toddlers, children are being rendered cyborg by their immersion in technoculture. The contributors, who include Sherry Turkle, Emily Martin and Mikuko Ito, discuss the co-development of the human and the machine. While much popular reporting swings between presenting technology as monstrous or science as saviour, this volume argues for a more complex analysis, and provides a range of perspectives from cultural anthropologists...

The Reader focuses on the practices of modern and contemporary science and technology located in different national and institutional settings, with some attention to non- Western contexts. By mapping some of the open questions and points of tension likely to occupy the field for years to come, the essays in the Readercast fresh light on what "science" means at the end of the twentieth century.

This text pulls together the foundational essays in science studies by the field's key scholars, including the cultural study of science, feminism and science, the relation of technology to society and humans.

Doing Science + Culture is a groundbreaking book on the cultural study of science, technology and medicine. Outstanding contributors including life and physical scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, literature/communication scholars and historians of science who focus on the analysis of science and scientific discourses within culture: what it means to "do" science.

Recent surveys indicate that 10 per cent of children starting primary school are now regarded as alarmingly overweight, increasing to 15 per cent among school leavers. Doctors fear that this could lead to three out of four Britons being labelled obese within the next 15 years. This volume looks at the increasingly low levels of physical activity in our daily lives in the UK. There is also a chapter on the benefits of exercise. The information presented here comes from a wide variety of sources and includes government reports and statistics, newspaper reports, features, magazine articles and...

From chemistry sets to chemical weapons, from plastics to pesticides and from air pollution to Agent Orange, industrial chemicals have transformed the way we live. Industrial chemicals have brought many good things to life, but at what cost? This timely collection of original essays traces the migration of synthetic chemicals from the laboratory to the factory and then into our environment, bodies and communities. The impact these chemicals have on our ecosystems, human health and political processes is addressed by the the contributors, focusing on the production and distribution of these...