Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Philosophy & Social Aspects

Since antiquity, philosophers and engineers have tried to take life s measure by reproducing it. Aiming to reenact Creation, at least in part, these experimenters have hoped to understand the links between body and spirit, matter and mind, mechanism and consciousness. "Genesis Redux" examines moments from this centuries-long experimental tradition: efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms.
Jessica Riskin collects seventeen essays from distinguished scholars in several fields....

Since antiquity, philosophers and engineers have tried to take life s measure by reproducing it. Aiming to reenact Creation, at least in part, these experimenters have hoped to understand the links between body and spirit, matter and mind, mechanism and consciousness. "Genesis Redux" examines moments from this centuries-long experimental tradition: efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms.
Jessica Riskin collects seventeen essays from distinguished scholars in several fields....

In this captivating book, Helen Verran addresses precisely that question by looking at how science, mathematics, and logic come to life in Yoruba primary schools. Drawing on her experience as a teacher in Nigeria, Verran describes how she went from the radical conclusion that logic and math are culturally relative, to determining what Westerners find so disconcerting about Yoruba logic, to a new understanding of all generalizing logic....

Jane Goodall begins the conversation by emphasizing the importance of recognizing the "spark of spirit" that runs through all creatures, human and animal. Robert Pollack...

To test his hypothesis,...

In Philosophical Instruments Daniel Rothbart argues that our tools are not just neutral intermediaries between humans and the natural world, but are devices that demand new ideas about reality. Just as a hunter's new spear can change their knowledge of the environment, so can the development of modern scientific equipment alter our view of the world.

Working at the intersections of science, technology, and philosophy, Rothbart examines the revolution in knowledge brought on by recent advances in scientific instruments. Full of examples from historical and contemporary science,...

..". thought-provoking and delightful. I believe that anyone interested in nature's deepest secrets would find great stimulation in this charmingly written little gem of a book." Douglas Hofstadter

..". unusual, delightful, nonmathematical book... The reader is left in enjoyment and admiration." Scientific American

"This is a wonderful book... " American Journal of Physics

..". this imaginative work... elucidates the contrast between the classical, deterministic notions that seem inbred and the strange behavior of the microscopic quantum world.... by resurrecting...

Boyle's Law, which describes the relation between the pressure and volume of a gas, was worked out by Robert Boyle in the mid-1600s. His experiments are still considered examples of good scientific work and continue to be studied along with their historical and intellectual contexts by philosophers, historians, and sociologists. Now there is controversy over whether Boyle's work was based only on experimental evidence or whether it was influenced by the politics and religious controversies of the time, including especially class and gender politics.

Elizabeth Potter argues that even...

How did electricity enter everyday life in America? Using Muncie, Indiana -- the Lynds' now iconic Middletown -- as a touchstone, David Nye explores how electricity seeped into and redefined American culture. With an eye for telling details from archival sources and a broad understanding of cultural and social history, he creates a thought-provoking panorama of a technology fundamental to modern life.

Emphasizing the experiences of ordinary men and women rather than the lives of inventors and entrepreneurs, Nye treats electrification as a set of technical possibilities that were...

Santiago Ramon y Cajal was a mythic figure in science. Hailed as the father of modern anatomy and neurobiology, he was largely responsible for the modern conception of the brain. His groundbreaking works were New Ideas on the Structure of the Nervous System and H istology of the Nervous System in Man and Vertebrates. In addition to leaving a legacy of unparalleled scientific research, Cajal sought to educate the novice scientist about how science was done and how he thought it should be done. This recently rediscovered classic, first published in 1897, is an anecdotal guide...

As one of the preeminent philosophers of the twentieth century, W. V. Quine (1908-2000) made groundbreaking contributions to the philosophy of science, mathematical logic, and the philosophy of language. This collection of essays examines Quine's views, particularly his holism and naturalism, for their value (and their limitations) to feminist theorizing today.

Some contributors to this volume see Quine as severely challenging basic tenets of the logico-empiricist tradition in the philosophy of science--the analytic/synthetic distinction, verificationism, foundationalism--and accept...

A central concern of...