Download or read book Animal Nature and Human Nature written by W.H. Thorpe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our views on human nature are fundamental to the whole development, indeed the whole future, of human society. Originally published in 1974, Professor Thorpe believed that this was one of the most important and significant topics to which a biologist can address himself, and in this book he attempts a synthetic view of the nature of man and animal based on the five disciplines of physiology, ethology, genetics, psychology and philosophy. In a masterly survey of the natural order he shows the animal world as part of, yet distinct from, the inanimate world. He then treats aspects of the animal world which approach the human world in behaviour and capabilities, examining simple organisms, communications in vertebrates and invertebrates, innate behaviour versus acquired behaviour, and animal perception. In the second part of the book he deals with those aspects of human nature for which there is no analogy and which constitute man’s uniqueness – his consciousness of his past, his awareness of his future and his desire to understand the meaning of his existence. The primary facts which demonstrate the importance of this book arise from the ever-growing power of man over his environment and his apparent inability to foresee and cope with the dangers of uncontrolled population growth on the one hand and the wildly irrational waste and degradation of the natural resources of the world on the other. Professor Thorpe believes that an immense responsibility lies with literate men of good will, particularly scientists, to convince man that he is the spearhead and custodian of a stupendous evolutionary process. Animal Nature and Human Nature integrates scientific fact with sound theological thought in an attempt to fulfil, in a manner previously impossible Pascal’s injunction that: ‘It is dangerous to show man too clearly how much he resembles the beast without at the same time showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to allow him too clear a vision of his greatness without his baseness. It is even more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very profitable to show him both.’
Download or read book Eugenics and the Nature Nurture Debate in the Twentieth Century written by A. Gillette and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-10-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gillette shows that the sciences of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology were undergoing rapid development in the early Twentieth century. However, many of the early researchers in these sciences were also eugenicists. With the rise of behaviourism and the reaction against eugenics in the 1930s, any scientific claims that behaviour might be influenced by heredity were suppressed for ideological reasons.
Download or read book Not So Different written by Nathan H. Lents and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With evidence from psychology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology and ethnolgy, the biologist Nathan H. Lents argues that the same evolutionary forces of cooperation and competition have shaped both humans and animals.
Download or read book The Marvelous Learning Animal written by Arthur W. Staats and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes us human? In recent decades, researchers have focused on innate tendencies and inherited traits as explanations for human behavior, especially in light of groundbreaking human genome research. The author thinks this trend is misleading. As he shows in great detail in this engaging, thought-provoking, and highly informative book, what makes our species unique is our marvelous ability to learn, which is an ability that no other primate possesses. In his exploration of human progress, the author reveals that the immensity of human learning has not been fully understood or examined. Evolution has endowed us with extremely versatile bodies and a brain comprised of one hundred billion neurons, which makes us especially suited for a wide range of sophisticated learning. Already in childhood, human beings begin learning complex repertoires—language, sports, value systems, music, science, rules of behavior, and many other aspects of culture. These repertoires build on one another in special ways, and our brains develop in response to the learning experiences we receive from those around us and from what we read and hear and see. When humans gather in society, the cumulative effect of building learning upon learning is enormous. The author presents a new way of understanding humanness—in the behavioral nature of the human body, in the unique human way of learning, in child development, in personality, and in abnormal behavior. With all this, and his years of basic and applied research, he develops a new theory of human evolution and a new vision of the human being. This book offers up a unified concept that not only provides new ways of understanding human behavior and solving human problems but also lays the foundations for opening new areas of science.
Download or read book The Nature of Human Nature written by Carin Bondar and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Compares the behaviors of the human animal with the complex and fascinating behaviors of organisms from invertebrates to adult mammals."--P. [4] of cover.
Download or read book The Free Animal written by Lee MacLean and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring careful analyses and an extensive engagement with the secondary literature, The Free Animal offers a novel interpretation of the changing nature and complexity of Rousseau's intention.
Download or read book The Boundaries of Human Nature written by Matthew Calarco and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are animals capable of wonder? Can they be said to possess language and reason? What can animals teach us about how to live well? How can they help us to see the limitations of human civilization? Is it possible to draw firm distinctions between humans and animals? And how might asking and answering questions like these lead us to rethink human-animal relations in an age of catastrophic ecological destruction? In this accessible and engaging book, Matthew Calarco explores key issues in the philosophy of animals and their significance for our contemporary world. He leads readers on a spirited tour of historical and contemporary philosophy, ranging from Plato to Donna Haraway and from the Cynics to the Jains. Calarco unearths surprising insights about animals from a number of philosophers while also underscoring ways in which the philosophical tradition has failed to challenge the dogma of human-centeredness. Along the way, he indicates how mainstream Western philosophy is both complemented and challenged by non-Western traditions and noncanonical theories about animals. Throughout, Calarco uses examples from contemporary culture to illustrate how philosophical theories about animals are deeply relevant to our lives today. The Boundaries of Human Nature shows readers why philosophy can help transform not just the way we think about animals but also how we interact with them.
Download or read book Beast and Man written by Mary Midgley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the qualities that make human beings different from other species. In Beast and Man Mary Midgley, one of our foremost intellectuals, stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals. A veritable classic for our age, Beast and Man has helped change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live.
Download or read book Feral Children and Clever Animals written by Douglas K. Candland and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1995-10-26 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book, Douglas Candland shows that as we begin to understand the way animals and non-speaking humans "think," we hold up a mirror of sorts to our own mental world, and gain profound insights into human nature. Weaving together diaries, contemporary newspaper accounts, and his own enlightening commentary, Candland brings to life a series of extraordinary stories. He begins with a look at past efforts to civilize feral children. We meet Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, now famous as the subject of a Truffaut film; Kaspar Hauser, raised in a cell, civilized, and then assassinated; and the Wolf Girls of India, found early this century huddled among wolf pups in a forest den (they were originally believed to be ghosts by superstitious villagers, who nearly shot them as they were being captured). In each case, it was hoped that the study of these children would help clarify the age-old nature/nurture debate, but, as Candland shows, so much of the information "revealed" was really only a projection of beliefs previously held by the investigating scientists. Candland then turns to "clever animals." We learn how the investigation of "Clever Hans," the German horse who could calculate square roots, proved to be a first step in the direction of behaviorism (researchers found that Hans was being tipped off by the subtle and unwitting body language of his owner and other observers, who would bend almost imperceptibly at the waist with every hoof beat, and stand erect when the correct count was reached). And Candland discusses the many attempts to communicate with our closest neighbor, the apes. We read of Richard Lynch Garner's 1892 experiment living with chimpanzees in Gabon (he taught one to say the French word "feu"), and of Gua, raised by W.N. and L.A. Kellogg alongside their own son Donald, and of the latest successes of teaching sign language to such precocious apes as Sarah, Sherman, Austin, and Koko. Throughout, Candland illuminates the boldest and most intriguing efforts yet to extend our world to that of our fellow creatures. And he shows that, in the end, our effort to "make contact" is a reflection of the way in which we as a species create and order our universe. Humans have long shown a wish to connect with the silent minds around them. In assembling and interpreting the compelling tales in this book, Candland offers us a new understanding not only of the animal kingdom, but of the very nature of humanity, and our place in the great chain of being.
Download or read book The Human Animal in Western Art and Science written by Martin Kemp and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the lazy, fiddling grasshopper to the sneaky Big Bad Wolf, children’s stories and fables enchant us with their portrayals of animals who act like people. But the comparisons run both ways, as metaphors, stories, and images—as well as scientific theories—throughout history remind us that humans often act like animals, and that the line separating them is not as clear as we’d like to pretend. Here Martin Kemp explores a stunning range of images and ideas to demonstrate just how deeply these underappreciated links between humans and other fauna are embedded in our culture. Tracing those interconnections among art, science, and literature, Kemp leads us on a dazzling tour of Western thought, from Aristotelian physiognomy and its influence on phrenology to the Great Chain of Being and Darwinian evolution. We learn about the racist anthropology underlying a familiar Degas sculpture, see paintings of a remarkably simian Judas, and watch Mowgli, the man-child from Kipling’s The Jungle Book, exhibit the behaviors of the beasts who raised him. Like a kaleidoscope, Kemp uses these stories to refract, reconfigure, and echo the essential truth that the way we think about animals inevitably inflects how we think about people, and vice versa. Loaded with vivid illustrations and drawing on sources from Hesiod to La Fontaine, Leonardo to P. T. Barnum, The Human Animal in Western Art and Science is a fascinating, eye-opening reminder of our deep affinities with our fellow members of the animal kingdom.
Download or read book On Human Nature written by Roger Scruton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroës to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant’s suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say “I”—by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today’s most fashionable ideas about our species.
Download or read book The Cultural Animal written by Roy F. Baumeister and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-10 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a coherent explanation of human nature, which is to say how people think, act, and feel, what they want, and how they interact with each other. The central idea is that the human psyche was designed by evolution to `nable people to create and sustain culture.
Download or read book Strangers to Nature written by Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-03-22 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strangers to Nature challenges a reading public that has grown complacent with the standard framework of the animal ethics debate. Human influence on, and the control of, the natural world has greater consequences than ever, making the human impact on the lives of animals more evident. We cannot properly interrogate our conduct in the world without a deeper understanding of how our actions affect animals. It is crucial that the human-animal relationship become more central to ethical inquiry. This volume brings together many of the leading scholars who work to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. The contributors examine the radical developments that change how we think about the status of non-human animals in our society and our moral obligations. Strangers to Natures will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about current human/non-human animal relationships.
Download or read book Being Animal written by Anna Peterson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most people, animals are the most significant aspects of the nonhuman world. They symbolize nature in our imaginations, in popular media and culture, and in campaigns to preserve wilderness, yet scholars habitually treat animals and the environment as mutually exclusive objects of concern. Conducting the first examination of animals' place in popular and scholarly thinking about nature, Anna L. Peterson builds a nature ethic that conceives of nonhuman animals as active subjects who are simultaneously parts of both nature and human society. Peterson explores the tensions between humans and animals, nature and culture, animals and nature, and domesticity and wildness. She uses our intimate connections with companion animals to examine nature more broadly. Companion animals are liminal creatures straddling the boundary between human society and wilderness, revealing much about the mutually constitutive relationships binding humans and nature together. Through her paradigm-shifting reflections, Peterson disrupts the artificial boundaries between two seemingly distinct categories, underscoring their fluid and continuous character.
Download or read book Human Nature written by Elliot Connor and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We've messed up. Our Earth is in trouble. Human Nature is your guide to saving it. In a thoughtful and witty reimagining of environmental rhetoric, Elliot Connor explores how recasting the human character could save our fellow animals. Illustrated with counting toads, gambling monkeys and Tinder-using rhinos, the narrative sets out to fill the gaps in our ecological IQ and to show how animals make us human. Just how dumb were dinosaurs? What is the Loch Ness monster really? And which insect sting feels like a running hair dryer dropped into your bath? These important questions and more will be answered. Did you know that war saved our whales, that playgrounds protect parrots or that crushing coral helps it grow? Conservation is chaotic, so Elliot Connor's lively mix of anecdotes, historical tales and future forecasts provides fresh clarity. A humbling and inspiring read, Human Nature reveals how nature shapes us and how we can help it in return. Understanding animals can unlock advances in quantum technology, a cure for cancer or even immortality. Slime mould can improve our transport routes without having a brain. Isn't that worth reading about?
Download or read book Human Nature written by Elliot Connor and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Nature of Fear written by Daniel T. Blumstein and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading expert in animal behavior takes us into the wild to better understand and manage our fears. Fear, honed by millions of years of natural selection, kept our ancestors alive. Whether by slithering away, curling up in a ball, or standing still in the presence of a predator, humans and other animals have evolved complex behaviors in order to survive the hazards the world presents. But, despite our evolutionary endurance, we still have much to learn about how to manage our response to danger. For more than thirty years, Daniel Blumstein has been studying animals’ fear responses. His observations lead to a firm conclusion: fear preserves security, but at great cost. A foraging flock of birds expends valuable energy by quickly taking flight when a raptor appears. And though the birds might successfully escape, they leave their food source behind. Giant clams protect their valuable tissue by retracting their mantles and closing their shells when a shadow passes overhead, but then they are unable to photosynthesize, losing the capacity to grow. Among humans, fear is often an understandable and justifiable response to sources of threat, but it can exact a high toll on health and productivity. Delving into the evolutionary origins and ecological contexts of fear across species, The Nature of Fear considers what we can learn from our fellow animals—from successes and failures. By observing how animals leverage alarm to their advantage, we can develop new strategies for facing risks without panic.
