Download or read book Karl Popper and the Two New Secrets of Life written by Hans-Joachim Niemann and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how humans and all living things came into existence is told in two widely believed versions: the Book of Genesis and Darwin's Origin of Species . It was the philosopher Karl Popper who presented us with a third story, no less important. His New Interpretation of Darwinism denies the creative power of blind chance and natural selection and establishes knowledge and activity of all living beings as the real driving forces of evolution. Thus, spiritual elements are back in the theory of evolution, and in Popper's view "the entire evolution is an adventure of the mind." In this book, Hans-Joachim Niemann establishes Karl Popper as an eminent philosopher of biology. In the first chapter, biographical details are unearthed concerning how Popper's biological interests were inspired by a biological meeting in the old windmill at Hunstanton in 1936. The second chapter focusses on the year 1986 when Popper, in several lectures, summarized the results of his life-long biological thinking. The most important of these, the Medawar Lecture given at the Royal Society London, was lost for a long time and is now printed in the Appendix. A new world view begins to emerge that is completely different from Creationism or Darwinism. Twenty years after Popper's death, the last chapter looks back on his biological thoughts in the light of new results of molecular biology. His attack at that time on long-lasting dogmas of evolutionary theory turned out to be largely justified. The new biology seems even well suited to support Popper's endeavour to overcome the gloomy aspects of Darwinism that have made organisms passive parts of a machinery of deadly competition. Neither blind chance nor natural selection are the creative forces of all life, but rather knowledge and activity. How they came into existence is still a secret and a worthwhile research programme.--
Download or read book Karl Popper written by Friedel Weinert and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karl R. Popper is widely regarded as one of the most influential 20th century philosophers. In this new biography, Weinert provides a comprehensive and accessible account of his life and work, also addressing Popper’s role as a public intellectual. Drawing on a wide range of sources and interviews with former colleagues and collaborators, he recounts not only the wide interest from the scientific community, but also the inspiration that politicians took from Popper’s work. The book surveys the vast and varied intellectual landscape of Popper's philosophical journey during his long career: from the natural and social sciences (physics, evolution, sociology) to political philosophy and the philosophy of mind. It pays significant attention to Popper’s critical method - i.e., the notion that ideas and institutions should be exposed to rigorous tests – the approach that led him to a fervent defence of objectivity, rationality and realism, against all forms of irrationalism, as well as a passionate advocacy of freedom, social justice and liberal democracy, against all forms of authoritarianism. The book brings Popper into focus as a modern Enlightenment philosopher.
Download or read book In Search of a Better World written by Karl Popper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I want to begin by declaring that I regard scientific knowledge as the most important kind of knowledge we have', writes Sir Karl Popper in the opening essay of this book, which collects his meditations on the real improvements science has wrought in society, in politics and in the arts in the course of the twentieth century. His subjects range from the beginnings of scientific speculation in classical Greece to the destructive effects of twentieth century totalitarianism, from major figures of the Enlightenment such as Kant and Voltaire to the role of science and self-criticism in the arts. The essays offer striking new insights into the mind of one of the greatest twentieth century philosophers.
Download or read book Karl Popper s Science and Philosophy written by Zuzana Parusniková and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-07-19 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all philosophers of the 20th century, few built more bridges between academic disciplines than Karl Popper. He contributed to a wide variety of fields in addition to the epistemology and the theory of scientific method for which he is best known. This book illustrates and evaluates the impact, both substantive and methodological, that Popper has had in the natural and mathematical sciences. The topics selected include quantum mechanics, evolutionary biology, cosmology, mathematical logic, statistics, and cognitive science. The approach is multidisciplinary, opening a dialogue across scientific disciplines and between scientists and philosophers.
Download or read book Karl Popper Science and Enlightenment written by Nicholas Maxwell and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an idea that just might save the world. It is that science, properly understood, provides us with the methodological key to the salvation of humanity. A version of this idea can be found in the works of Karl Popper. Famously, Popper argued that science cannot verify theories but can only refute them, and this is how science makes progress. Scientists are forced to think up something better, and it is this, according to Popper, that drives science forward.But Nicholas Maxwell finds a flaw in this line of argument. Physicists only ever accept theories that are unified – theories that depict the same laws applying to the range of phenomena to which the theory applies – even though many other empirically more successful disunified theories are always available. This means that science makes a questionable assumption about the universe, namely that all disunified theories are false. Without some such presupposition as this, the whole empirical method of science breaks down.By proposing a new conception of scientific methodology, which can be applied to all worthwhile human endeavours with problematic aims, Maxwell argues for a revolution in academic inquiry to help humanity make progress towards a better, more civilized and enlightened world.
Download or read book Dance to the Tune of Life written by Denis Noble and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book formulates a relativistic theory of biology, challenging the common gene-centred view of organisms.
Download or read book From Matter to Life written by Sara Imari Walker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent advances suggest that the concept of information might hold the key to unravelling the mystery of life's nature and origin. Fresh insights from a broad and authoritative range of articulate and respected experts focus on the transition from matter to life, and hence reconcile the deep conceptual schism between the way we describe physical and biological systems. A unique cross-disciplinary perspective, drawing on expertise from philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics, and cognitive and social sciences, provides a new way to look at the deepest questions of our existence. This book addresses the role of information in life, and how it can make a difference to what we know about the world. Students, researchers, and all those interested in what life is and how it began will gain insights into the nature of life and its origins that touch on nearly every domain of science.
Download or read book All Life is Problem Solving written by Karl Popper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Never before has there been so many and such dreadful weapons in so many irresponsible hands.' - Karl Popper, from the Preface All Life is Problem Solving is a stimulating and provocative selection of Popper's writings on his main preoccupations during the last twenty-five years of his life. This collection illuminates Popper's process of working out key formulations in his theory of science, and indicates his view of the state of the world at the end of the Cold War and after the collapse of communism.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Popper written by Jeremy Shearmur and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-24 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karl Popper was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His criticism of induction and his falsifiability criterion of demarcation between science and non-science were major contributions to the philosophy of science. Popper's broader philosophy of critical rationalism comprised a distinctive philosophy of social science and political theory. His critique of historicism and advocacy of the open society marked him out as a significant philosopher of freedom and reason. This book sets out the historical and intellectual contexts in which Popper worked, and offers an overview and diverse criticisms of his central ideas. The volume brings together contributors with expertise on Popper's work, including people personally associated with Popper (such as Jarvie, Miller, Musgrave, Petersen and Shearmur), specialists on the topics treated (Bradie, Godfrey-Smith and Jackson), and scholars with special interests in aspects of Popper's work (Andersson, Hacohen, Maxwell and Stokes).
Download or read book New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation written by Gino Cattani and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary thinking has had a profound impact on theories of technological innovation and strategy. This volume explores how significant advancements made in evolutionary biology since the 1970s influence evolutionary approaches to these areas, with an emphasis on the role of serendipity and unprestateability in innovation and novelty creation.
Download or read book The Gene s Eye View of Evolution written by J. Arvid Ågren and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Arvid Ågren has undertaken the most meticulously thorough reading of the relevant literature that I have ever encountered, deploying an intelligent understanding to pull it into a coherent story. As if that wasn't enough, he gets it right.' (Richard Dawkins) To many evolutionary biologists, the central challenge of their discipline is to explain adaptation, the appearance of design in the living world. With the theory of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin elegantly showed how a purely mechanistic process can achieve this striking feature of nature. Since then, the way many biologists have thought about evolution and natural selection is as a theory about individual organisms. Over a century later, a subtle but radical shift in perspective emerged with the gene's-eye view of evolution in which natural selection was conceptualized as a struggle between genes for replication and transmission to the next generation. This viewpoint culminated with the publication of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (Oxford University Press, 1976) and is now commonly referred to as selfish gene thinking. The gene's-eye view has subsequently played a central role in evolutionary biology, although it continues to attract controversy. The central aim of this accessible book is to show how the gene's-eye view differs from the traditional organismal account of evolution, trace its historical origins, clarify typical misunderstandings and, by using examples from contemporary experimental work, show why so many evolutionary biologists still consider it an indispensable heuristic. The book concludes by discussing how selfish gene thinking fits into ongoing debates in evolutionary biology, and what they tell us about the future of the gene's-eye view of evolution. The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution is suitable for graduate-level students taking courses in evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, and evolutionary genetics, as well as professional researchers in these fields. It will also appeal to a broader, interdisciplinary audience from the social sciences and humanities including philosophers and historians of science.
Download or read book Secrets of the Soul written by Eli Zaretsky and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2005-08-09 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fledgling science of psychoanalysis permanently altered the nineteenth-century worldview with its remarkable new insights into human behavior and motivation. It quickly became a benchmark for modernity in the twentieth century--though its durability in the twenty-first may now be in doubt. More than a hundred years after the publication of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, we’re no longer in thrall, says cultural historian Eli Zaretsky, to the “romance” of psychotherapy and the authority of the analyst. Only now do we have enough perspective to assess the successes and shortcomings of psychoanalysis, from its late-Victorian Era beginnings to today’s age of psychopharmacology. In Secrets of the Soul, Zaretsky charts the divergent schools in the psychoanalytic community and how they evolved–sometimes under pressure–from sexism to feminism, from homophobia to acceptance of diversity, from social control to personal emancipation. From Freud to Zoloft, Zaretsky tells the story of what may be the most intimate science of all.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Popper written by Jeremy Shearmur and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-27 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the most comprehensive collections of critical essays to be published on the philosophy of Karl Popper.
Download or read book Philosophy of Systems Biology written by Sara Green and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of systems biology raises many fascinating questions: What does it mean to take a systems approach to problems in biology? To what extent is the use of mathematical and computational modelling changing the life sciences? How does the availability of big data influence research practices? What are the major challenges for biomedical research in the years to come? This book addresses such questions of relevance not only to philosophers and biologists but also to readers interested in the broader implications of systems biology for science and society. The book features reflections and original work by experts from across the disciplines including systems biologists, philosophers, and interdisciplinary scholars investigating the social and educational aspects of systems biology. In response to the same set of questions, the experts develop and defend their personal perspectives on the distinctive character of systems biology and the challenges that lie ahead. Readers are invited to engage with different views on the questions addressed, and may explore numerous themes relating to the philosophy of systems biology. This edited work will appeal to scholars and all levels, from undergraduates to researchers, and to those interested in a variety of scholarly approaches such as systems biology, mathematical and computational modelling, cell and molecular biology, genomics, systems theory, and of course, philosophy of biology.
Download or read book Science as a Way of Knowing written by John Alexander Moore and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes Moore's wisdom available to students in a lively, richly illustrated account of the history and workings of life. Employing rhetoric strategies including case histories, hypotheses and deductions, and chronological narrative, it provides both a cultural history of biology and an introduction to the procedures and values of science.
Download or read book In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication written by Nimrod Bar-Am and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a philosophical introduction to the field of communication and media studies. In search of the philosophical backgrounds of that relatively young field, the book explores why this overwhelmingly popular discipline is in crisis. The book discusses classic introductions on communication, provides an update on lessons learned, and re-evaluates the work of pioneers in the light of up-to-date philosophical standards. It summarizes various debates surrounding the foundations of system theory and especially its applicability to the Social Sciences in general and to Communication Studies in particular. Communication schools promise their students an understanding of the source of a principal and dynamical power in their lives, a power shaping societies and identities, molding aspirations, and deciding their fates. They also promise students a practical benefit, a chance to learn the secret of controlling that dynamical power, improving a set of skills that would ensure them a critical edge in the future job market: become better media experts for all media. Yet no one seems to know how such promises are met. Can there be a general theory of communication? If not, what can (should) communication students learn? This book looks at the problem from a philosophical perspective and proposes a framework wherein critical cases can be tested.
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:
