Download or read book The WEIRDest People in the World written by Joseph Henrich and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A Bloomberg Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2020 A Human Behavior & Evolution Society Must-Read Popular Evolution Book of 2020 A bold, epic account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture created the peculiar Western mind that has profoundly shaped the modern world. Perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. If so, you’re rather psychologically peculiar. Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves—their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations—over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition—laying the foundation for the modern world. Provocative and engaging in both its broad scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history. Includes black-and-white illustrations.
Download or read book Strange But True written by Thomas Slemen and published by Barnes & Noble Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Why People Believe Weird Things written by Michael Shermer and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This sparkling book romps over the range of science and anti-science." --Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel Revised and Expanded Edition. In this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing. In an entirely new chapter, "Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things," Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science. Shermer, science historian and true crusader, also reveals the more dangerous side of such illogical thinking, including Holocaust denial, the recovered-memory movement, the satanic ritual abuse scare, and other modern crazes. Why People Believe Strange Things is an eye-opening resource for the most gullible among us and those who want to protect them.
Download or read book I Am a Strange Loop written by Douglas R. Hofstadter and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2007-03-27 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that the key to understanding ourselves and consciousness is the "strange loop," a special kind of abstract feedback loop that inhabits the brain.
Download or read book Seeing People Off written by Jana Beňová and published by Two Dollar Radio. This book was released on 2017-05-22 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. There is a liveliness and effervescence to Jana Benová’s prose that is magnetic. Whether addressing the loneliness of relationships or the effectiveness of rat poison, her voice and observations call to mind the verve and sophistication of Renata Adler or Jenny Offill, while remaining utterly singular. Seeing People Off follows Elza and Ian, a young couple living in a humongous apartment complex outside Bratislava where the walls play music and talk, and time is immaterial. Drawing on her memories, everyday interactions, observations of post-socialist realities, and Elza’s attraction to actor, Kalisto Tanzi, Seeing People Off is a kaleidoscopic, poetic, and deeply funny portrait of a relationship.
Download or read book True Stories of Strange Events and Odd People written by Lawrence S. Bartell and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawrence Bartell experienced many strange events over the course of his long life, at least partly because he deliberately strayed far from the beaten path in science. While it might not have been the most efficient way to gain a reputation in his field, it was more fun. In his memoir, he presents a collection of entertaining, sometimes bizarre stories collected over a lifetime. Bartell chronicles a wide variety of experiences, such as his predisposition to indulge in childhood pranks, his arrest as a possible Russian spy, his work on the Manhattan Project, his entry into the Guinness Book of Records, his stint in the US Navy during wartime, and his appointment as visiting professor in Moscow during the height of the Cold War. As he recalls the curious and often bizarre true stories he acquired over a lifetime, it soon becomes evident that scientists are just as human as anyone else and that beer really can play an important role in preparing one for a PhD thesis. True Stories of Strange Events and Odd People shares details from a scientist's one-of-a-kind journey through life as he observes the world around him, tests his theories, and learns valuable life lessons.
Download or read book The Strange Birds of Flannery O Connor written by Amy Alznauer and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I intend to stand firm and let the peacocks multiply, for I am sure that, in the end, the last word will be theirs.” —Flannery O’Connor When she was young, the writer Flannery O’Connor was captivated by the chickens in her yard. She’d watch their wings flap, their beaks peck, and their eyes glint. At age six, her life was forever changed when she and a chicken she had been training to walk forwards and backwards were featured in the Pathé News, and she realized that people want to see what is odd and strange in life. But while she loved birds of all varieties and kept several species around the house, it was the peacocks that came to dominate her life. Written by Amy Alznauer with devotional attention to all things odd and illustrated in radiant paint by Ping Zhu, The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor explores the beginnings of one author’s lifelong obsession. Amy Alznauer lives in Chicago with her husband, two children, a dog, a parakeet, sometimes chicks, and a part-time fish, but, as of today, no elephants or peacocks. Ping Zhu is a freelance illustrator who has worked with clients big and small, won some awards based on the work she did for aforementioned clients, attracted new clients with shiny awards, and is hoping to maintain her livelihood in Brooklyn by repeating that cycle.
Download or read book Strange Peoples written by Frederick Starr and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2021-11-05 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an attempt to introduce American children to people from other countries, spanning from Europe to the Pacific Islands, as well as their cultures. Featured here alongside illustrations are The Eskimos, Koreans, Finns, and Melanesians.
Download or read book Strange Beauty written by Eliza Factor and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique and hopeful story of how one woman and her family were transformed by her child's multiple disabilities and inability to talk and how she, in turn, transformed a community. This intimate, no-holds barred memoir shares one family's experiences with a child who is both autistic and physically disabled. It is a story of infectious laughter, blood on the floor, intense physical conflict, and of two little girls growing up in the shadow of their charming and fitful brother. And it is the story of a mother and writer and the illuminating effect of imagining the world through the eyes of her beautiful, charismatic, and nonverbal son, Felix. Felix and his sisters inspire Eliza to start Extreme Kids, a community center that connects families with children with disabilities through the arts and play, and transform how she saw herself and the world. She writes of the joy this project brings her, as well as the disconnect of being lauded for helping others at the same time that she cannot help her own son. As Felix grows bigger and stronger, his assaults against himself grow more destructive. When his bruised limbs and face prompt Child Services to investigate the Factors for abuse, Eliza realizes how dangerous her home has become. Strange Beauty is a personal story, but it shines a light on the combustible conditions many families are living in at this moment. The United States offers parents whose children are prone to violence very little help. That Eliza's story ends happily, with Felix thriving at Crotched Mountain School, is due more to luck than policy. There are few such schools and many such children. When children are violent, we fail to account for the internal and external pressures that lead to violence. This is both cruel and counterproductive, for people with disabilities have much to teach us, if we will only listen.
Download or read book The Psychopath Test written by Jon Ronson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-06-03 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if society wasn't fundamentally rational, but was motivated by insanity? This thought sets Jon Ronson on an utterly compelling adventure into the world of madness. Along the way, Jon meets psychopaths, those whose lives have been touched by madness and those whose job it is to diagnose it, including the influential psychologist who developed the Psychopath Test, from whom Jon learns the art of psychopath-spotting. A skill which seemingly reveals that madness could indeed be at the heart of everything . . . Combining Jon Ronson's trademark humour, charm and investigative incision, The Psychopath Test is both entertaining and honest, unearthing dangerous truths and asking serious questions about how we define normality in a world where we are increasingly judged by our maddest edges. 'The belly laughs come thick and fast – my God, he is funny . . . provocative and interesting' – Observer
Download or read book The Ever Present Origin written by Jean Gebser and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This English translation of Gebser’s major work, Ursprung und Gegenwart (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag, 1966), offers certain fundamental insights which should be beneficial to any sensitive scientist and makes it available to the English-speaking world for the recognition it deserves. “The path which led Gebser to his new and universal perception of the world is, briefly, as follows. In the wake of materialism and social change, man had been described in the early years of our century as the “dead end” of nature. Freud had redefined culture as illness—a result of drive sublimation; Klages had called the spirit (and he was surely speaking of the hypertrophied intellect) the “adversary of the soul,” propounding a return to a life like that of the Pelasgi, the aboriginal inhabitants of Greece; and Spengler had declared the “Demise of the West” during the years following World War I. The consequences of such pessimism continued to proliferate long after its foundations had been superseded. It was with these foundations—the natural sciences—that Gebser began. As early as Planck it was known that matter was not at all what materialists had believed it to be, and since 1943 Gebser has repeatedly emphasized that the so-called crisis of Western culture was in fact an essential restructuration.… Gebser has noted two results that are of particular significance: first, the abandonment of materialistic determinism, of a one-sided mechanistic-causal mode of thought; and second, a manifest “urgency of attempts to discover a universal way of observing things, and to overcome the inner division of contemporary man who, as a result of his one-sided rational orientation, thinks only in dualisms.” Against this background of recent discoveries and conclusions in the natural sciences Gebser discerned the outlines of a potential human universality. He also sensed the necessity to go beyond the confines of this first treatise so as to include the humanities (such as political economics and sociology) as well as the arts in a discussion along similar lines. This was the point of departure of The Ever-Present Origin. From In memoriam Jean Gebser by Jean Keckeis
Download or read book Strange Bedfellows written by Ina Park and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Joyful and funny . . . Park uses science, compassion, humor, diverse stories and examples of her own shame-free living to take the stigma out of these infections." —The New York Times With curiosity and wit, Strange Bedfellows rips back the bedsheets to expose what really happens when STDs enter the sack. Sexually transmitted diseases have been hidden players in our lives for the whole of human history, with roles in everything from World War II to the growth of the Internet to The Bachelor. But despite their prominence, STDs have been shrouded in mystery and taboo for centuries, which begs the question: why do we know so little about them? Enter Ina Park, MD, who has been pushing boundaries to empower and inform others about sexual health for decades. With Strange Bedfellows, she ventures far beyond the bedroom to examine the hidden role and influence of these widely misunderstood infections and share their untold stories. Covering everything from AIDS to Zika, Park explores STDs on the cellular, individual, and population-level. She blends science and storytelling with historical tales, real life sexual escapades, and interviews with leading scientists—weaving in a healthy dose of hilarity along the way. The truth is, most of us are sexually active, yet we’re often unaware of the universe of microscopic bedfellows inside our pants. Park aims to change this by bringing knowledge to the masses in an accessible, no-nonsense, humorous way—helping readers understand the broad impact STDs have on our lives, while at the same time erasing the unfair stigmas attached to them. A departure from the cone of awkward silence and shame that so often surrounds sexual health, Strange Bedfellows is the straight-shooting book about the consequences of sex that all curious readers have been looking for.
Download or read book Plant People written by Marty M. Engle and published by Frontline Publications. This book was released on 1996 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rachel investigates some strange plants behind a vacant house and then strange people move into the house.
Download or read book Strange Planet written by Nathan W. Pyle and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Straight from the mind of New York Times bestselling author Nathan W. Pyle, Strange Planet is an adorable and profound universe in pink, blue, green, and purple, based on the phenomenally popular Instagram of the same name! Strange Planet covers a full life cycle of the planet’s inhabitants, including milestones such as: The Emergence Day Being Gains a Sibling The Being Family Attains a Beast The Formal Education of a Being Celebration of Special Days Being Begins a Vocation The Beings at Home Health Status of a Being The Hobbies of a Being The Extended Family of the Being The Being Reflects on Life While Watching the Planet Rotate With dozens of never-before-seen illustrations in addition to old favorites, this fixed-format e-book offers a sweet and hilarious look at a distant world not all that unlike our own. I feel more attractive. Honestly, you are. It’s the star damage. I CRAVE STAR DAMAGE.
Download or read book Strange and Secret Peoples written by Carole G. Silver and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-10-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teeming with creatures, both real and imagined, this encyclopedic study in cultural history illuminates the hidden web of connections between the Victorian fascination with fairies and their lore and the dominant preoccupations of Victorian culture at large. Carole Silver here draws on sources ranging from the anthropological, folkloric, and occult to the legal, historical, and medical. She is the first to anatomize a world peopled by strange beings who have infiltrated both the literary and visual masterpieces and the minor works of the writers and painters of that era. Examining the period of 1798 to 1923, Strange and Secret Peoples focuses not only on such popular literary figures as Charles Dickens and William Butler Yeats, but on writers as diverse as Thomas Carlyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charlotte Mew; on artists as varied as mad Richard Dadd, Aubrey Beardsley, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton; and on artifacts ranging from fossil skulls to photographs and vases. Silver demonstrates how beautiful and monstrous creatures--fairies and swan maidens, goblins and dwarfs, cretins and changelings, elementals and pygmies--simultaneously peopled the Victorian imagination and inhabited nineteenth-century science and belief. Her book reveals the astonishing complexity and fertility of the Victorian consciousness: its modernity and antiquity, its desire to naturalize the supernatural, its pervasive eroticism fused with sexual anxiety, and its drive for racial and imperial dominion.
Download or read book Strange Peoples written by Frederick Starr and published by Palala Press. This book was released on 2015-09-21 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book By Persons Unknown written by George Jonas and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1977-01-01 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
