Download or read book The Biology of Civilisation written by Stephen Vickers Boyden and published by UNSW Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the complex interrelationships between human culture and the nature. Covering the period from the beginning of agriculture right up to the present day, it focuses on issues relating to human health and well-being and the state of our natural environment. From his vast survey, author Stephen Boyden draws some key conclusions critical to the future of humanity.
Download or read book The Biology of Civilization written by C. C. WALKER (Writer on Biology.) and published by . This book was released on 1930 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Cells to Civilizations written by Enrico Coen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling investigation into the relationships between our biological past and cultural progress, "Cells to Civilizations" presents a remarkable story of living change.
Download or read book The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China Volume 5 written by Joseph Needham and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fifth volume abridgement of Joseph Needham's monumental work is concerned with the staggering civil engineering feats made in early and medieval China.
Download or read book Out Of Control written by Kevin Kelly and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.
Download or read book The Impact of Civilization on the Biology of Man Edited by S V Boyden written by Stephen Vickers Boyden (Ed) and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Brief Natural History of Civilization written by Mark Bertness and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling evolutionary narrative that reveals how human civilization follows the same ecological rules that shape all life on Earth Offering a bold new understanding of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going, noted ecologist Mark Bertness argues that human beings and their civilization are the products of the same self-organization, evolutionary adaptation, and natural selection processes that have created all other life on Earth. Bertness follows the evolutionary process from the primordial soup of two billion years ago through today, exploring the ways opposing forces of competition and cooperation have led to current assemblages of people, animals, and plants. Bertness's thoughtful examination of human history from the perspective of natural history provides new insights about why and how civilization developed as it has and explores how humans, as a species, might have to consciously overrule our evolutionary drivers to survive future challenges.
Download or read book The Biology of Civilization written by Cyril Charles Walker and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1930 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dirt written by David R. Montgomery and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-05-14 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.
Download or read book Time Life and Civilization written by Abir U. Igamberdiev and published by Nova Science Publishers. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the fundamental scientific and philosophical problems of the origins of life, consciousness, language, and civilisation. It is a continuation of "Physics and Logic of Life," published by Nova Science Publishers in 2012. Whereas the previous book discussed fundamental aspects of biology, the current volume aims to analyse connections between the biological and the societal worlds, and to clarify basic principles of the genesis of social structures. The physical basis and logic of life are discussed briefly in the first two chapters; then the discussion turns to the fundamental structures that ultimately determine the nature of cognition-based societies. The emergence of life initiates a creative process that exceeds the limits of computability. Biological evolution occurs as an unfolding of functional constraints in which dynamic parameters, possessing criteria of perfection and having selective values, are established. The genetic system arises as a semiotic structure with a high combinatorial capacity for expansion and generation of new meanings in the course of individual development and evolutionary modification. Human language is a second natural semiotic system by which fundamental knowledge of the world is expressed, and which provides powerful means for its description and assimilation. The evolution of societies is a further expansion of language systems based on implementation of the structures of human self-reflection. These basic structures include the possibility of perceiving a world external to the Self and acting within it. The signification of conceptual entities is the starting point in the development of civilisations, and concrete patterns of signification determine features specific to particular human cultures. The evolutionary growth of information occurs via the open process of language games, in which interacting statements about the world determine continued increase of complexity. The universal language of music and its future role in global communication are discussed. This book is intended for theoretical biologists, sociologists, psychologists, specialists in semiotics and philosophers.
Download or read book Scientific Freedom written by Donald W. Braben and published by Stripe Press. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revolutionary and timely proposal for reinvigorating transformative scientific discovery, written by a preeminent leader in Venture Research. So rich was the scientific harvest of the early 20th century that it transformed entire industries and economies. Max Planck laid the foundation for quantum physics, Barbara McClintock for modern genetics, Linus Pauling for chemistry—the list goes on. In the 1970s, the nature of scientific work started to change. Increases in public funding for scientific research brought demands that spending be justified; a system of peer review that selected only the research proposals promising the greatest returns; and a push for endless short-term miracles instead of in-depth, boundary-pushing research. A vicious spiral of decline began. In Scientific Freedom, Donald W. Braben presents a framework to find and support cutting-edge, much-needed scientific innovation. Braben—who led British Petroleum’s Venture Research initiative, which aimed to identify and aid researchers challenging current scientific thinking—explains: —the conditions that catalyzed scientific research in the early 20th century; —the costs to society of our current research model; —the changing role of the university as a research institution; —how BP’s Venture Research initiative succeeded by minimizing bureaucracy and peer review, and the program’s impact; —the selection, budget, and organizational criteria for implementing a Venture Research program today. Even in the earliest stages, transformative and groundbreaking research can look unrecognizable to those who are accustomed to the patterns established by the past. Support for this research can, in fact, be low risk and offer rich rewards, but it requires rethinking the processes used to discover and sponsor scientists with groundbreaking ideas—and then giving those innovators the freedom to explore. First published in 2008, this new edition of Scientific Freedom is produced in a gorgeous archival quality hardcover with over 30 new illustrations and an up-to-date foreword by Donald Braben.
Download or read book Exploring the World of Biology written by John Hudson Tiner and published by New Leaf Publishing Group. This book was released on 2009-01-28 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book in Master Books Exploring series is a fascinating look at life--from the smallest proteins and spores, to the complex life systems of humans and animals.
Download or read book Health and the Rise of Civilization written by Mark Nathan Cohen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civilized nations popularly assume that "primitive" societies are poor, ill, and malnourished and that progress through civilization automatically implies improved health. In this provocative new book, Mark Nathan Cohen challenges this belief. Using evidence from epidemiology, anthropology, and archaeology, Cohen provides fascinating evidence about the actual effects of civilization on health, suggesting that some aspects of civilization create as many health problems as they prevent or cure. " This book] is certain to become a classic-a prominent and respected source on this subject for years into the future. . . . If you want to read something that will make you think, reflect and reconsider, Cohen's Health and the Rise of Civilization is for you."-S. Boyd Eaton, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A major accomplishment. Cohen is a broad and original thinker who states his views in direct and accessible prose. . . . This is a book that should be read by everyone interested in disease, civilization, and the human condition."-David Courtwright, Journal of the History of Medicine "Deserves to be read by anthropologists concerned with health, medical personnel responsible for communities, and any medical anthropologists whose minds are not too case-hardened. Indeed, it could provide great profit and entertainment to the general reader."-George T. Nurse, Current Anthropology "Cohen has done his homework extraordinarily well, and the coverage of the biomedical, nutritional, demographic, and ethnographic literature about foragers and low energy agriculturists is excellent. The subject of culture and health is near the core of a lot of areas of archaeology and ethnology as well as demography, development economics, and so on. The book deserves a wide readership and a central place in our professional libraries. As a scholarly summary it is without parallel."-Henry Harpending, American Ethnologist
Download or read book Cells to Civilizations written by Enrico Coen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-22 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coen describes the four ways that life, in the broadest term, is transformed: development through patterning, Darwinian selection, modifying neural interactions and connections, and cultural change as a result of human behavior and interaction; and argues that these four means of transformation are better understood not as separate processes, but as one common set of mechanisms for life's transformations.
Download or read book Biohistory written by Jim Penman and published by Cambridge Scholars Pub. This book was released on 2015-01-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western civilisation is on a path to destruction. In coming decades, economies will shrink, democracy will retreat and nations crumble. The long-term result will be grinding poverty, superstition and disease. This isn't scaremongering - it is science. In Biohistory: The Decline and Fall of the West, Dr Jim Penman, PhD, details a revolutionary new theory about why civilizations collapse. For the first time, Penman directly links human biology with the rise and fall of civilisations a cataclysmic relationship that brought the Romans, the ancient Greeks and all other Empires to their knees. Based on pioneering scientific research, Penman reveals the deadly, invisible forces at play across human and animal history and why the West will be the next victim. Biohistory makes use of the latest findings in epigenetics, the study of how the environment affects our genes. Presented in easy-to-digest language, it draws on history, biology, anthropology and economics to explain the real drivers of social change and how evolutionary mechanisms designed to adapt animal social behaviour to changing food conditions determine the fate of civilisation. The West's only hope of avoiding catastrophe lies with the biological sciences, but is it already too late to change the course of history?
Download or read book The Human Cosmos written by Jo Marchant and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Best Book of 2020 (NPR) A Best Book of 2020 (The Economist) A Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 (Smithsonian) A Best Science and Technology Book of 2020 (Library Journal) A Must-Read Book to Escape the Chaos of 2020 (Newsweek) Starred review (Booklist) Starred review (Publishers Weekly) A historically unprecedented disconnect between humanity and the heavens has opened. Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it. For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are—our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost. Our relationship to the stars and planets has moved from one of awe, wonder and superstition to one where technology is king—the cosmos is now explored through data on our screens, not by the naked eye observing the natural world. Indeed, in most countries, modern light pollution obscures much of the night sky from view. Jo Marchant's spellbinding parade of the ways different cultures celebrated the majesty and mysteries of the night sky is a journey to the most awe-inspiring view you can ever see: looking up on a clear dark night. That experience and the thoughts it has engendered have radically shaped human civilization across millennia. The cosmos is the source of our greatest creativity in art, in science, in life. To show us how, Jo Marchant takes us to the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux in France, and to the summer solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at Newgrange, Ireland. We discover Chumash cosmology and visit medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. The cosmically liberating, summary revelation is that star-gazing made us human.
Download or read book The Impact of Civilization on the Biology of Man written by Stephen Vickers Boyden and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
