Download or read book The Evolutionist written by Avi Sirlin and published by Aurora Metro Publications Ltd.. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the year 1852, and the origin of species remains a mystery. In a primitive hut in the remote Amazonian jungle, Alfred Wallace, a brilliant young collector of scientific specimens, lies wasted by tropical illness. He does not expect to survive. Healed by a village shaman, Wallace continues his pioneering fieldwork in the Malay archipelago, crystalising his ideas about evolutionary theory, which Charles Darwin had also secretly formulated but was reluctant to publish. In this new novel based on the scientist's extraordinary life, what unfolds is a dramatic tale of money, class, faith and discrimination. Reviews: “Wallace never attained Darwin’s level of fame, perhaps because Wallace’s radical ideas (including his belief in spiritualism) ran contrary to those of the scientific establishment. The Evolutionist brings to life a saga of passion for research, and the sharp divides of money, class, and discrimination. A strongly impressionistic portrait of an undeservedly little-known scientist, The Evolutionist is a raptly compelling read.” Midwest Book Review “Brimful of factual details ... This novel will appeal to any reader interested in... the lives of the intrepid Victorian specimen hunters.” Historical Novel Society “A wide audience beyond the scientifically curious will find this an easy read and come away with a richer understanding of the rigours of early scientific research both in the field and in the halls of established theory.” Professor Gene J. Parola, author The Devil to Pay “An exciting adventure story well told.” Peter Hobson, Shiny New Books “Avi Sirlin has produced an enjoyable and thought-provoking work which should thankfully introduce a remarkable (yet remarkably unknown) scientific giant to a wider audience.” Rodney Munday, sculptor of the Alfred Russel Wallace wall relief in Hertford “A triumph of biographical fiction, an utterly convincing character study of one of the most poignant figures in the history of science. Wallace’s status as social outsider, beside the more established standing of Darwin and his connections with Lyell and Hooker (the latter represented by the fictitious composite character Newcastle), conspired to deprive him of fuller credit for his accomplished work in advancing the controversial new theory, especially as the younger Wallace chose to go through Darwin himself to present his paper first explicating it. The genius of the novel is its convincing immersion in the language of its time, the mid-nineteenth century. Neither dense nor affected, however, the period piece reads as naturally as if its prose were our own. Particularly seamless is the blending of speech by the characters in Wallace’s circle, and the narrative voice portraying the protagonist in third person (Bates and he had a devil of a time squeezing through the narrow channel ... Along the way, the pacing of action, thought and dialogue keeps us engaged in the journey, whether in the muck of the Amazon and jungles of Borneo, or the salons, courtrooms and pubs of London. Sirlin has a deft touch with visual description to complement an unerring taste (A pill of memory stuck in his throat) and ear for authentic language... Sirlin uses his lawyer’s skills to chart the mystery of the origins of Darwin’s famous Origin of Species. While some of the blame for Wallace’s obscurity lies with his self-effacing humility, and some for an accident at sea, and still more for the constricting mindset of established science, the machinations of Darwin and his associates clearly contrived to bring Darwin’s long-simmering theory to the fore. In this drama, however, even these competitors show compassion and respect for Wallace’s acquiescence; and Darwin himself admits: Your essay inspired a clarity of vision that had altogether been precluded by my own cowardice. The Evolutionist works as an entertaining read, as a polished literary gem, and as an authoritative expose of science’s most celebrated coincidence. The thorough research appears as it should in the best historical fiction, to make the world and its characters come truly and convincingly alive.” Howick Gray, author of Hunter’s Daughter [review: Goodreads] About the author: Avi Sirlin grew up in Toronto, Canada. After graduating university with a degree in Biology, he worked in a variety of occupations, including pastry baker, forklift operator and landscaper. He’d already enjoyed fulfilling stints as house painter, taxi driver, hot dog vendor, laboratory technician, grain handler, parking lot attendant and telephone solicitor (for which he deeply apologizes, no matter how desperately he needed his tuition money). Each was interesting work, in its own way, but nonetheless he elected to seek a new career path. When Avi next graduated, he had a law degree. As a new lawyer, he first worked with a large Toronto law firm where, from his 35th floor office window, he could see the silos of Victory Soya Mills and reflect fondly on those days when he’d slugged ninety-pound bags of soybean meal all day. After a couple of years practising labour and employment law, Avi left the firm and founded his own law practice in downtown Toronto, eventually focusing upon immigration and criminal law. Fifteen years went by in a blur. Then Avi decided it was time for a change. Avi now lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Although he still does some legal consulting work, for the past several years he has focused on writing. He has written two screenplays and a novel. He is currently at work on his next novel.
Download or read book Leading the Evolution written by Mike Ruyle and published by Marzano Resources. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now is the time to evolve from the existing model of schooling into one that is more innovative, relevant, effective, and successful. Leading the Evolution introduces a three-pronged approach to driving substantive change (called the evolutionary triad) that connects transformative educational leadership, student engagement, and teacher optimism around personalized competency-based education. Each chapter includes supporting research and theory, as well as clear direction and strategies for putting the evolutionary triad into practice. Learn how and why to implement a personalized competency-based approach for academic achievement and student engagement: Understand the current state of education and why changing to a competency-based approach is imperative. Identify the instructional leadership behaviors that lead to the organizational and cultural shift necessary to transform the current education paradigm. Consider in detail all three points of the evolutionary triad: transformational instructional leadership, teacher optimism, and student engagement. Examine the central focus of the evolutionary triad: personalized, competency-based education. Explore educational leadership practices that support successfully implementing the evolutionary triad and learning competencies in schools. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Foundations for Evolution Chapter 2: The Transformational Instructional Leader Chapter 3: The Optimistic Teacher Chapter 4: The Engaged Student Chapter 5: The High-Impact School Epilogue References and Resources Index
Download or read book The Evolution of Everything written by Matt Ridley and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Mr. Ridley’s best and most important work to date…there is something profoundly democratic and egalitarian—even anti-elitist—in this bottom-up approach: Everyone can have a role in bringing about change.” —Wall Street Journal The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world Human society evolves. Change in technology, language, morality, and society is incremental, inexorable, gradual, and spontaneous. It follows a narrative, going from one stage to the next, and it largely happens by trial and error—a version of natural selection. Much of the human world is the result of human action but not of human design: it emerges from the interactions of millions, not from the plans of a few. Drawing on fascinating evidence from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley demolishes conventional assumptions that the great events and trends of our day are dictated by those on high. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. The Industrial Revolution, cell phones, the rise of Asia, and the Internet were never planned; they happened. Languages emerged and evolved by a form of natural selection, as did common law. Torture, racism, slavery, and pedophilia—all once widely regarded as acceptable—are now seen as immoral despite the decline of religion in recent decades. In this wide-ranging, erudite book, Ridley brilliantly makes the case for evolution, rather than design, as the force that has shaped much of our culture, our technology, our minds, and that even now is shaping our future.
Download or read book The Evolution Creation Struggle written by Michael RUSE and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his latest book, Ruse uncovers surprising similarities between evolutionist and creationist thinking. Exploring the underlying philosophical commitments of evolutionists, he reveals that those most hostile to religion are just as evangelical as their fundamentalist opponents. But more crucially, and reaching beyond the biblical issues at stake, he demonstrates that these two diametrically opposed ideologies have, since the Enlightenment, engaged in a struggle for the privilege of defining human origins, moral values, and the nature of reality.
Download or read book The Evolution of Mind written by Denise D. Cummins and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1998 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Evolution of Mind, outstanding figures on the cutting edge of evolutionary psychology follow clues provided by current neuroscientific evidence to illuminate many puzzling questions of human cognitive evolution. With contributions from psychologists, ethologists, anthropologists, and philosophers, the book offers a broad range of approaches to explore the mysteries of the mind's evolution - from investigating the biological functions of human cognition to drawing comparisons between human and animal cognitive abilities.
Download or read book The Evolution of Beauty written by Richard O. Prum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.
Download or read book The Evolution of Morality written by Richard Joyce and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-08-24 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking—staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms—if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"—might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.
Download or read book Metal and Flesh written by Ollivier Dyens and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001-10-12 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poetic exploration of the new world created by the collision of the biological body with technology and culture. For more than 3,000 years, humans have explored uncharted geographic and spiritual realms. Present-day explorers face new territories born from the coupling of living tissue and metal, strange lifeforms that are intelligent but unconscious, neither completely alive nor dead. Our bodies are now made of machines, images, and information. We are becoming cultural bodies in a world inhabited by cyborgs, clones, genetically modified animals, and innumerable species of human/information symbionts. Ollivier Dyens's Metal and Flesh is about two closely related phenomena: the technologically induced transformation of our perceptions of the world and the emergence of a cultural biology. Culture, according to Dyens, is taking control of the biosphere. Focusing on the twentieth century—which will be remembered as the century in which the living body was blurred, molded, and transformed by technology and culture—Dyens ruminates on the undeniable and irreversible human/machine entanglement that is changing the very nature of our lives.
Download or read book What Evolution Is written by Ernst Mayr and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-03-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At once a spirited defense of Darwinian explanations of biology and an elegant primer on evolution for the general reader, What Evolution Is poses the questions at the heart of evolutionary theory and considers how our improved understanding of evolution has affected the viewpoints and values of modern man. Science Masters Series
Download or read book The Evolution of Adam written by Peter Enns and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can Christianity and evolution coexist? Traditional Christian teaching presents Jesus as reversing the effects of the fall of Adam. But an evolutionary view of human origins doesn't allow for a literal Adam, making evolution seemingly incompatible with what Genesis and the apostle Paul say about him. For Christians who both accept evolution and want to take the Bible seriously, this can present a faith-shaking tension. Popular Old Testament scholar Peter Enns offers a way forward by explaining how this tension is caused not by the discoveries of science but by false expectations about the biblical texts. In this 10th anniversary edition, Enns updates readers on developments in the historical Adam debate, helping them reconcile Genesis and Paul with current views on evolution and human origins. This edition includes an afterword that explains Enns's own theological evolution since the first edition released.
Download or read book Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation written by Adam Laats and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No fight over what gets taught in American classrooms is more heated than the battle over humanity’s origins. For more than a century we have argued about evolutionary theory and creationism (and its successor theory, intelligent design), yet we seem no closer to a resolution than we were in Darwin’s day. In this thoughtful examination of how we teach origins, historian Adam Laats and philosopher Harvey Siegel offer crucial new ways to think not just about the evolution debate but how science and religion can make peace in the classroom. Laats and Siegel agree with most scientists: creationism is flawed, as science. But, they argue, students who believe it nevertheless need to be accommodated in public school science classes. Scientific or not, creationism maintains an important role in American history and culture as a point of religious dissent, a sustained form of protest that has weathered a century of broad—and often dramatic—social changes. At the same time, evolutionary theory has become a critical building block of modern knowledge. The key to accommodating both viewpoints, they show, is to disentangle belief from knowledge. A student does not need to believe in evolution in order to understand its tenets and evidence, and in this way can be fully literate in modern scientific thought and still maintain contrary religious or cultural views. Altogether, Laats and Siegel offer the kind of level-headed analysis that is crucial to finding a way out of our culture-war deadlock.
Download or read book Denying Evolution written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by Sinauer Associates Incorporated. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Denying Evolution aims at taking a fresh look at the evolution-creation controversy. It presents a truly "balanced" treatment, not in the sense of treating creationism as a legitimate scientific theory (it demonstrably is not), but in the sense of dividing the blame for the controversy equally between creationists and scientists-the former for subscribing to various forms of anti-intellectualism, the latter for discounting science education and presenting science as scientism to the public and the media. The central part of the book focuses on a series of creationist fallacies (aimed at showing errors of thought, not at deriding) and of mistakes by scientists and science educators. The last part of the book discusses long-term solutions to the problem, from better science teaching at all levels to the necessity of widespread understanding of how the brain works and why people have difficulties with critical thinking.
Download or read book Evolution and the Myth of Creationism written by Tim M. Berra and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gives a description of evolutionary theory and analyzes the arguments of the creationists.
Download or read book Evolution of a Corporate Idealist written by Christine Bader and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-21 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an invisible army of people deep inside the world's biggest and best-known companies, pushing for safer and more responsible practices. They are trying to prevent the next Rana Plaza factory collapse, the next Deepwater Horizon explosion, the next Foxconn labor abuses. Obviously, they don't always succeed. Christine Bader is one of those people. She worked for and loved BP and then-CEO John Browne's lofty rhetoric on climate change and human rights--until a string of fatal BP accidents, Browne's abrupt resignation under a cloud of scandal, and the start of Tony Hayward's tenure as chief executive, which would end with the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Bader's story of working deep inside the belly of the beast is unique in its details, but not in its themes: of feeling like an outsider both inside the company (accused of being a closet activist) and out (assumed to be a corporate shill); of getting mixed messages from senior management; of being frustrated with corporate life but committed to pushing for change from within. The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil is based on Bader's experience with BP and then with a United Nations effort to prevent and address human rights abuses linked to business. Using her story as its skeleton, Bader weaves in the stories of other "Corporate Idealists" working inside some of the world's biggest and best-known companies.
Download or read book The Structure of Evolutionary Theory written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-21 with total page 1460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world’s most revered and eloquent interpreter of evolutionary ideas offers here a work of explanatory force unprecedented in our time—a landmark publication, both for its historical sweep and for its scientific vision. With characteristic attention to detail, Stephen Jay Gould first describes the content and discusses the history and origins of the three core commitments of classical Darwinism: that natural selection works on organisms, not genes or species; that it is almost exclusively the mechanism of adaptive evolutionary change; and that these changes are incremental, not drastic. Next, he examines the three critiques that currently challenge this classic Darwinian edifice: that selection operates on multiple levels, from the gene to the group; that evolution proceeds by a variety of mechanisms, not just natural selection; and that causes operating at broader scales, including catastrophes, have figured prominently in the course of evolution. Then, in a stunning tour de force that will likely stimulate discussion and debate for decades, Gould proposes his own system for integrating these classical commitments and contemporary critiques into a new structure of evolutionary thought. In 2001 the Library of Congress named Stephen Jay Gould one of America’s eighty-three Living Legends—people who embody the “quintessentially American ideal of individual creativity, conviction, dedication, and exuberance.” Each of these qualities finds full expression in this peerless work, the likes of which the scientific world has not seen—and may not see again—for well over a century.
Download or read book The Book That Changed America written by Randall Fuller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.
Download or read book The Evolution Delusion written by Bart Rask and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the field of evolution differ from other sciences? The author, a reviewer for a major medical journal, scrutinized hundreds of scientific references in evolutionary literature, adopting the same standards used for studies submitted for medical publication. The data show that there are two types of evolution, microevolution and macroevolution, with a clear boundary between them based upon the presence and absence of empirical evidence, respectively. The surprising results show that there is a universal disconnect between the data and the conclusions that claim to show the larger changes of macroevolution. The author reveals patterns of deviations from standard scientific methods in these studies. For the first time, evolutionary data have been summarized to describe both what evolution can and cannot accomplish. The author shows the reader how to recognize the different ways in which the evidence for microevolution within and between some species differs from the unsupported macroevolution of most species. Previous critiques of macroevolution have been debunked by advocates who have cited a multitude of scientific studies. This book goes beyond previous critiques by directly addressing the data from these studies to see if they do, in fact, support macroevolution-focused conclusions. Many expert counterarguments against this book’s thesis are presented and examined in the context of scientific research to reassure the reader that the author has left no stone unturned in the macroevolution debate. A theory is proposed as to why there may be no empirical evidence for macroevolution. The book concludes with a section entitled “What we see differently.” There, the author shows the reader the differences in perspective between the evolutionist and macroevolution critic as they look at and interpret the very same set of data.
