Download or read book The Great Devonian Controversy written by Martin J. S. Rudwick and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Arguably the best work to date in the history of geology."—David R. Oldroyd, Science "After a superficial first glance, most readers of good will and broad knowledge might dismiss [this book] as being too much about too little. They would be making one of the biggest mistakes in their intellectual lives. . . . [It] could become one of our century's key documents in understanding science and its history."—Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books "Surely one of the most important studies in the history of science of recent years, and arguably the best work to date in the history of geology."—David R. Oldroyd, Science

Download or read book The Great Turning Point written by Terry Mortenson and published by New Leaf Publishing Group. This book was released on 2004 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people in the Church today have the idea that "young-earth" creationism is a fairly recent invention, popularized by fundamentalist Christians in the mid-20th century. Is this view correct? In fact, scholar Terry Mortenson has done fascinating original research on this subject in England, and documents that several leading, pre-Darwin scholars and scientists, known as "scriptural geologists" did not believe in long ages for the earth.This book is a thoroughly researched work of reference for every library - certainly every creationist library. Terry Mortenson spent much time and work on this project in both the United States and Great Britain. The history of the Church and evolution is fascinating, and it is interesting to see not only the tremendous influence that evolution has had on the Church, but on society as well.

Download or read book Transforming Nature written by Michael E. Gorman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is but the draft of a draft, as Melville said of Moby Dick. There is no prose here to match Melville's, but the scope is worthy of the great white whale. No one could possibly write a comprehensive, authoritative book on ethics, invention and discovery. I have not tried to, though I hope my bibliography will be a useful starting point for other explorers, and the cases and ideas presented here will keep people arguing for years. Although this book is nothing like a textbook, it is written for my students. I was trained as a teacher of psychology in graduate school and ended-up, by one of those happy chances of the job market, teaching psychology to engineering students rather than psyche majors. My dissertation and early research were in the psychology of scientific hypothesis-testing (see Chapter 2). When I team-taught a course with W. Bernard Carlson, a historian of technology, I saw how cognitive psychology might be applied to the study of invention. Bernie and I received funding from the National Science Foundation for three years of research on the invention of the telephone; a portion of that work is described in Chapter 3.

Download or read book The Greywacke written by Nick Davidson and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE PRIZE 2022 'A joyful collision of science, history and nature writing' Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time Adam Sedgwick was a priest and scholar. Roderick Murchison was a retired soldier. Charles Lapworth was a schoolteacher. It was their personal and intellectual rivalry, pursued on treks through Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Devon and parts of western Russia, that revealed the narrative structure of the Paleozoic Era, the 300-million-year period during which life on Earth became recognisably itself. Nick Davidson follows in their footsteps and draws on maps, diaries, letters, field notes and contemporary accounts to bring the ideas and characters alive. But this is more than a history of geology. As we travel through some of the most spectacular scenery in Britain, it's a celebration of the sheer visceral pleasure generations of geologists have found, and continue to find, in noticing the earth beneath our feet.

Download or read book From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences written by David Cahan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-09-15 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 19th century, much of the modern scientific enterprise took shape: scientific disciplines were formed, institutions and communities were founded and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred. taught us about this exciting time and identify issues that remain unexamined or require reconsideration. They treat scientific disciplines - biology, physics, chemistry, the earth sciences, mathematics and the social sciences - in their specific intellectual and sociocultural contexts as well as the broader topics of science and medicine; science and religion; scientific institutions and communities; and science, technology and industry. From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences should be valuable for historians of science, but also of great interest to scholars of all aspects of 19th-century life and culture.

Download or read book When Life Nearly Died The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time written by Michael J. Benton and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2003-05-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Michael Benton's splendid book brings back to Earth Science a sense of adventure. . . . It is both a wonderfully good read and a valued reference." —James Lovelock, author of Gaia and Homage to Gaia Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. Far less well-known is a much greater catastrophe that took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: 90 percent of life was destroyed, including saber-toothed reptiles and their rhinoceros-sized prey on land, as well as vast numbers of fish and other species in the sea. This book documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction but also the recent rekindling of the idea of catastrophism. Was the end-Permian event caused by the impact of a huge meteorite or comet, or by prolonged volcanic eruption in Siberia? The evidence has been accumulating through the 1990s and into the new millennium, and Michael Benton gives his verdict at the very end. From field camps in Greenland and Russia to the laboratory bench, When Life Nearly Died involves geologists, paleontologists, environmental modelers, geochemists, astronomers, and experts on biodiversity and conservation. Their working methods are vividly described and explained, and the current disputes are revealed. The implications of our understanding of crises in the past for the current biodiversity crisis are also presented in detail. 46 b/w illustrations.

Download or read book The Advancement of Science Science without Legend Objectivity without Illusions written by San Diego Philip Kitcher Professor of Philosophy University of California and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993-05-06 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last three decades, reflections on the growth of scientific knowledge have inspired historians, sociologists, and some philosophers to contend that scientific objectivity is a myth. In this book, Kitcher attempts to resurrect the notions of objectivity and progress in science by identifying both the limitations of idealized treatments of growth of knowledge and the overreactions to philosophical idealizations. Recognizing that science is done not by logically omniscient subjects working in isolation, but by people with a variety of personal and social interests, who cooperate and compete with one another, he argues that, nonetheless, we may conceive the growth of science as a process in which both our vision of nature and our ways of learning more about nature improve. Offering a detailed picture of the advancement of science, he sets a new agenda for the philosophy of science and for other "science studies" disciplines.

Download or read book An Urchin in the Storm Essays about Books and Ideas written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What pleasure to see the dishonest, the inept, and the misguided deftly given their due, while praise is lavished on the deserving—for reasons well and truly stated."—Kirkus Reviews Ranging as far as the fox and as deep as the hedgehog (the urchin of his title), Stephen Jay Gould expands on geology, biological determinism, "cardboard Darwinism," and evolutionary theory in this sparkling collection.

Download or read book Controversy in Victorian Geology written by James A. Secord and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secord gives a dazzlingly detailed account of this scientific trench warfare and its social consequences. One ends up with a marvellous feeling for the major taxonomic enterprises in Darwin's younger day: mapping, ordering, conquering 'taming the chaos" of the strata. All of these of course had social and imperial ramifications; and Secord mentions geology's moral appeal (in supporting a divinely-stratified Creation) to a beleaguered elite intent on subduing the lower orders. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book Leviathan and the Air Pump written by Steven Shapin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leviathan and the Air-Pump examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author of the political treatise Leviathan and vehement critic of systematic experimentation in natural philosophy, and Robert Boyle, mechanical philosopher and owner of the newly invented air-pump. The issues at stake in their disputes ranged from the physical integrity of the air-pump to the intellectual integrity of the knowledge it might yield. Both Boyle and Hobbes were looking for ways of establishing knowledge that did not decay into ad hominem attacks and political division. Boyle proposed the experiment as cure. He argued that facts should be manufactured by machines like the air-pump so that gentlemen could witness the experiments and produce knowledge that everyone agreed on. Hobbes, by contrast, looked for natural law and viewed experiments as the artificial, unreliable products of an exclusive guild. The new approaches taken in Leviathan and the Air-Pump have been enormously influential on historical studies of science. Shapin and Schaffer found a moment of scientific revolution and showed how key scientific givens--facts, interpretations, experiment, truth--were fundamental to a new political order. Shapin and Schaffer were also innovative in their ethnographic approach. Attempting to understand the work habits, rituals, and social structures of a remote, unfamiliar group, they argued that politics were tied up in what scientists did, rather than what they said. Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer use the confrontation between Hobbes and Boyle as a way of understanding what was at stake in the early history of scientific experimentation. They describe the protagonists' divergent views of natural knowledge, and situate the Hobbes-Boyle disputes within contemporary debates over the role of intellectuals in public life and the problems of social order and assent in Restoration England. In a new introduction, the authors describe how science and its social context were understood when this book was first published, and how the study of the history of science has changed since then.

Download or read book Defining the Modern Museum written by Lianne McTavish and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Defining the Modern Museum is a fascinating exploration of the museum as a cultural institution. Emphasizing museums' relationship to schools, libraries, and government agencies, this interdisciplinary study challenges long-standing assumptions about museums – revealing their messy, uncertain origins, and belying the standard narrative of their educational purpose having been corrupted by corporate goals. Using theoretical models and extensive archival research, Lianne McTavish examines the case of Canada's oldest continuing public museum, the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John. Focusing on the period between 1842 and the 1950s, McTavish addresses topics such as the transnational exchange of objects between museums, efforts by women to claim space within the organization, the creation of Carnegie libraries, and the rising status of curators. Shedding light on many topics of current interest, especially the commodification and globalization of museums, this study makes a lively contribution to museum studies and cultural studies.

Download or read book Great Geological Controversies written by Anthony Hallam and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition of the author's account of celebrated controversies in geology embraces many of the important ideas that have emerged since the birth of the subject. The two new chapters are on the emergence of stratigraphy in the 19th century and on the mass extinctions controversy.

Download or read book Sciences of the Earth written by Gregory A. Good and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-18 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The planet as seen by its inhabitants In two millenia, our knowledge of the planet and its natural laws and forces has undergone remarkable changes--from the religious belief of earth as the center of the universe to the modern astronomers' view that it is a mere speck in the cosmos. Now a first-of-its-kind reference work charts this remarkable intellectual progression in our evolving perception of the earth by surveying the history of geology, geography, geophysics, oceanography, meteorology, space science, and many other fields. Covers human understanding of the Earth in various times and cultures The Encyclopedia traces our understanding of the earth and its functioning throughout history, summarizing historical explanations of earthly occurrences, including explanations with no scientific basis. It presents the latest facts and theories, explains how our understanding of the earth has evolved, and shows why many outrageous and fanciful earlier ideas were accepted in their time. The coverage explores the physical phenomena that inform our knowledge, starting at the earth's core and extending outward through the mantle, crust, oceans, and atmosphere to the magnetosphere and beyond. Charts the evolution of our perceptions The primary focus of the Encyclopedia is the history of the study of the earth. It also discusses the institutions that advanced and shaped science and probes the interplay between science, practical applications, and social and political forces. The result is a unified historical overview of the earth across a wide canvas of time and place, from antiquity to the space age. Its wide-ranging articles summarize subjects as diverse as geography and imperialism, environmentalism, computers and meteorology, ozone formation theories since 1800, scientific rocketry, the Scopes trial, and much more. Special Features Shows how diverse disciplines, from geology to space science, fit together in a coherent view of the earth * Explains earlier ideas and theories in the context of the beliefs and scientific knowledge of their time * Spotlights important institutions that have shaped the history of science * Explores relationships between science, practical applications, and sociopolitical concerns * Provides a subject index and an index of scientists with birth/death dates

Download or read book Men Among the Mammoths written by A. Bowdoin Van Riper and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Van Riper recreates scientists' first arguments for human antiquity, placing these debates within the context of Victorian science. Using field notes, scientific reports, and previously unpublished letters, he shows also how the study of human prehistory brought together geologists, archeologists, and anthropologists in their first interdisciplinary scientific effort. A vivid account of how the discovery of human antiquity forced Victorians to redefine their assumptions about human evolution and the relationship of science to Christianity.

Download or read book Proceedings of the Twenty first Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society written by Martin Hahn and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 1346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the complete collection of peer-reviewed presentations at the 1999 Cognitive Science Society meeting, including papers, poster abstracts, and descriptions of conference symposia. For students and researchers in all areas of cognitive science.

Download or read book A Short History of Nearly Everything Special Illustrated Edition written by Bill Bryson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of the acclaimed bestseller is lavishly illustrated to convey, in pictures as in words, Bill Bryson’s exciting, informative journey into the world of science. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, the bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body, confronts his greatest challenge yet: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as his territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. The result is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Now, in this handsome new edition, Bill Bryson’s words are supplemented by full-color artwork that explains in visual terms the concepts and wonder of science, at the same time giving face to the major players in the world of scientific study. Eloquently and entertainingly described, as well as richly illustrated, science has never been more involving or entertaining.

Download or read book Transformations in Personhood and Culture After Theory written by Christie McDonald and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: