Download or read book Biological Individuality written by Scott Lidgard and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-24 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Individuals are things that everybody knows—or thinks they do. Yet even scholars who practice or analyze the biological sciences often cannot agree on what an individual is and why. One reason for this disagreement is that the many important biological individuality concepts serve very different purposes—defining, classifying, or explaining living structure, function, interaction, persistence, or evolution. Indeed, as the contributors to Biological Individuality reveal, nature is too messy for simple definitions of this concept, organisms too quirky in the diverse ways they reproduce, function, and interact, and human ideas about individuality too fraught with philosophical and historical meaning. Bringing together biologists, historians, and philosophers, this book provides a multifaceted exploration of biological individuality that identifies leading and less familiar perceptions of individuality both past and present, what they are good for, and in what contexts. Biological practice and theory recognize individuals at myriad levels of organization, from genes to organisms to symbiotic systems. We depend on these notions of individuality to address theoretical questions about multilevel natural selection and Darwinian fitness; to illuminate empirical questions about development, function, and ecology; to ground philosophical questions about the nature of organisms and causation; and to probe historical and cultural circumstances that resonate with parallel questions about the nature of society. Charting an interdisciplinary research agenda that broadens the frameworks in which biological individuality is discussed, this book makes clear that in the realm of the individual, there is not and should not be a direct path from biological paradigms based on model organisms through to philosophical generalization and historical reification.
Download or read book The Limits of the Self written by Thomas Pradeu and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immunology asserts that an individual can be defined through self and nonself. Thomas Pradeu argues that this theory is inadequate, because immune responses to self constituents and immune tolerance of foreign entities are the rule, not the exception.
Download or read book Molecular Basis of Memory written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This special volume of Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science provides a current overview of how memory is processed in the brain. A broad range of topics are presented by leaders in the field, ranging from brain circuitry to synaptic plasticity to the molecular machinery that contributes to the brain's ability to maintain information across time. Memory systems in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala are considered as well. In addition, the volume covers recent contributions to our understanding of memory from in vivo imaging, optogenetic, electrophysiological, biochemical and molecular biological studies. - Articles from world renowned experts in memory - Covering topics from signaling, epigenetic, RNA translation to plasticity - Methodological approaches include molecular and cellular, behavioral, electrophysiological, optogenetic and functional imaging
Download or read book Free and Unequal written by Roger John Williams and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Biological Basis of Individuality written by Leo Loeb and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Selfish Gene written by Richard Dawkins and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinshiptheory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. 'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science
Download or read book Biological Bases of Individual Behavior written by Vladimir Dmitrievich Nebylit͡syn and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Biological Individuality written by Jack Wilson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-08-28 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a book of interest to philosophers of biology, metaphysicians, and biologists."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book From Neurons to Neighborhoods written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-11-13 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.
Download or read book The Biological Mind written by Alan Jasanoff and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pioneering neuroscientist argues that we are more than our brains To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact. This blinds us to the physical realities of mental function. We ignore bodily influences on our psychology, from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the gut, and overlook the ways that the environment affects our behavior, via factors varying from subconscious sights and sounds to the weather. As a result, we alternately overestimate our capacity for free will or equate brains to inorganic machines like computers. But a brain is neither a soul nor an electrical network: it is a bodily organ, and it cannot be separated from its surroundings. Our selves aren't just inside our heads -- they're spread throughout our bodies and beyond. Only once we come to terms with this can we grasp the true nature of our humanity.
Download or read book Individuality and Entanglement written by Herbert Gintis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly transdisciplinary account of some fundamental characteristics of human societies and behavior In this book, acclaimed economist Herbert Gintis ranges widely across many fields—including economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, moral philosophy, and biology—to provide a rigorous transdisciplinary explanation of some fundamental characteristics of human societies and social behavior. Because such behavior can be understood only through transdisciplinary research, Gintis argues, Individuality and Entanglement advances the effort to unify the behavioral sciences by developing a shared analytical framework—one that bridges research on gene-culture coevolution, the rational-actor model, game theory, and complexity theory. At the same time, the book persuasively demonstrates the rich possibilities of such transdisciplinary work. Everything distinctive about human social life, Gintis argues, flows from the fact that we construct and then play social games. Indeed, society itself is a game with rules, and politics is the arena in which we affirm and change these rules. Individuality is central to our species because the rules do not change through inexorable macrosocial forces. Rather, individuals band together to change the rules. Our minds are also socially entangled, producing behavior that is socially rational, although it violates the standard rules of individually rational choice. Finally, a moral sense is essential for playing games with socially constructed rules. People generally play by the rules, are ashamed when they break the rules, and are offended when others break the rules, even in societies that lack laws, government, and jails. Throughout the book, Gintis shows that it is only by bringing together the behavioral sciences that such basic aspects of human behavior can be understood.
Download or read book Behave written by Robert M. Sapolsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
Download or read book Biological Bases of Individual Behavior written by V. D. Nebylitsyn and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological Bases of Individual Behavior contains a mixture of papers from East and West. The book can be organized into two parts. The articles in the first part, which might broadly be termed ""physiological"", examine a number of questions relating to the physiological constitution and to methods of measuring the properties of the nervous system. This section opens with one of Teplov's last papers, which contains a lucid exposition of the main results of research carried out in 1964 in the laboratory he directed. The other articles in this section elucidate the use of electroencephalographic and Chronometrie methods of studying the properties of the nervous system; examine problems of sensitivity and ""partiality"" in the manifestation of the basic properties; and present the results of experiments conducted to study the correlations between certain properties of the nervous system and features of the human constitution, as well as between age and neurodynamic factors. The second part of the volume may be described as psychophysiological. It consists of articles which examine the possible physiological mechanisms of individual psychological features of behavior. Many are devoted to either experimental or theoretical analysis of the neurophysiological bases of the personality dimension of extraversisn-introversion.
Download or read book A Model for Intelligence written by H.J. Eysenck and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: with contributions by numerous experts
Download or read book From Molecules to Minds written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-12-07 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neuroscience has made phenomenal advances over the past 50 years and the pace of discovery continues to accelerate. On June 25, 2008, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders hosted more than 70 of the leading neuroscientists in the world, for a workshop titled "From Molecules to Minds: Challenges for the 21st Century." The objective of the workshop was to explore a set of common goals or "Grand Challenges" posed by participants that could inspire and rally both the scientific community and the public to consider the possibilities for neuroscience in the 21st century. The progress of the past in combination with new tools and techniques, such as neuroimaging and molecular biology, has positioned neuroscience on the cusp of even greater transformational progress in our understanding of the brain and how its inner workings result in mental activity. This workshop summary highlights the important issues and challenges facing the field of neuroscience as presented to those in attendance at the workshop, as well as the subsequent discussion that resulted. As a result, three overarching Grand Challenges emerged: How does the brain work and produce mental activity? How does physical activity in the brain give rise to thought, emotion, and behavior? How does the interplay of biology and experience shape our brains and make us who we are today? How do we keep our brains healthy? How do we protect, restore, or enhance the functioning of our brains as we age?
Download or read book The Biological Foundations of Bioethics written by Tim Lewens and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much recent thought on the ethics of new biomedical technologies, and work in ethics and political philosophy more generally, is committed to hidden and contestable views about the nature of biological reality. This selection of essays by Tim Lewens, a leading expert in the field, teases out these biological foundations of bioethical writing and subjects them to scrutiny. The topics covered include human enhancement, the risks of technical progress, the alleged moral threat of synthetic biology, the reality of human nature, the relevance of evolutionary psychology to social policy, the nature of the distinction between health and disease, and justice in healthcare decision-making.
Download or read book Human Natures written by Paul R. Ehrlich and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-12-31 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we behave the way we do? Biologist Paul Ehrlich suggests that although people share a common genetic code, these genes "do not shout commands at us...at the very most, they whisper suggestions." He argues that human nature is not so much result of genetic coding; rather, it is heavily influenced by cultural conditioning and environmental factors. With personal anecdotes, a well-written narrative, and clear examples, Human Natures is a major work of synthesis and scholarship as well as a valuable primer on genetics and evolution that makes complex scientific concepts accessible to lay readers.
