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This book explores the strikingly similar ways in which information is encoded in nonverbal man-made signals (e.g., traffic lights and tornado sirens) and animal-evolved signals (e.g., color patterns and vocalizations). The book also considers some coding principles for reducing certain unwanted redundancies and explains how desirable redundancies enhance communication reliability. Jack Hailman believes this work pioneers several aspects of analyzing human and animal communication. The book is the first to survey man-made signals as a class. It is also the first to compare such human-devised systems with signaling in animals by showing the highly similar ways in which the two encode informat...
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This volume is devoted principally to the theme of behavioral develop ment. The study of ontogeny has attracted some of the most bitter and protracted controversies in the whole field of ethology and psychology. This is partly because the arguments have reflected more general and continuing ideological battles about nature and nurture. In the opening essay, Oppenheim shows how these debates have recurred in much the same form over the last century. His chapter also brings out a more worrying feature of such argument. He demonstrates that authors who are well known for their strongly held partisan views have written in much more balanced ways than is usually admitted. Although the ex cluded middle is familiar enough in academic argument, the dynamic tensions actually present in developing systems may be particularly prone to polarize debate about what is actually happening. This point is elegantly explored by Oyama in her essay on her concept of maturation.
Psychology Library Editions: Comparative Psychology (16 Volume set) brings together a number of titles which explore animal behaviour and learning, some in isolation but mostly comparing it with human behaviour. Research in this area looks at many different issues, using various methods and examines species from insects to primates. The series of previously out-of-print titles, originally published between 1928 and 1997, with the majority from the 1970s and 1980s, includes contributions from many highly respected authors.
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Principles of Scientific Sociology represents a major attempt to redirect the course of contemporary sociological thought. It is clear, well-organized, innovative, and original in its discussion of the context and methods of sociology conceived as a natural science. Wallace delineates the subject matter of sociology, classifies its variables, presents a logic of inquiry, and advocates the use of this logic for the acceptance or rejection of hypotheses or theories and for the solving of human problems. Social scientists, including political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, economists, social psychologists, and students of social phenomena among nonhumans, will find this ...
Florida Scrub Jays are an excellent example of a cooperative-breeding species, in which adult birds often help raise offspring not their own. For more than a decade Glen E. Woolfenden and John W. Fitzpatrick studied a marked population of these birds in an attempt to establish a demographic base for understanding the phenomenon of "helping at the nest." By studying both population biology and behavior, the authors found that habitat restraints, rather than kin selection, are the main source of the behavior of Florida Scrub Jays: the goal of increasing the number of close relatives other than descendants in future generations is of relatively minor importance in their cooperative-breeding behavior. The Florida Scrub Jay lives only in the Florida oak scrub. All acceptable habitat is constantly filled with breeders. Each year about half of the pairs are assisted by one to several nonbreeding helpers. This book provides extensive data on fecundity, survivorship, relatedness, and dispersal to establish the demographic milieu and to address questions arising out of observed helping behavior--whom, how, when, and why the helpers help.
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A few decades ago mathematics played a modest role in life sciences. Today, however, a great variety of mathematical methods is applied in biology and medicine. Practically every mathematical procedure that is useful in physics, chemistry, engineering, and economics has also found an important application in the life sciences. The past and present training of life scientists does by no means reflect this development. However, the impact ofthe fast growing number of applications of mathematical methods makes it indispensable that students in the life sciences are offered a basic training in mathematics, both on the undergraduate and the graduate level. This book is primarily designed as a textbook for an introductory course. Life scientists may also use it as a reference to find mathematical methods suitable to their research problems. Moreover, the book should be appropriate for self-teaching. It will also be a guide for teachers. Numerous references are included to assist the reader in his search for the pertinent literature.
From the reviews: "...Here we have a book which we can wholeheartedly suggest. The mathematics is sound and pared to essentials; the examples are an impressive, well-chosen selection from the biomathematics literature, and the problem sets provide both useful exercises and some fine introductions to the art of modeling... Batschelet has written an introduction to biomathematics which is notable for its clarity - not only a clarity of presentation, but also a clarity of purpose, backed by a sure grasp of the field..." #Bulletin of Mathematical Biology#1 "For research workers in the biomedical field who feel a need for freshening up their knowledge in mathematics, but so far have always been f...