Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010
Vitalism is understood as impacting the history of the life sciences, medicine and philosophy, representing an epistemological challenge to the dominance of mechanism over the last 200 years, and partly revived with organicism in early theoretical biology. The contributions in this volume portray the history of vitalism from the end of the Enlightenment to the modern day, suggesting some reassessment of what it means both historically and conceptually. As such it includes a wide range of material, employing both historical and philosophical methodologies, and it is divided fairly evenly between 19th and 20th century historical treatments and more contemporary analysis. This volume presents a significant contribution to the current literature in the history and philosophy of science and the history of medicine.
Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy
This Open Access book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discu...
Oil Beach
"In this engaging interdisciplinary investigation, Christina Dunbar-Hester, a leading scholar in the area of democratic control of technologies, focuses on the relationships between commerce, environment, and nonhuman life forms in San Pedro Bay, which houses the contiguous ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. The harbor is a heavily industrialized area built atop a land- and waterscape that is important for wildlife, containing estuarial wetlands, the LA river mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet. This is a unique spot for industry too--this port complex is amongst the top-ten biggest container ports in the world, and the harbor is also home to major...
Beyond Mechanism
It has been said that new discoveries and developments in the human, social, and natural sciences hang "in the air" (Bowler, 1983; 2008) prior to their consummation. While neo-Darwinist biology has been powerfully served by its mechanistic metaphysic and a reductionist methodology in which living organisms are considered machines, many of the chapters in this volume place this paradigm into question. Pairing scientists and philosophers together, this volume explores what might be termed "the New Frontiers" of biology, namely contemporary areas of research that appear to call an updating, a supplementation, or a relaxation of some of the main tenets of the Modern Synthesis. Such areas of investigation include: Emergence Theory, Systems Biology, Biosemiotics, Homeostasis, Symbiogenesis, Niche Construction, the Theory of Organic Selection (also known as "the Baldwin Effect"), Self-Organization and Teleodynamics, as well as Epigenetics. Most of the chapters in this book offer critical reflections on the neo-Darwinist outlook and work to promote a novel synthesis that is open to a greater degree of inclusivity as well as to a more holistic orientation in the biological sciences.
Wilhelm Reich, Biologist
Wilhelm Reich’s experiments in the 1930s with cutting-edge light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography were considered discredited, but not because of shoddy lab technique, as has been claimed. Scientific opposition to Reich’s experiments, James Strick argues, grew out of resistance to his unorthodox sexual theories and Marxist leanings.
Life, Death, and Consciousness in the Long Nineteenth Century
This book explores how the writers, poets, thinkers, historians, scientists, dilettantes and frauds of the long-nineteenth century addressed the “limit cases” regarding human existence that medicine continuously uncovered as it stretched the boundaries of knowledge. These cases cast troubling and distorted shadows on the culture, throwing into relief the values, vested interests, and power relations regarding the construction of embodied life and consciousness that underpinned the understanding of what it was to be alive in the long nineteenth century. Ranging over a period from the mid-eighteenth century through to the first decade of the twentieth century—an era that has been called the ‘Age of Science’—the essays collected here consider the cultural ripple effects of those previously unimaginable revolutions in science and medicine on humanity’s understanding of being.
The Edge of Evolution
In this interdisciplinary work, author Ron Edwards offers an innovative rereading of H. G. Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau." Edwards utilizes his twenty-five years in biology and the ethics of animal research to examine the bioethical implications of Wells' work and its relevance to contemporary scientific and philosophical discussions. He tackles the myth of human exceptionalism, the notion that we are fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom. We must view ourselves, he argues, not as from animals, but as animals. The approachable tone is suitable for a wide audience of the scientifically curious. At the same time, great care is given to providing an accurate and conside...
Word Embeddings: Reliability & Semantic Change
Word embeddings are a form of distributional semantics increasingly popular for investigating lexical semantic change. However, typical training algorithms are probabilistic, limiting their reliability and the reproducibility of studies. Johannes Hellrich investigated this problem both empirically and theoretically and found some variants of SVD-based algorithms to be unaffected. Furthermore, he created the JeSemE website to make word embedding based diachronic research more accessible. It provides information on changes in word denotation and emotional connotation in five diachronic corpora. Finally, the author conducted two case studies on the applicability of these methods by investigating the historical understanding of electricity as well as words connected to Romanticism. They showed the high potential of distributional semantics for further applications in the digital humanities.
Incurable and Intolerable
Terminal illness and the pain and anguish it brings are experiences that have touched millions of people in the past and continue to shape our experience of the present. Hospital machines that artificially support life and monitor vital signs beg the question: Is there not anything that medical science can offer as solace? Incurable and Intolerable looks at the history of incurable illness from a variety of perspectives, including those of doctors, patients, families, religious counsel, and policy makers. This compellingly documented and well-written history illuminates the physical, emotional, social, and existential consequences of chronic disease and terminal illness, and offers an original look at the world of palliative medicine, politics, religion, and charity. Revealing the ways in which history can shed new light on contemporary thinking, Jason Szabo encourages a more careful scrutiny of today's attitudes, policies, and practices surrounding "imminent death" and its effects on society.
The Delight Makers
"Can you draw a clear line through American history from the Puritans to the "Nones" of today? On the surface, there is not much connective tissue between the former, who often serve as shorthand for a persistent religious fanaticism in the United States, and the almost one quarter of the population who now regularly check the "None" or "None of the above" box when responding to surveys of religious preference. But instead of seeing a disconnect between these two groups separated by time, historian Catherine Albanese insists there is a deep connection that spans the centuries. With a targeted romp through American history from the seventeenth century to the present, Albanese ties together th...
