Biology As Social Weapon
Author: Pearson Custom Publishing
Publisher:
Published: 1977-01-01
Total Pages: 160
ISBN-13: 9780808758310
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Lanterna Rally
eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Biology as a Social Weapon
Author: Ann Arbor Science for the People Editorial Collective
Publisher: Burgess International Group
Published: 1977
Total Pages: 154
ISBN-13: 9780808701385
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Biology as a Social Weapon
Science as Social Knowledge
Author: Helen E. Longino
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-03-31
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 0691209758
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Conventional wisdom has it that the sciences, properly pursued, constitute a pure, value-free method of obtaining knowledge about the natural world. In light of the social and normative dimensions of many scientific debates, Helen Longino finds that general accounts of scientific methodology cannot support this common belief. Focusing on the notion of evidence, the author argues that a methodology powerful enough to account for theories of any scope and depth is incapable of ruling out the influence of social and cultural values in the very structuring of knowledge. The objectivity of scientific inquiry can nevertheless be maintained, she proposes, by understanding scientific inquiry as a social rather than an individual process. Seeking to open a dialogue between methodologists and social critics of the sciences, Longino develops this concept of "contextual empiricism" in an analysis of research programs that have drawn criticism from feminists. Examining theories of human evolution and of prenatal hormonal determination of "gender-role" behavior, of sex differences in cognition, and of sexual orientation, the author shows how assumptions laden with social values affect the description, presentation, and interpretation of data. In particular, Longino argues that research on the hormonal basis of "sex-differentiated behavior" involves assumptions not only about gender relations but also about human action and agency. She concludes with a discussion of the relation between science, values, and ideology, based on the work of Habermas, Foucault, Keller, and Haraway.
The Richness of Life
Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 684
ISBN-13: 9780393064988
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This spotlight on an extraordinary mind collects the most entertaining and enlightening writings by the beloved paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and celebrant of the wonder of life. 20 illustrations.
Animal Weapons
Author: Douglas J. Emlen
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2014-11-11
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 0805094504
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Emlen takes us outside the lab and deep into the forests and jungles where he's been studying animal weapons in nature for years, to explain the processes behind the most intriguing and curious examples of extreme animal weapons. As singular and strange as some of the weapons we encounter on these pages are, we learn that similar factors set their evolution in motion. Emlen uses these patterns to draw parallels to the way we humans develop and employ our own weapons, and have since battle began.
The Social Meaning of Modern Biology
Author: Howard Kaye
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 1351473956
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Social Meaning of Modern Biology analyzes the cultural significance of recurring attempts since the time of Darwin to extract social and moral guidance from the teachings of modern biology. Such efforts are often dismissed as ideological defenses of the social status quo, of the sort wrongly associated with nineteenth-century social Darwinism. Howard Kaye argues they are more properly viewed as culturally radical attempts to redefine who we are by nature and thus rethink how we should live. Despite the scientific and philosophical weaknesses of arguments that "biology is destiny," and their dehumanizing potential, in recent years they have proven to be powerfully attractive. They will continue to be so in an age enthralled by genetic explanations of human experience and excited by the prospect of its biological control.In the ten years since the original edition of The Social Meaning of Modern Biology was published, changes in both science and society have altered the terms of debate over the nature of man and human culture. Kaye's epilogue thoroughly examines these changes. He discusses the remarkable growth of ethology and sociobiology in their study of animal and human behavior and the stunning progress achieved in neuropsychology and behavioral genetics. These developments may appear to bring us closer to long-sought explanations of our physical, mental, and behavioral "machinery." Yet, as Kaye demonstrates, attempts to use such explanations to unify the natural and social sciences are mired in self-contradictory accounts of human freedom and moral choice. The Social Meaning of Modern Biology remains a significant study in the field of sociobiology and is essential reading for sociologists, biologists, behavioral geneticists, and psychologists.
Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science
Author: Alexander Rosenberg
Publisher: JHU Press
Published: 2019-12-01
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 1421435438
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Originally published in 1981. Why have the social sciences in general failed to produce results with the ever-increasing explanatory power and predictive strength of the natural sciences? In seeking an answer to this question, Alexander Rosenberg, a philosopher of science, plunges into the controversial discipline of sociobiology. Sociobiology, Rosenberg asserts, deals in those forces governing human behavior that traditional social science has unsuccessfully attempted to slip between: neurophysiology, on the one hand, and selective forces, on the other. Unlike previous works in the two fields it straddles, Rosenberg's book brings thinking about the nature of scientific theorizing to bear on the most traditional issues in the philosophy of social science. The author finds that the subjects of conventional social science do not reflect the operation of laws that social scientists are equipped to discover. The author argues that much of the debate surrounding sociobiology is irrelevant to the issue of its ultimate success. Although largely conceptual, the book is an unequivocal defense of this new theory in the explanation of human behavior.
Chemical and Biological Weapons in Our Times
Author: Herbert M. Levine
Publisher:
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 127
ISBN-13: 9780531118528
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Examines the history and development of chemical and biological weapons and discusses their proliferation, association with terrorism, and efforts to control their use.
Unifying Biology
Author: Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-11-10
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 0691221782
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Unifying Biology offers a historical reconstruction of one of the most important yet elusive episodes in the history of modern science: the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s. For more than seventy years after Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, it was hotly debated by biological scientists. It was not until the 1930s that opposing theories were finally refuted and a unified Darwinian evolutionary theory came to be widely accepted by biologists. Using methods gleaned from a variety of disciplines, Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis argues that the evolutionary synthesis was part of the larger process of unifying the biological sciences. At the same time that scientists were working toward a synthesis between Darwinian selection theory and modern genetics, they were, according to the author, also working together to establish an autonomous community of evolutionists. Smocovitis suggests that the drive to unify the sciences of evolution and biology was part of a global philosophical movement toward unifying knowledge. In developing her argument, she pays close attention to the problems inherent in writing the history of evolutionary science by offering historiographical reflections on the practice of history and the practice of science. Drawing from some of the most exciting recent approaches in science studies and cultural studies, she argues that science is a culture, complete with language, rituals, texts, and practices. Unifying Biology offers not only its own new synthesis of the history of modern evolution, but also a new way of "doing history."
