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Author: B. Comfort
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1996-04-12
Total Pages: 159
ISBN-13: 0393351416
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Levelheaded septuagenarian Tish McWhinny, seen before in The Cashmere Kid, has her hands full in this delightful caper set in Vermont." --Publishers Weekly
Author: Ray Hyman
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 1989-04
Total Pages: 448
ISBN-13: 161592759X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEver since the Society for Psychical Research was founded over a hundred years ago, parapsychologists have been attempting to prove the existence of paranormal phenomena - things like clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, and remote viewing. This research into what is now often called "psi" has become increasingly technical. "Controlled" laboratory experiments have replaced "systematic surveys of spontaneous occurrences"; complicated statistical analyses have replaced anecdotal data. In short, psychical research has aspired to the standards of "hard science."With what results? Ray Hyman is supremely qualified to say. A research psychologist held in the highest esteem by both parapsychologists and skeptics, Ray Hyman here reviews the history and methods of psychical research. The Elusive Quarry is Hyman''s fascinating, fair-minded critique of the field, a book designed not to debunk but to discern.In Part 1, "Parapsychology," Hyman gives us a historical overview: Over the past hundred years, what have been the strongest claims made for the paranormal? Hyman gives close scrutiny to what have been called "ganzfeld experiments," a body of research considered by parapsychologists to be especially compelling. Part 2, "Scientists and the Paranormal," focuses on the scientists themselves - from Michael Faraday and Sir William Crookes in the last century to Helmut Schmidt and his recent work with random-event generators. Scientists have been interacting with an admittedly unique group of people: psychics. Are their methods of testing and reporting appropriate for the phenomena under examination?Hyman steps outside of the laboratory for his book''s third part, "Psychic Phenomena," and evaluates the claims of "water witching," occult healing, and remote viewing. In doing so, he demonstrates that one''s interpretation of scientific data is strongly affected by one''s underlying belief - or lack of belief - in paranormal phenomena.In Part 4, "The Psychology of Belief," Hyman vividly explains "cold reading" - that ability psychics have to convince strangers that they know all about them. It''s an ability anybody can develop, Hyman says. The psychology is common, not psychic.
Author: Ray Hyman
Publisher:
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 456
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHyman (psychology, U. of Oregon) critiques and analyzes the rationale, protocol, and construction of parapsychological experimentation. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author: Daniel C. Dennett
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2006-09-08
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 0262250721
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the years since Daniel Dennett's influential Consciousness Explained was published in 1991, scientific research on consciousness has been a hotly contested battleground of rival theories—"so rambunctious," Dennett observes, "that several people are writing books just about the tumult." With Sweet Dreams, Dennett returns to the subject for "revision and renewal" of his theory of consciousness, taking into account major empirical advances in the field since 1991 as well as recent theoretical challenges. In Consciousness Explained, Dennett proposed to replace the ubiquitous but bankrupt Cartesian Theater model (which posits a privileged place in the brain where "it all comes together" for the magic show of consciousness) with the Multiple Drafts Model. Drawing on psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, he asserted that human consciousness is essentially the mental software that reorganizes the functional architecture of the brain. In Sweet Dreams, he recasts the Multiple Drafts Model as the "fame in the brain" model, as a background against which to examine the philosophical issues that "continue to bedevil the field." With his usual clarity and brio, Dennett enlivens his arguments with a variety of vivid examples. He isolates the "Zombic Hunch" that distorts much of the theorizing of both philosophers and scientists, and defends heterophenomenology, his "third-person" approach to the science of consciousness, against persistent misinterpretations and objections. The old challenge of Frank Jackson's thought experiment about Mary the color scientist is given a new rebuttal in the form of "RoboMary," while his discussion of a famous card trick, "The Tuned Deck," is designed to show that David Chalmers's Hard Problem is probably just a figment of theorists' misexploited imagination. In the final essay, the "intrinsic" nature of "qualia" is compared with the naively imagined "intrinsic value" of a dollar in "Consciousness—How Much is That in Real Money?"
Author: Leanne Schroder
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2015-09-16
Total Pages: 346
ISBN-13: 9781514256374
DOWNLOAD EBOOKElusive Quarry is a cozy mystery with heart! Tam has just given birth after fighting a dangerous criminal organization-but she is given no time to rest. The President of Iceland's daughter is kidnapped, thrusting Tam and crew back into a flurry of adventure and intrigue as they pursue the trail of villains affiliated with the vile Golden Triads. Along the way they endure rigorous new training, forge new relationships, and encounter dangerous romances all while struggling to maintain a balance between saving the world, and recovering their personal lives.
Author: Brian Fagan
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-09-26
Total Pages: 493
ISBN-13: 0300231881
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn archaeologist examines humanity’s last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilization. In this history of fishing—not as sport but as sustenance—archaeologist and best-selling author Brian Fagan argues that fishing was an indispensable and often overlooked element in the growth of civilization. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded movement. It frequently required a search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated movement and discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food—lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting—for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. This history of the long interaction of humans and seafood tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed human settlement, rising social complexity, the development of cities, and ultimately the modern world. “A tour-de-force . . . Achieves its goal of putting fishing on par with hunter-gathering and agriculture in the history of human civilization.” —Leon Vlieger, Natural History Book Service “A valuable book as well as an interesting one . . . Fagan succeeds in providing an admirable primer for the enthusiast and a welcome tool for the historian.” —Economist “A unique panoramic survey of the field.” —Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History “Gently scholarly, elegant . . . A compelling picture of how fishing was so integral in each society’s development. A multilayered, nuanced tour of “fishing societies throughout the world” and across millennia.” —Kirkus Reviews
Author: Peter Burke
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-03-02
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 1351910000
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe concept of cultural history has in the last few decades come to the fore of historical research into early modern Europe. Due in no small part to the pioneering work of Peter Burke, the tools of the cultural historian are now routinely brought to bear on every aspect of history, and have transformed our understanding of the past. First published in 1978, this study examines the broad sweep of pre-industrial Europe's popular culture. From the world of the professional entertainer to the songs, stories, rituals and plays of ordinary people, it shows how the attitudes and values of the otherwise inarticulate shaped - and were shaped by - the shifting social, religious and political conditions of European society between 1500 and 1800. This third edition of Peter Burke's groundbreaking study has been published to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the book's publication in 1978. It provides a new introduction reflecting the growth of cultural history, and its increasing influence on 'mainstream' history, as well as an extensive supplementary bibliography which further adds to the information about new research in the area.
Author: H. Trawick Ward
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2018-06-15
Total Pages: 334
ISBN-13: 146964777X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNorth Carolina's written history begins in the sixteenth century with the voyages of Sir Walter Raleigh and the founding of the ill-fated Lost Colony on Roanoke Island. But there is a deeper, unwritten past that predates the state's recorded history. The region we now know as North Carolina was settled more than 10,000 years ago, but because early inhabitants left no written record, their story must be painstakingly reconstructed from the fragmentary and fragile archaeological record they left behind. Time before History is the first comprehensive account of the archaeology of North Carolina. Weaving together a wealth of information gleaned from archaeological excavations and surveys carried out across the state--from the mountains to the coast--it presents a fascinating, readable narrative of the state's native past across a vast sweep of time, from the Paleo-Indian period, when the first immigrants to North America crossed a land bridge that spanned the Bering Strait, through the arrival of European traders and settlers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Author: Nick Griffiths
Publisher: Legend Press Ltd
Published: 2009-11-19
Total Pages: 236
ISBN-13: 1907461132
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe author of Dalek I Loved You charts his travels through England and Wales tracking down locations used in Doctor Who, both classic and new. Being an odd kind of show, Doctor Who’s locations too are odd. This is no glamorous trip. Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, anyone? A flooded china clay pit in Cornwall? As he travels, so Nick Griffiths discovers another side to his well-trodden country, which is no less evocative. Then he goes to the pub. As in his previous memoir Dalek I Loved You, the travel writing is backed up by Nick’s childhood reminiscences and contemporary musings. A companion website offers photographs from the trip, a Google map of the locations, and details of the nearest pub. In this innovative way, readers are invited to follow in his footsteps. Who Goes There isn’t just for Who fans, it’s a very funny book for anyone who fancies a trip off the beaten path. Praise for Dalek I Loved You “A very funny book for anyone who grew up wearing Tom Baker underpants. I know I did.”—David Tennant “An unadulterated nostalgia-fest written with fun, wit and love.”—Doctor Who Magazine “He conjures up just how mind-blowing it was for an ordinary suburban kid to be transported to a realm of danger and rampant sci-fi imaginings.”—Financial Times “If I am getting carried away, it is the fault of Griffiths’s awfully charming memoir of boyhood and Doctor Who, with its deft evocations of eight-year-old invincibility and embarrassing school discos as well as arguments about Cybermen vs Autons or Jon Pertwee vs Tom Baker. Griffiths’s chatty, self-deprecating style is disarming.”—The Guardian
