What Species Mean
What Species Mean

Author: Julia D. Sigwart

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2018-10-29

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1498799388

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Everyone uses species. All human cultures, whether using science or not, name species. Species are the basic units for science, from ecosystems to model organisms. Yet, there are communication gaps between the scientists who name species, called taxonomists or systematists, and those who use species names—everyone else. This book opens the "black box" of species names, to explain the tricks of the name-makers to the name-users. Species are real, and have macroevolutionary meaning, and it follows that systematists use a broadly macroevolution-oriented approach in describing diversity. But scientific names are used by all areas of science, including many fields such as ecology that focus on timescales more dominated by microevolutionary processes. This book explores why different groups of scientists understand and use the names given to species in very different ways, and the consequences for measuring and understanding biodiversity. Key selling features: Explains the modern, multi-disciplinary approach to studying species evolution and species discovery, and the role of species names in diverse fields throughout the life sciences Documents the importance and urgent need for high-quality taxonomic work to address today’s most pressing problems Summarises controversies in combining different—sometimes quite different—datasets used to estimate global biodiversity Focusses throughout on a central theme—the disconnect between the makers and the users of names—and seeks to create the rhetorical foundation needed to bridge this disconnect Anticipates the future of taxonomy and its role in studies of global biodiversity

What Species Mean
What Species Mean

Author: Julia D. Sigwart

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2018-10-29

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0429859325

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Everyone uses species. All human cultures, whether using science or not, name species. Species are the basic units for science, from ecosystems to model organisms. Yet, there are communication gaps between the scientists who name species, called taxonomists or systematists, and those who use species names—everyone else. This book opens the "black box" of species names, to explain the tricks of the name-makers to the name-users. Species are real, and have macroevolutionary meaning, and it follows that systematists use a broadly macroevolution-oriented approach in describing diversity. But scientific names are used by all areas of science, including many fields such as ecology that focus on timescales more dominated by microevolutionary processes. This book explores why different groups of scientists understand and use the names given to species in very different ways, and the consequences for measuring and understanding biodiversity. Key selling features: Explains the modern, multi-disciplinary approach to studying species evolution and species discovery, and the role of species names in diverse fields throughout the life sciences Documents the importance and urgent need for high-quality taxonomic work to address today’s most pressing problems Summarises controversies in combining different—sometimes quite different—datasets used to estimate global biodiversity Focusses throughout on a central theme—the disconnect between the makers and the users of names—and seeks to create the rhetorical foundation needed to bridge this disconnect Anticipates the future of taxonomy and its role in studies of global biodiversity

Meanings as Species
Meanings as Species

Author: Mark Richard

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0192580566

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Mark Richard presents an original picture of meaning according to which a word's meaning is analogous to the biological lineages we call species. His primary thesis is that a word's meaning - in the sense of what one needs to track in order to be a competent speaker - is the collection of assumptions its users make in using it and expect their hearers to recognize as being made. Meaning is something that is spread across a population, inherited by each new generation of speakers from the last, and typically evolving in so far as what constitutes a meaning changes in virtue of the interactions of speakers with their (linguistic and social) environment. Meanings as Species develops and defends the analogy between the biological and the linguistic, and includes a discussion of the senses in which the processes of meaning change are and are not like evolution via natural selection. Richard argues that thinking of meanings as species supports Quine's insights about analyticity without rendering talk about meaning theoretically useless. He also discusses the relations between meaning as what the competent speaker knows about her language, meaning as the determinant of reference and truth conditions, and meaning qua what determines what sentence uses say. This book contains insightful discussions of a wide range of topics in the philosophy of language, including: relations between meaning and philosophical analysis, the project of 'conceptual engineering', the senses in which meaning is and is not compositional, the degree to which to which referential meaning is indeterminate, and what such indeterminacy might tells us about propositional attitudes like belief and assertion.

Atheists
Atheists

Author: Nick Spencer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-05-08

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1472902971

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The clash between atheism and religion has become the defining battle of the 21st century. Books on and about atheism retain high profile and popularity, and atheist movements on both sides of the Atlantic capture headlines with high-profile campaigns and adverts. However, very little has been written on the history of atheism, and this book fills that conspicuous gap. Instead of treating atheism just as a philosophical or scientific idea about the non-existence of God, Atheists: The Origin of the Species places the movement in its proper social and political context. Because atheism in Europe developed in reaction to the Christianity that dominated the continent's intellectual, social and political life, it adopted, adapted and reacted against its institutions as well as its ideas. Accordingly, the history of atheism is as much about social and political movements as it is scientific or philosophical ideas. This is the story not only of Hobbes, Hume, and Darwin, but also of Thomas Aitkenhead hung for blasphemous atheism, Percy Shelley expelled for adolescent atheism, and the Marquis de Sade imprisoned for libertine atheism; of the French revolutionary Terror and the Soviet League of the Militant Godless; of the rise of the US Religious Right and of Islamic terrorism. Looking at atheism in its full sociopolitical context helps explain why it has looked so very different in different countries. It also explains why there has been a recent upsurge in atheism, particularly in Britain and the US, where religion has unexpectedly come to play such a significant role in political affairs. This leads us to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion: we should expect to hear more about atheism in the future for the simple reason that God is back.

Principles of Biology
Principles of Biology

Author: Lisa Bartee

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781636350417

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The Principles of Biology sequence (BI 211, 212 and 213) introduces biology as a scientific discipline for students planning to major in biology and other science disciplines. Laboratories and classroom activities introduce techniques used to study biological processes and provide opportunities for students to develop their ability to conduct research.

The Dark Lord
The Dark Lord

Author: Thomas Harlan

Publisher: Tor Books

Published: 2016-01-12

Total Pages: 975

ISBN-13: 0765390817

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Tom Harlan brings his Oath of Empire series to a shattering conclusion in The Dark Lord. In what would be the 7th Century AD in our history, the Roman Empire still stands, supported by the twin pillars of the Legions and Thaumaturges of Rome. The Emperor of the West, the Augustus Galen Atreus, came to the aid of the Emperor of the East, the Avtokrator Heraclius, in his war with the Sassanad Emperor of Persia. But despite early victories, that war has not gone well, and now Rome is hard-pressed. Constantinople has fallen before the dark sorceries of the Lord Dahak and his legions of the living and dead. Now the new Emperor of Persia marches on Egypt, and if he takes that ancient nation, Rome will be starved and defeated. But there is a faint glimmer of hope. The Emperor Galen's brother Maxian is a great sorcerer, perhaps the equal of Dahak, lord of the seven serpents. He is now firmly allied with his Imperial brother and Rome. And though they are caught tight in the Dark Lord's net of sorcery, Queen Zoe of Palmyra and Lord Mohammed have not relinquished their souls to evil. Powerful, complex, engrossing --Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire series has taken fantasy readers by storm. The first three volumes, The Shadow of Ararat, The Gate of Fire, and The Storm of Heaven have been universally praised. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

God without Parts
God without Parts

Author: James E. Dolezal

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2011-11-09

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1621891097

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The doctrine of divine simplicity has long played a crucial role in Western Christianity's understanding of God. It claimed that by denying that God is composed of parts Christians are able to account for his absolute self-sufficiency and his ultimate sufficiency as the absolute Creator of the world. If God were a composite being then something other than the Godhead itself would be required to explain or account for God. If this were the case then God would not be most absolute and would not be able to adequately know or account for himself without reference to something other than himself. This book develops these arguments by examining the implications of divine simplicity for God's existence, attributes, knowledge, and will. Along the way there is extensive interaction with older writers, such as Thomas Aquinas and the Reformed scholastics, as well as more recent philosophers and theologians. An attempt is made to answer some of the currently popular criticisms of divine simplicity and to reassert the vital importance of continuing to confess that God is without parts, even in the modern philosophical-theological milieu.

Describing Species
Describing Species

Author: Judith E. Winston

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 9780231068246

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A basic practical manual for the process of describing new species, this desperately needed desk reference and guide to nomenclatural procedure and taxonomic writing serves as a Strunk & White of species description, covering both botanical and zoological codes of nomenclature.

Survival of the Friendliest
Survival of the Friendliest

Author: Brian Hare

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0399590676

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A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our secret to success as a species is our unique friendliness “Brilliant, eye-opening, and absolutely inspiring—and a riveting read. Hare and Woods have written the perfect book for our time.”—Cass R. Sunstein, author of How Change Happens and co-author of Nudge For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened? Since Charles Darwin wrote about “evolutionary fitness,” the idea of fitness has been confused with physical strength, tactical brilliance, and aggression. In fact, what made us evolutionarily fit was a remarkable kind of friendliness, a virtuosic ability to coordinate and communicate with others that allowed us to achieve all the cultural and technical marvels in human history. Advancing what they call the “self-domestication theory,” Brian Hare, professor in the department of evolutionary anthropology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University and his wife, Vanessa Woods, a research scientist and award-winning journalist, shed light on the mysterious leap in human cognition that allowed Homo sapiens to thrive. But this gift for friendliness came at a cost. Just as a mother bear is most dangerous around her cubs, we are at our most dangerous when someone we love is threatened by an “outsider.” The threatening outsider is demoted to sub-human, fair game for our worst instincts. Hare’s groundbreaking research, developed in close coordination with Richard Wrangham and Michael Tomasello, giants in the field of cognitive evolution, reveals that the same traits that make us the most tolerant species on the planet also make us the cruelest. Survival of the Friendliest offers us a new way to look at our cultural as well as cognitive evolution and sends a clear message: In order to survive and even to flourish, we need to expand our definition of who belongs.