Category: History Philosophy On Science Nature

Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent,Christine Blondel

By Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent,Christine Blondel

Air-pumps, electric machines, colliding ivory balls, colored sparks, mechanical planetariums, magic mirrors, hot-air balloons - those are only a pattern of the units displayed in public demonstrations of technological know-how within the eighteenth century. private and non-private demonstrations of usual philosophy in Europe then differed greatly from modern-day unadorned and nameless laboratory experiments. technology used to be cultivated for a number of reasons in lots of diverse locations; clinical tools have been outfitted and used for investigative and didactic experiments in addition to for leisure and well known indicates. among the tradition of curiosities which characterised the 17th century and the excellence among educational and renowned technology that delicately emerged within the 19th, the eighteenth century used to be a interval while medical actions came about in a number of websites, starting from academies, and discovered societies to salons and well known festivals, outlets and streets. This selection of case reports describing public demonstrations in Britain, Germany, Italy and France exemplifies the big variety of settings for medical actions within the eu Enlightenment. jam-packed with sparks and scents, the essays increase broader matters in regards to the ways that glossy technological know-how proven its legitimacy and social acceptability. They aspect to 2 significant good points of the cultures of technology within the eighteenth-century: leisure and application. Experimental demonstrations have been attended by means of apothecaries and craftsmen for vocational reasons. whilst, that they had to slot in with the flavor of either well mannered society and industry tradition. Public demonstrations have been a favorite leisure for girls and gents and a ecocnomic task for software makers and booksellers.

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The Last Wolf: The Hidden Springs of Englishness by Robert Winder

By Robert Winder

It is frequently assumed that the nationwide identification needs to be an issue of values and ideas. yet in Robert Winder's brilliantly-written account it's a land equipped on a fortunate set of common elements: the island surroundings that made it maritime; the rain that fed the grass that nourished the sheep that supplied the wool, and the wheat fields that supplied its brownies and ale. Then got here the seams of iron and coal that made it an commercial giant.

In Bloody Foreigners Robert Winder informed the wealthy tale of immigration to Britain. Now, in The final Wolf, he spins an English story. vacationing the rustic, he appears for its hidden springs no longer in royal pageantry or politics, yet in panorama and history.

Medieval clergymen with their flocks of sheep . . . cathedrals outfitted by means of wool . . . the 1st cargo of coal to depart Newcastle . . . marital contests on a village eco-friendly . . . mock-Tudor supermarkets - the tale is studded with those and different English things.

And it begins through taking a look at an important factor England did not have: wolves.

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Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism by Sofie Lachapelle

By Sofie Lachapelle

Séances have been wildly renowned in France among 1850 and 1930, while individuals of most of the people and students alike became to the wondrous as a method of figuring out and explaining the realm. Sofie Lachapelle explores how 5 distinctive teams tried to exploit and legitimize séances: spiritists, who attempted to create a brand new technology; desirous about the non secular realm and the afterlife; occultists, who was hoping to attach old revelations with modern technological know-how; physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists, who constructed a pathology of supernatural reports; psychical researchers, who drew at the unexplained reviews of the general public to create a brand new box of analysis; and metapsychists, who tried to boost a brand new technology of yet-to-be understood ordinary forces.

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Plantations and Protected Areas: A Global History of Forest by Brett M. Bennett

By Brett M. Bennett

Today, the world's forests are threatened through worldwide warming, growing to be call for for wooden items, and lengthening strain to transparent tropical forests for agricultural use. financial globalization has enabled Western organisations to export bushes processing jobs and import affordable wooden items from constructing international locations. trees plantations of unique, fast-growing species offer an ever-larger volume of the world's wooden. In reaction, many nations have demonstrated wooded area parts protected against improvement. during this publication, Brett Bennett perspectives modern-day forestry concerns from a historic standpoint. The separation of wooden construction from the safety of forests, he indicates, stems from entangled environmental, social, political, and financial elements. This divergence -- pushed via the concomitant intensification of construction and construction of sizeable safe components -- is reshaping woodland administration structures either private and non-private. Bennett indicates that plantations and guarded parts developed from, after which undermined, an past built-in woodland administration process that sought either to provide trees and to preserve the surroundings. He describes the advance of the technological know-how and occupation of forestry in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe; discusses the twentieth-century construction of bushes plantations within the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia; and examines the controversies over deforestation that resulted in the institution of safe parts. Bennett argues that the issues linked to the bifurcation of woodland administration -- together with the lack of forestry wisdom essential to deal with huge ecosystems for varied reasons -- recommend extra built-in version will be preferable.

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On The Verge by Rebecca Costa

By Rebecca Costa

“There should be no higher virtue than sure bet of the longer term. now not in nature. now not in enterprise. no longer in governance.”

So starts off Rebecca Costa’s much-awaited exploration of foresight: “the crowning fulfillment of human ambition.” in keeping with Costa, advances in mammoth info, predictive analytics, genomics, synthetic intelligence, and different breakthroughs have made it attainable to pinpoint destiny effects with impressive accuracy—cracking the door to what Costa calls predaptation: the power to evolve prior to the fact. by no means prior to has the data had to stay clear of threat, get the leap sooner than others, or organize for the inevitable been so basically inside grasp.

Through attention-grabbing real-life examples, Costa unearths how expertise has introduced international locations, companies, and contributors to the sting of clairvoyance. but, our skill to behave on foreknowledge usually falls short—causing leaders to squander the benefit of preemption. To counteract this failure, Costa illuminates 12 rules of model, and predaptation, used to achieve fast-moving environments.

In the spirit of the easiest in renowned technology, On the Verge is a landmark exam of big-picture forces affecting society this day. Costa’s distinct sociobiological viewpoint, mixed together with her skill to mix humor, breaking technology, and insightful own tales, distinguishes her as some of the most vital girl idea leaders of our time.

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Escape from the Ivory Tower: A Guide to Making Your Science by Nancy Baron

By Nancy Baron

Most scientists and researchers aren’t ready to speak to the clicking or to policymakers—or to accommodate backlash. Many researchers have the horror tales to end up it. What’s transparent, in keeping with Nancy Baron, is that scientists, reporters and public policymakers come from diverse cultures. They persist with varied units of ideas, pursue varied targets, and converse their very own language. To successfully achieve reporters and public officers, scientists have to research new talents and principles of engagement. it doesn't matter what your area of expertise, the keys to good fortune are transparent pondering, realizing what you must say, realizing your viewers, and utilizing daily language to get your details across.
 
during this sensible and pleasing consultant to speaking technological know-how, Baron explains how you can have interaction your viewers and clarify why a selected discovering issues. She explores how one can ace your interview, advertise a paper, input the political fray, and use new media to hook up with your viewers. The ebook comprises suggestion from newshounds, choice makers, new media specialists, bloggers and a few of the millions of scientists who've participated in her conversation workshops. a few of the researchers she has labored with have long gone directly to develop into famous spokespeople for science-related concerns. Baron and her protégées describe the hazards and rewards of “speaking up,” the right way to take care of feedback, and the hyperlink among communications and management. the ultimate bankruptcy, ‘Leading the best way’ deals suggestions to scientists who are looking to turn into brokers of switch and make your technological know-how topic. no matter if you're an absolute newbie or a pro veteran seeking to hone your talents, get away From the Ivory Tower might help make your technological know-how understood, favored and maybe acted upon.

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Nylon and Bombs: DuPont and the March of Modern America by Pap A. Ndiaye,Elborg Forster

By Pap A. Ndiaye,Elborg Forster

What do nylon stockings and atomic bombs have in universal? DuPont. The chemical enterprise of DuPont de Nemours pioneered the improvement of either nylon and plutonium, enjoying an enormous position within the upward push of mass intake and the emergence of the infamous "military-industrial complex." during this attention-grabbing account of the lives and careers of Du Pont’s chemical engineers, Pap A. Ndiaye deftly illustrates the contribution of to the genesis of a dominant post–World conflict II "American version" connecting prosperity with security.

The customer and army dimensions of twentieth-century American historical past are usually studied individually. Ndiaye reunites them through analyzing Du Pont's improvement of nylon, which symbolized a brand new lifestyle, and plutonium, which was once synonymous with annihilation. Reflecting at the reviews and contributions of the company's engineers and physicists, Ndiaye strains Du Pont's transformation into one of many company types of yankee luck.

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Religion and the Challenges of Science by William Sweet,Richard Feist

By William Sweet,Richard Feist

Does technological know-how pose a problem to faith and non secular trust? this query has been a question of long-standing debate - and it maintains to trouble not just students in philosophy, theology, and the sciences, but additionally these serious about public academic coverage. This quantity presents history to the present 'science and faith' debate, but focuses besides on topics the place contemporary dialogue of the relation among technological know-how and faith has been quite concentrated.

The first subject offers with the heritage of the interrelation of technology and faith. the second one and 3rd subject matters take care of the consequences of modern paintings in cosmology, biology and so-called clever layout for faith and spiritual trust. The fourth subject matter is anxious with 'conceptual concerns' underlying, or implied, within the present debates, similar to: Are medical naturalism and faith suitable? Are technological know-how and faith our bodies of information or practices or either? Do faith and technological know-how provide conflicting fact claims?

By illuminating modern dialogue within the science-religion debate and through outlining the choices on hand in describing the relation among the 2, this quantity might be of curiosity to students and to contributors of the expert public alike.

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Gut Feminism (Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies) by Elizabeth A. Wilson

By Elizabeth A. Wilson

In intestine Feminism Elizabeth A. Wilson urges feminists to reconsider their resistance to organic and pharmaceutical info. Turning her consciousness to the intestine and melancholy, she asks what conceptual and methodological recommendations turn into attainable while feminist idea isn’t so instinctively antibiological. She examines learn on anti-depressants, placebos, transference, phantasy, consuming issues and suicidality with targets in brain: to teach how pharmaceutical facts could be beneficial for feminist concept, and to deal with the required function of aggression in feminist politics. Gut Feminism’s provocative problem to feminist thought is that it might be extra strong if it could possibly attend to organic information and tolerate its personal potential for harm.

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Anthropology of the Fetus: Biology, Culture, and Society by Sallie Han,Tracy K. Betsinger,Amy B. Scott,Rayna Rapp

By Sallie Han,Tracy K. Betsinger,Amy B. Scott,Rayna Rapp

As a organic, cultural, and social entity, the human fetus is a multifaceted topic which demands both varied views to totally comprehend. Anthropology of the Fetus seeks to accomplish this by way of bringing jointly experts in organic anthropology, archaeology, and cultural anthropology. members draw on learn in prehistoric, historical, and modern websites in Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North the USA to discover the organic and cultural phenomenon of the fetus, elevating methodological and theoretical matters with the final word aim of constructing a holistic anthropology of the fetus.

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