Biology Under the Influence

Biology Under the Influence PDF Author: Richard Lewontin
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583671587
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

Book Description
How do we understand the world? While some look to the heavens for intelligent design, others argue that it is determined by information encoded in DNA. Science serves as an important activity for uncovering the processes and operations of nature, but it is also immersed in a social context where ideology influences the questions we ask and how we approach the material world. Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on the Coevolution of Nature and Society breaks from the confirms of determinism, offering a dialectical analysis for comprehending a dynamic social and natural world. In Biology Under the Influence, Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins provide a devastating critique of genetic determinism and reductionism within science while exploring a broad range of issues including the nature of science, biology, evolution, the environment, pubic health, and dialectics, They dismantle the ideology that attempts to naturalize social inequalities, unveil the alienation of science and nature, and illustrate how a dialectical position serves as a basis for grappling with historical developments and a world characterized by change. Biology Under the Influence brings together the illuminating essays of two prominent scientists who work to demystify and empower the public's understanding of science and nature.

Biology As Ideology

Biology As Ideology PDF Author: Richard Lewontin
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887848478
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Book Description
R. C. Lewontin is a prominent scientist -- a geneticist who teaches at Harvard -- yet he believes that we have placed science on a pedestal, treating it as an objective body of knowledge that transcends all other ways of knowing and all other endeavours. Lewontin writes in this collection of essays, which began their life as CBC Radio's Massey Lectures Series for 1990: "Scientists do not begin life as scientists, after all, but as social beings immersed in a family, a state, a productive structure, and they view nature through a lens that has been molded by their social experience... . Science, like the Church before it, is a supremely social institution, reflecting and reinforcing the dominant values and vices of society at each historical epoch." In Biology as Ideology Lewontin examines the false paths down which modern scientific ideology has led us. By admitting science's limitations, he helps us rediscover the richness of nature -- and appreciate the real value of science.

The Influence of Cooperative Bacteria on Animal Host Biology

The Influence of Cooperative Bacteria on Animal Host Biology PDF Author: Margaret J. McFall Ngai
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521834650
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
Broad-ranging and cross-disciplinary overview of the evolution and mechanisms of beneficial host-pathogen interactions.

Under the Influence

Under the Influence PDF Author: Rebecca Shannonhouse
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0375757163
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
Drawing on two centuries of important literary and historical writings, Rebecca Shannonhouse has shaped a remarkable collection of works that are, in turn, tragic, compelling, hilarious, and enlightening. Together, these selections comprise a profound and truthful portrait of the life experience known as addiction. Under the Influence offers classic selections from fiction, memoirs, and essays by authors such as Tolstoy, Cheever, Parker, and Poe. Also included are topical gems by writers who illuminate the causes, dangers, pleasures, and public perceptions surrounding people consumed by excessive use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Recent provocative works by Abraham Verghese, the Barthelme brothers, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, and others expand and modernize the definition of addiction to include sex, gambling, and food. Together, these incomparable writings give shape and meaning to the raw experience of uncontrollable urges. Shannonhouse’s recent anthology, Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness, is also available as a Modern Library Paperback.

Activist Biology

Activist Biology PDF Author: Regina Horta Duarte
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 081653201X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Activist Biology is the story of a group of biologists at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro who joined the drive to renew the Brazilian nation, claiming as their weapon the voice of their fledgling field. It offers a portrait of science as a creative and transformative pathway. This book will intrigue anyone fascinated by environmental history and Latin American political and social life in the 1920s and 1930s.

Not in Our Genes

Not in Our Genes PDF Author: Richard Lewontin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781608467273
Category : Behavior genetics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.

The Impact of Biology on Modern Psychiatry

The Impact of Biology on Modern Psychiatry PDF Author: Elliot Gershon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1468407783
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
viii beginning to understand-their action, as will be brought out in this symposium. During this same period another development took place in psychiatry, namely, social and community psychiatry, interpreted by some, incorrectly, in my opinion, as the antitheses of the biological approach. The whole area of the delivery of mental health services, which quickly became more of a political and social issue than a medical one, led to confusion, disillusionment, despair, and also soul-searching by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. The remarkable Pablo Picasso said, "the development of photography freed the artist to express his own creativity. " I have paraphrased Picasso's insightful remark, namely, "the development of biology and social and community psychiatry should free the psychiatrist to express his own creati vity as a physician. " It should allow him to regain his basic medi cal identity. As his medical identity becomes paramount, then the pejorative classification of psychiatrists into those "organically oriented" and those "dynamically-oriented" will no longer be valid. The psychiatrist, like his medical colleague, must be concerned with the psychological, psychosocial, biological, and technical aspects of psychiatry. The strengthening and development of the medical identity of the psychiatrist imposes increased responsibilities on him and on psychiatry as a medical discipline. On the one hand, he will have to become more of a neuro-bi_ gist and, on the other, more of a behavioral scientist.

Predisposed

Predisposed PDF Author: John R. Hibbing
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136281215
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Buried in many people and operating largely outside the realm of conscious thought are forces inclining us toward liberal or conservative political convictions. Our biology predisposes us to see and understand the world in different ways, not always reason and the careful consideration of facts. These predispositions are in turn responsible for a significant portion of the political and ideological conflict that marks human history. With verve and wit, renowned social scientists John Hibbing, Kevin Smith, and John Alford—pioneers in the field of biopolitics—present overwhelming evidence that people differ politically not just because they grew up in different cultures or were presented with different information. Despite the oft-heard longing for consensus, unity, and peace, the universal rift between conservatives and liberals endures because people have diverse psychological, physiological, and genetic traits. These biological differences influence much of what makes people who they are, including their orientations to politics. Political disputes typically spring from the assumption that those who do not agree with us are shallow, misguided, uninformed, and ignorant. Predisposed suggests instead that political opponents simply experience, process, and respond to the world differently. It follows, then, that the key to getting along politically is not the ability of one side to persuade the other side to see the error of its ways but rather the ability of each side to see that the other is different, not just politically, but physically. Predisposed will change the way you think about politics and partisan conflict. As a bonus, the book includes a "Left/Right 20 Questions" game to test whether your predispositions lean liberal or conservative.
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