Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in Evolution

Everywhere there are characteristics of animals that do not want to fit into the theory of evolution anywhere. And man? Are we really the most adapted life-form on this planet? Today, more and more scientists who contradict the previous theory of evolution speak out. The theory fits the changes within the species, but it can no longer be reconciled with the inner workings of the cell. Some other influence that has so far escaped us is affecting evolution. It is called "Intelligent Design." Intelligent planning is suspected behind this.

Evolution is one of the most important processes in life. It not only explains the detailed history of life on earth, but its scope also extends into many aspects of our own contemporary behavior - who we are and how we got to be here, our psychology, our cultures - and greatly impacts modern advancements in medicine and conservation biology. Perhaps its most important claim for science is its ability to provide an overarching framework that integrates the many life sciences into a single unified whole. Yet, evolution has been, and continues to be, regarded with suspicion by many.

Despite efforts to sustain civilization, humanity faces existential threats from overpopulation, globalized trade and travel, urbanization, and global climate change. In A Darwinian Survival Guide, Daniel Brooks and Salvatore Agosta offer a novel—and hopeful—perspective on how to meet these tremendous challenges by changing the discourse from sustainability to survival. Darwinian evolution, the world’s only theory of survival, is the means by which the biosphere has persisted and renewed itself following past environmental perturbations, and it has never failed, they explain.

Resistance to malaria. Blue eyes. Lactose tolerance. What do all of these traits have in common? Every one of them has emerged in the last 10,000 years.

It seems likely that scientists will someday discover how life can emerge on habitable planets like the early Earth and Mars. In Origin of Life: What Everyone Needs to Know, David W. Deamer has written a comprehensive guide to the origin of life that is organized in three sections.

From the moment of creation to the emergence of a planet tailor-made for life, science tells a sacred story: a superintelligent Creator used His mathematical genius to convert lifeless equations into galaxies, planets, and people. His love has been visible throughout the process. Could our journey reflect thousands of random accidents with no divine guidance? Creation delivered impulses that filled the universe with galaxies and stars. Eliminate any one of those blueprints and the universe would have been stillborn.

How did human minds become so different from those of other animals? What accounts for our capacity to understand the way the physical world works, to think ourselves into the minds of others, to gossip, read, tell stories about the past, and imagine the future? These questions are not new: they have been debated by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionists, and neurobiologists over the course of centuries. One explanation widely accepted today is that humans have special cognitive instincts.

In Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, argues that beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of the fashion industry, nor a backlash against feminism - it's in our biology.

For most of us, the story of mammal evolution starts after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, but over the last 20 years, scientists have uncovered new fossils and used new technologies that have upended this story. In Beasts Before Us, paleontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, Synapsida, beginning at their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, over 300 million years ago. They made the world theirs long before the rise of dinosaurs.

How did our brains change over the course of evolution, and what did it mean for our ancestors? Why do we behave the way we do today? Evolutionary psychology is the only framework that allows us to fully understand the nuances of humans' motivations, emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. Our bodies have evolved over time, and so too have our brains.

Brian and Deborah Charlesworth provide a clear and concise summary of the process of evolution by natural selection, and how natural selection gives rise to adaptations and eventually, over many generations, to new species. They introduce the central concepts of the field of evolutionary biology, as they have developed since Darwin and Wallace on the subject, over 140 years ago, and discuss some of the remaining questions regarding processes.

Researchers of human behavior have identified an "orgasm gap": Men usually orgasm during intercourse, whereas women often do not. This book addresses this mystery. The two leading explanations are either that women are "psychologically broken"—Freud's theory—or badly designed—the "by-product theory." However, there is a much more compelling third explanation. Evolutionary biology, anatomy, physiology, and direct sex research suggest women have evolved under their own selection pressures and orgasm is a fitness-increasing consequence of such selective factors.

In this book, evolutionary psychologist Dennis Krebs explains how virtuous behaviors such as altruism, justice, honesty, loyalty, self-control, purity, and respect for authority, have evolved in humans and other species. He argues that the key to solving puzzles of morality—such as what it is, how we acquire moral traits, why we sometimes behave badly, and how we make moral decisions—lies in figuring out what adaptive functions moral traits served in early human environments and how they are influenced by social learning, culture, and strategic social interactions in the modern world.

This Very Short Introduction uncovers the history of our understanding of sexual selection, from Darwin's key insights to the modern day. Considering the investment animals place on reproduction, variation in mating systems, sexual conflict, and the origin of sexual dimorphism, authors Marlene Zuk and Leigh Simmons discuss questions such as whether females can really choose between males on aesthetic grounds and how sexual conflict is resolved in different species.

In Ancestors in Our Genome, molecular anthropologist Eugene E. Harris presents us with a complete and up-to-date account of the evolution of the human genome and our species. Written from the perspective of population genetics, and in simple terms, the book traces human origins back to their source among our earliest human ancestors, and explains many of the most intriguing questions that genome scientists are currently working to answer.

The open ocean, far from the shore and miles above the seafloor, is a vast and formidable habitat that is home to the most abundant life on our planet, from giant squid and jellyfish to anglerfish with bioluminescent lures that draw prey into their toothy mouths. Into the Great Wide Ocean takes listeners inside the peculiar world of the seagoing scientists who are providing tantalizing new insights into how the animals of the open ocean solve the problems of their existence.

There are few stories more remarkable than the evolution of life on earth. Where did humans come from? Where did life come from? New fields of study, such as molecular biology and astrobiology, are shedding remarkable new light on the origin of life and the origin of sex. In this Very Short Introduction Michael J. Benton covers all the main fossil groups, including dinosaurs, and the upheavals such as mass extinctions that have beset our planet and life on Earth.

With acuity, humor, and respect for human diversity, The Shortest History of Sex reveals where the many facets of our sexuality—chemical, anatomical, behavioral, social—come from. Chasing down our evolutionary family tree, from the first aquatic creatures to primate societies, David Baker sheds light on our baffling array of passions, impulses, and fetishes, and guides us toward a clear understanding of one of the deepest, most abiding forces of human nature.

Sex, after hunger, may be the most powerful motivating force in our lives. It drives us to seek intimate contact with others and to form relationships that may be fleeting or lifelong, blissful or troubled. Yet many mysteries surround sex and sexuality: Why don't we reproduce by virgin birth? Why does so much of our sexual behavior have nothing to do with reproduction? Why isn't everyone heterosexual? How does the brain create sexual arousal? How do sexual kinks develop? Is porn harmful? What is the relationship between sex and love?

Minding the Climate investigates this problem in the neuroscience of decision-making. Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, points to the evolution of the human brain during eons of resource scarcity. The brain adapted to prioritize short-term survival over more uncertain long-term outcomes. But the resulting behavioral architecture is poorly suited to the present, when scarcity is a lesser concern and slow-moving challenges like environmental issues present the greatest danger.