Showing titles in Philosophy

We are living in the most moral period of our species’ history. Best-selling author Michael Shermer’s most accomplished and ambitious book to date demonstrates how the scientific way of thinking has made people, and society as a whole, more moral. Ever since the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment thinkers consciously applied the methods of science to solve social and moral problems.

From the author's monthly Scientific American columns. An eclectic, inspiring collection exploring a broad range of scientific thought from best-selling author and celebrated skeptic Michael Shermer.

Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: how do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the 15th century are both striking and prophetic: we have been here before.

With 750 million people living in villages, India has the largest rural population in the world. Based on his Indian experience, Dr Kalam recommends a sustainable and inclusive development system called PURA - Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas - to uplift the rural masses not by subsidies but through entrepreneurship with community participation. Dr Kalam cites the examples of individuals and institutions, in India and from across the world, who, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to make a difference, have successfully tapped into the potential of the rural masses.

What would it have been like to be an eyewitness to the Big Bang? In 2014, astronomers wielding BICEP2, the most powerful cosmology telescope ever made, revealed that they'd glimpsed the spark that ignited the Big Bang. Millions around the world tuned in to the announcement broadcast live from Harvard University, immediately igniting rumors of an imminent Nobel Prize. But had these cosmologists truly read the cosmic prologue or, swept up in Nobel dreams, had they been deceived by a galactic mirage?

The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. Drawing on extensive research with over a hundred leading thinkers in the UK—including Martin Rees, Brian Cox, Susan Greenfield, A.C. Grayling, Ray Tallis, Linda Woodhead, Steve Bruce, Adam Rutherford, Robin Dunbar, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and Iain McGilchrist—The Landscapes of Science and Religion takes the much-needed step of asking what science and religion actually are, before turning to the familiar question of how they relate to one another.

Does human life have any meaning? Does the question even make sense today? For centuries, the question of the meaning or purpose of human life was assumed by scholars and theologians to have a religious answer: Life has meaning because humans were made in the image of a good god. In the 19th century, however, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution changed everything - and the human organism was seen to be more machine than spirit.

In the best-selling and critically acclaimed Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance, Phillip Johnson took on the academic elites and exposed the misleading claims of evolutionary naturalism. Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds provides a new and powerful treatment of these issues for high-school students, parents, teachers, pastors, youth advisers, and ordinary listeners. Johnson aims not just to defeat a bad theory, but to defeat it in the right way - by opening minds to the truth.

The ABC of Relativity is still considered today, nearly 90 years after its first appearance, as an authoritative and accessible introduction to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. While there's nothing particularly easy about understanding the Theory of Relativity, many have found that Russell's explanation is easier to understand than Einstein's own writings on the topic. Russell covers topics such as time dilation and curved space-time, using non-scientific examples of train travel and aerial views of the terrain.

Recent polls report that 96-percent of Americans believe in God, and 73-percent believe that angels regularly visit Earth. Why is this? Why, despite the rise of science, technology, and secular education, are people turning to religion in greater numbers than ever before? Why do people believe in God at all?

The latest and most bitterly contested battle in the culture war is the controversy over Darwin and intelligent design. But much of what you've heard about it is wrong. Jonathan Wells, a battle-hardened veteran with doctorates in biology and theology, sets the record straight.

Science and politics have collaborated throughout human history and science is repeatedly invoked today in political debates, from pandemic management to climate change. Leading policy analyst Geoff Mulgan here calls attention to the growing frictions caused by the expanding—and unsolicited—authority being heaped upon science. As science increasingly competes with politics, a defined plan of cooperation is urgently needed.

The epic stories of our planet’s 4.54-billion-year history are written in strata―ages-old remnants of ancient seafloors, desert dunes, and riverbeds striping landscapes around the world. In this brilliantly original debut work, science writer Laura Poppick decodes strata to lead us on a journey through four global transformations that made our lives on Earth possible: the first accumulations of oxygen in the atmosphere; the deep freezes of "Snowball Earth"; the rise of mud on land and accompanying proliferation of plants; and the dinosaurs’ reign on a hothouse planet

Best-selling author Chris Mooney uses cutting-edge research to explain the psychology behind why today’s Republicans reject reality - it’s just part of who they are. From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy, and much more. Why won’t Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?

Leading-edge empirical observations are increasingly difficult to reconcile with "scientific" materialism, with analytic idealism—the notion that reality, while equally amenable to scientific inquiry, is fundamentally mental—a leading contender to replace it. In this book, the broad body of empirical evidence and reasoning in favor of analytic idealism is reviewed in an accessible manner. The resulting argument anticipates a historically imminent transition to a scientific worldview that regards mind, not matter, as the ground of all reality.

Nicolelis undertakes the first attempt to explain the entirety of human history, culture, and civilization based on a series of recently uncovered key principles of brain function. This new cosmology is centered around three fundamental properties of the human brain: its insurmountable malleability to adapt and learn; its exquisite ability to allow multiple individuals to synchronize their minds around a task, goal, or belief; and its incomparable capacity for abstraction.

Die Aphorismen der "fröhlichen Wissenschaft" befassen sich mit den unterschiedlichsten Themen des Lebens. In ihrer Tonalität kündigen sie Nietzsches "Also sprach Zarathustra" an. Faszinierend! Mit dabei: Ein pdf-Dokument mit Titelliste.

Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them—and still living them—today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called "modern myths." But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did.

Among all life on Earth, we alone experience rich moral emotions, follow complex rules governing how we treat one another, and engage in moral dialogue. But how did human morality evolve? And can humans become morally evolved? In A Better Ape, Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell draw on the latest research in the biological and social sciences to explain the key role that morality has played in human evolution.

Futurist Gerd Leonhard breaks new ground again by bringing together mankind’s urge to upgrade and automate everything - down to human biology itself - with our timeless quest for freedom and happiness.