The so-called science wars pit science against culture, and nowhere is the struggle more contentious--or more fraught with paradox--than in the burgeoning realm of genetics. A constructive response, a
Human genetic enhancement, examined from the standpoint of the new field of political bioethics, displaces the age-old question of truth: What is human nature? This book displaces that question with another: What kind of human nature should humans want to create for themselves? To answer that question, this book answers two others: What constraints should limit the applications of rapidly developing biotechnologies? What could possibly form the basis for corresponding public policy in a democratic society? Benjamin Gregg focuses on the distinctly political dimensions of human nature, where politics refers to competition among competing values on which to base public policy, legislation, and political culture. This book offers citizens of democratic communities a broad perspective on how they together might best approach urgent questions of how to deal with the socially and morally challenging potential for human genetic engineering.
In a vast and all-embracing study of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the present day, John Iliffe refocuses its history on the peopling of an environmentally hostile continent. Africans have been pioneers struggling against disease and nature, but during the last century their inherited culture has interacted with medical progress to produce the most rapid population growth the world has ever seen. This new edition incorporates genetic and linguistic findings, throwing light on early African history and summarises research that has transformed the study of the Atlantic slave trade. It also examines the consequences of a rapidly growing youthful population, the hopeful but uncertain democratisation and economic recovery of the early twenty-first century, the containment of the AIDS epidemic and the turmoil within Islam that has produced the Arab Spring. Africans: The History of a Continent is thus a single story binding modern men and women to their earliest human ancestors.
In a vast and all-embracing study of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the present day, John Iliffe refocuses its history on the peopling of an environmentally hostile continent. Africans have been pioneers struggling against disease and nature, but during the last century their inherited culture has interacted with medical progress to produce the most rapid population growth the world has ever seen. This new edition incorporates genetic and linguistic findings, throwing light on early African history and summarises research that has transformed the study of the Atlantic slave trade. It also examines the consequences of a rapidly growing youthful population, the hopeful but uncertain democratisation and economic recovery of the early twenty-first century, the containment of the AIDS epidemic and the turmoil within Islam that has produced the Arab Spring. Africans: The History of a Continent is thus a single story binding modern men and women to their earliest human ancestors.
The author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived investigates what it means to be human—and the ways we are (and aren’t) unique among animalsWe like to think of ourselves as exceptional beings, but are we really more special than other animals? In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores how many of the things once considered to be exclusively human are not: We are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, uses fire, or has sex for reasons other than procreation. Evolution has, however, allowed us to develop a culture far more complex than any other observed in nature. The Book of Humans explains how we became the creatures we are today, uniquely able to investigate ourselves. Illuminating the latest genetic research, it is a thrilling account of what unequivocally fixes us as animals—and what makes us truly extraordinary.
The nature/nurture question is an age-old problem. Beyond Evolutionary Psychology deals with the relation between culture, evolution, psychology and emotion, based both in the underlying biology, determined by our evolutionary heritage, and in the interaction of our brain with the physical, ecological and social environment, based in the key property of brain plasticity. Ellis and Solms show how the brain structures that underlie cognition and behaviour relate to each other through developmental processes guided by primary emotional systems. This makes very clear which brain modules are innate or 'hard-wired', and which are 'soft-wired' or determined through environmental interactions. The key finding is that there can be no innate cognitive modules in the neocortex, as this is not possible on both developmental and genetic grounds; in particular there can be no innate language acquisition device. This is essential reading for students and scholars of evolutionary psychology and evolut
The nature/nurture question is an age-old problem. Beyond Evolutionary Psychology deals with the relation between culture, evolution, psychology and emotion, based both in the underlying biology, determined by our evolutionary heritage, and in the interaction of our brain with the physical, ecological and social environment, based in the key property of brain plasticity. Ellis and Solms show how the brain structures that underlie cognition and behaviour relate to each other through developmental processes guided by primary emotional systems. This makes very clear which brain modules are innate or 'hard-wired', and which are 'soft-wired' or determined through environmental interactions. The key finding is that there can be no innate cognitive modules in the neocortex, as this is not possible on both developmental and genetic grounds; in particular there can be no innate language acquisition device. This is essential reading for students and scholars of evolutionary psychology and evolut
