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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Impact of science & technology on society
God, Life, and the Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives is the first book in which Christian and Muslim scholars explore the frontiers of science-religion discourse. Leading international scholars present new work on key issues in science and religion from Christian and Islamic perspectives. Following an introduction by the editors, the book is divided into three sections: the first explores the philosophical issues in science-religion discourse; the second examines cosmology; the third analyses the issues surrounding bioethics. One of the first books to explore aspects of science-religion discourse from the perspective of two religious traditions, God, Life, and the Cosmos opens up new vistas to all interested in science and religion, and those exploring contemporary issues in Christianity and Islam.
In response to the intellectual movement of New Atheism, this volume articulates a "New Theist" response that has at its core a desire to engage in productive and depolarizing dialogue. To ensure this book is of interest to atheists and theists alike, a team of experts in the field of philosophy of religion offer an assessment of the strongest New Atheist arguments. The chapters address the most pertinent questions about God, including politics and morality, and each essay shows how a reflective theist might deal with points raised by the New Atheists. This volume is a serious academic engagement with the questions asked by New Atheism. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars working in the philosophy of religion and theology, as well as those engaged in religious studies generally.
Originally published in 1995, Creation-Evolution Debates is the second volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America, reissued in 2021. The volume comprises eight debates from the early 1920s and 1930s between prominent evolutionists and creationists of the time. The original sources detail debates that took place either orally or in print, as well as active debates between creationists over the true meaning of Genesis I. The essays in this volume feature prominent discussions between the likes of Edwin Grant Conklin, Henry Fairfield Osbourne and William Jennings Bryan, John Roach Francis and Charles Francis Potter, George McCready Price and Joseph McCabe and William Bell Riley versus Charles Smith, amongst many others. The collection will be of especial interest to natural historians, and theologians as well as academics of philosophy, and history.
Originally published in 1995, Early Creationist Journals is the ninth volume in the Creationism in Twentieth-Century America series, reissued in 2021. The book is a concise primary source collection containing a selection of journal articles from the early twentieth century outlining discoveries in biology, geology, physiology and archaeology and their relation to Christianity. The aim of the journals was to provide a platform for creationists of the 1920s to voice their theories on new science and how more recent discoveries fit within creationist beliefs, including flood theory. These interesting and unique journals will be of interest to academics working in the field of religion and natural history and provide a unique snapshot into the debates between evolutionists and Christianity during a period of great scientific change.
This work is Volume 2 of an extensive two-volume monograph on the interplay of science and literature in Europe from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. It comprises a series of some twenty biographies raisonnees of literary figures known to have had fascination for, at times an obsession with, science. The linguistic base is broad, primarily French, German and English, but with excursions into Italian, Spanish and Russian. Alongside outstanding individuals, the work chronicles the intellectual movements Naturphilosophie, Naturalism, Positivism, etc., which literature gave rise to through its interaction with science.
Reason, Faith, and Purpose: The Ultimate Gamble is a guide for believers and inquiring skeptics. This book summarizes the scientific view of the origins of the universe and life and analyzes the question of the existence of god from philosophical, religious, and scientific perspectives.The material is presented in two parts. Part I presents the secular, scientific view of the origin and evolution of the physical universe and life. Part II introduces other perspectives that are representative of ideas historically prevalent around the world. The material in Reason, Faith, and Purpose is designed to provide insight into the choice each of us must make in this life: the ultimate gamble.
Providing a much needed overview of the growing field of digital sociology, this handbook connects digital media technologies to the traditional sociological areas of study, like labour, culture, education, race, class and gender. Rooted in a critical understanding of inequality as foundational to digital sociology and is edited by leaders in the field. It includes topics ranging from web analytics, wearable technologies, social media analysis and digital labour. This rigorous, accessible text explores contemporary dilemmas and problems of the digital age in relation to inequality, institutions and social identity, making it suitable for use for a global audience on a variety of social science courses and beyond. Offering an important step forward for the discipline of sociology Digital sociologies is an important intellectual benchmark in placing digital at the forefront of investigating the social.
This book examines why the religion-science skirmishes known as the Evolution Wars have persisted into the 21st century. It does so by considering the influences of mass media in relation to decision-making research and the Elaboration Likelihood Model, one of the most authoritative persuasion theories. The book's analysis concentrates on the expression of cues, or cognitive mental shortcuts, in Darwin-sceptic and counter-creationist broadcasts. A multiyear collection of media generated by the most prominent Darwin-sceptic organizations is surveyed, along with rival publications from supporters of evolutionary theory described as the pro-evolutionists. The analysed materials include works produced by Young Earth Creationist and Intelligent Design media makers, New Atheist pacesetters, as well as both agnostic and religious supporters of evolution. These cues are shown to function as subtle but effective means of shaping public opinion, including appeals to expertise, claims that ideas are being censored, and the tactical use of statistics and technical jargon. Contending that persuasive mass media is a decisive component of science-religion controversies, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of Religion, Science and Religion interactions, as well as researchers of Media and Communication Studies more generally. *Winner ISSR 2021 Book Prize*
This book offers broad evidence on how new information and communication technologies (ICT) impact social development and contribute to social welfare. Its aim is to show how new technological solutions may contribute to society's welfare by encouraging new 'socially responsible' initiatives and practices as the broad adoption of new technologies becomes an integral component of organizations, and of the overall economy. Society and Technology: Opportunities and Challenges is designed to provide deep insight into theoretical and empirical evidence on ICT as socially responsible technologies. More specifically, it puts special focus on examining the following: how channels of ICT impact on social progress, environmental sustainability and instability the role of ICT in creating social networks, with positive and negative consequences of networking how ICT encourages education, skills development, institutional development, etc. the ethical aspects of technological progress, and technology management for social corporate responsibility. The book is written primarily for scholars and academic professionals from a wide variety of disciplines that are addressing issues of economic development and growth, social development, and the role of technology progress in broadly defined socioeconomic progress. It is also an invaluable source of knowledge for graduate and postgraduate students, particularly within economic and social development, information and technology, worldwide studies, social policy or comparative economics.
the volume provides a set of criteria to evaluate providential divine action models, challenging the underlying theologically contentious assumptions of current discussions on divine providential action. It presents a comprehensive account of Aquinas' metaphysics of natural causation, contingency, and their relation to divine providence
A must have book on how GDPR is actively working in the privacy, compliance and technology space. Gain a clear understanding of GDPR requirements and recognise opportunities to reshape your data privacy compliance programs. Learn unique techniques to avoid GDPR non-compliance in the third and fourth industrial revolution era. A practical guide to providing great insights on data privacy challenges and compliance with invaluable practical approaches. Demonstrates data privacy legislation differences and similarities in multi-jurisdictions and how to man oeuvre the minefield of privacy successfully.
Contemporary culture offer contradictory views of the internet and new media technologies, painting them in extremes of optimistic enthusiasm and pessimistic foreboding. While some view them as a repository of hopes for democracy, freedom and self-realisation, others consider these developments as sources of alienation, dehumanisation and danger. This book explores such representations, and situates them within the traditions of utopian and dystopian thought that have shaped the Western cultural imaginary. Ranging from ancient poetry to post-humanism, and classical sociology to science fiction, it uncovers the roots of our cultural responses to the internet, which are centred upon a profoundly ambivalent reaction to technological modernity. Majid Yar argues that it is only by better understanding our society's reactions to technological innovation that we can develop a balanced and considered response to the changes and challenges that the internet brings in its wake.
Explains some of the ways in which technological advances are altering, for better or worse, large-scale human behavior, thought processes, and critical thinking skills. Recent technological advances—from dating apps to artificial insemination, from "smart" phones to portable computers that can instantly search the World Wide Web for information, and from robots performing surgery to cars driving themselves—once remarkable, have become an unremarkable part of our lives. The team of authors of this book asks, "How are they changing us?" We all recognize that these innovations have altered our lives, often making them easier, but it is also important to ask if we have lost anything while we have gained from them. The authors of How Technology Is Changing Human Behavior: Issues and Benefits show that human behaviors and thinking skills are rapidly being reprogrammed by technology, with even more developments on the horizon sure to further alter our future and shape our identity.
What does it mean to be human in an age of science, technology, and faith? The ability to ask such a question suggests at least a partial answer, in that however we describe ourselves we bear a major role in determining what we will become. In this book, Philip Hefner reminds us that this inescapable condition is the challenge and opportunity of Homo sapiens as the created co-creator. In four original chapters and an epilogue, Hefner frames the created co-creator as a memoirist with an ambiguous legacy, explores some of the roots of this ambiguity, emphasizes the importance of answering this ambiguity with symbols that can interpret it in wholesome ways, proposes a partial theological framework for co-creating such symbols, and applies this framework to the challenge of using technology like artificial intelligence and robotics to create other co-creators in our own image. Editors Jason P. Roberts and Mladen Turk have compiled eight responses to Hefner's work to honor his scholarly career and answer his call to help co-create a more wholesome future in an age of science, technology, and faith.
This book systematically summarizes China Internet development over the past 25 years, highlighting its strong impact on China's economy and society, and discussing the Chinese people's transition from beneficiaries and participants to builders, contributors and joint maintainers of cyberspace development. It describes the development achievements, status and development and trends in China Internet in 2019, systematically summarizes the main lessons learned during development, and analyzes China's strategic planning and policy actions. Further, it discusses topics such as development outcomes, future trends in information infrastructure, network information technology, digital economy, e-government, construction and management of network contents, cyberspace security, the legal construction of cyberspace, and international cyberspace governance. In addition, the book suggests improvements to the index system for China Internet development and offers an overall assessment of cyberspace security and informatization work throughout China in order to comprehensively and accurately demonstrate the level of China Internet development.
In June 2017, Travis Kalanick, the CEO of Uber, was ousted in a boardroom coup that capped a brutal year for the transportation giant. Uber had catapulted to the top of the tech world, yet for many came to symbolise everything wrong with Silicon Valley. In the tradition of Brad Stone's Everything Store and John Carreyrou's Bad Blood, award-winning investigative reporter Mike Isaac's Super Pumped delivers a gripping account of Uber's rapid rise, its pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company's toxic internal culture and the bare-knuckle tactics it devised to overcome obstacles in its quest for dominance. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a page-turning story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth and bad behaviour, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history.
This book investigates the ways in which the mobile telephone has transformed societies around the world, bringing both opportunities and challenges. At a time when knowledge and truth are increasingly contested, the book asks how mobile technology has changed the ways in which people create, disseminate, and access knowledge. Worldwide, mobile internet access has surpassed desktop access, and it is estimated that by 2022 there will be AN excess of 6 billion mobile phone users in the world. This widespread proliferation raises all sorts of questions around who creates knowledge, how is that knowledge shared and proliferated, and what are the structural political, economic, and legal conditions in which knowledge is accessed. The practices and power dynamics around mobile technologies are location specific. They look different depending on whether one chooses to highlight the legal, social, political, or economic context. Bringing together scholars, journalists, activists and practitioners from around the world, this book embraces this complexity, providing a multifaceted picture that acknowledges the tensions and contradictions surrounding accessing knowledge through mobile technologies. With case studies from Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Syria, Egypt, Botswana, Brazil, and the US, this book provides an important account of the changing nature of our access to knowledge, and is key reading for students, researchers, activists and policy makers with an interest in technology and access to knowledge, communication, social transformation, and global development.
This book presents a comprehensive history of the many contributions the Jesuits made to science from their founding to the present. It also links the Jesuits dedication to science with their specific spirituality which tries to find God in all things. The book begins with Christopher Clavius, professor of mathematics in the Roman College between 1567 and 1595, the initiator of this tradition. It covers Jesuits scientific contributions in mathematics, astronomy, physics and cartography up until the suppression of the order by the Pope in 1773. Next, the book details the scientific work the Jesuits pursued after their restoration in 1814. It examines the establishment of a network of observatories throughout the world; details contributions made to the study of tropical hurricanes, earthquakes and terrestrial magnetism and examines such important figures as Angelo Secchi, Stephen J. Perry, James B. Macelwane and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. From their founding to the present, Jesuits have trodden an uncommon path to the frontiers where the Christian message is not yet known. Jesuits' work in science is also an interesting chapter in the general problem of the relation between science and religion. This book provides readers with a complete portrait of the Jesuit scientific tradition. Its engaging story will appeal to those with an interest in the history of science, the history of the relations between science and religion and the history of Jesuits.
The 1960s (a.k.a. the 60s) remains a terrain of contemporary politics-with the values of the period embraced or rejected, as well as differently interpreted. Popular culture (movies, television) is an important means to understand and analyze the political issues and controversies surrounding the 60s-egalitarianism, equality (civil rights, feminism), as well as anti-communism (including the American war in Vietnam). In important and key instances popular culture (especially Star Trek [1966-1969]) was at the forefront of the progressive politics of the 60s. This book engages and analyzes the ongoing 60s through popular culture. The 60s is a pivotal period in American and world history-as the United States during this time turned away from white supremacy as official ideology. Also, the American public decidedly soured on U.S. military adventurism-as evidenced by broad public opposition to a military draft. Additionally, women (as a result of the feminism of the era) gained greater access to the public sphere and increased personal autonomy-non-discrimination (and anti-harassment) rules, abortion rights, and no fault divorce. Popular culture is philosophically significant because it allows people to cogitate reasons in the world-especially in the social, political realm. The creators of popular culture will often seek to offer the public authentic art, and much of the public seeks out authentic art. This makes American popular culture (in its finer forms) a viable source material about reason in the world. In this book the author doesn't seek to deconstruct popular culture; instead, he seeks to identify and analyze the reasons in the world depicted in it.
This book is useful to understand and write alongside non-human agents, examine the impact of algorithms and AI on writing, and accommodate relationships with autonomous agents. This ground-breaking future-driven framework prepares scholars and practitioners to investigate and plan for the social, digital literacy, and civic implications arising from emerging technologies. This book prepares researchers, students, practitioners, and citizens to work with AI writers, virtual humans, and social robots. This book explores prompts to envision how fields and professions will change. The book's unique integration with Fabric of Digital Life, a database and structured content repository for conducting social and cultural analysis of emerging technologies, provides concrete examples throughout. Readers gain imperative direction for collaborative, algorithmic, and autonomous writing futures.
Modern medicine has produced many wonderful technological breakthroughs that have extended the limits of the frail human body. However, much of the focus of this medical research has been on the physical, often reducing the human being to a biological machine to be examined, understood, and controlled. This book begins by asking whether the modern medical milieu has overly objectified the body, unwittingly or not, and whether current studies in bioethics are up to the task of restoring a fuller understanding of the human person. In response, various authors here suggest that a more theological/religious approach would be helpful, or perhaps even necessary. Presenting specific perspectives from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the book is divided into three parts: "Understanding the Body," "Respecting the Body," and "The Body at the End of Life." A panel of expert contributors-including philosophers, physicians, and theologians and scholars of religion- answer key questions such as: What is the relationship between body and soul? What are our obligations toward human bodies? How should medicine respond to suffering and death? The resulting text is an interdisciplinary treatise on how medicine can best function in our societies. Offering a new way to approach the medical humanities, this book will be of keen interest to any scholars with an interest in contemporary religious perspectives on medicine and the body.
This book examines how the prominent Muslim scholar Said Nursi developed an integrative approach to faith and science known as "the other indicative" (mana-i harfi) and explores how his aim to reconcile two academic disciplines, often at odds with one another, could be useful in an educational context. The book opens by examining Nursi's evolving thought with regards to secular ideology and modern science. It then utilizes the mana-i harfi approach to address a number of issues, including truth and certainty, the relationship between knowledge and worldview formation, and the meaning of beings and life. Finally, it offers a seven-dimensional knowledge approach to derive meaning and build good character through understanding scientific knowledge in the mana-i harfi perspective. This book offers a unique perspective on one of recent Islam's most influential figures, and also offers suggestions for teaching religion and science in a more nuanced way. It is, therefore, a great resource for scholars of Islam, religion and science, Middle East studies, and educational studies.
Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (iHPS) is commonly understood as the study of science from a combined historical and philosophical perspective. Yet, since its gradual formation as a research field, the question of how to suitably integrate both perspectives remains open. This volume presents cutting edge research from junior iHPS scholars, and in doing so provides a snapshot of current developments within the field, explores the connection between iHPS and other academic disciplines, and demonstrates some of the topics that are attracting the attention of scholars who will help define the future of iHPS.
Stem cell research has been a problematic endeavour. For the past twenty years it has attracted moral controversies in both the public and the professional sphere. The research involves not only laboratories, clinics and people, but ethics, industries, jurisprudence, and markets. Today it contributes to the development of new therapies and affects increasingly many social arenas. The matrix approach introduced in this book offers a new understanding of this science in its relation to society. The contributions are multidisciplinary and intersectional, illustrating how agency and influence between science and society go both ways. Conceptually, this volume presents a situated and reflexive approach for philosophy and sociology of the life sciences. The practices that are part of stem cell research are dispersed, and the concepts that tie them together are tenuous; there are persistent problems with the validation of findings, and the ontology of the stem cell is elusive. The array of applications shapes a growing bioeconomy that is dependent on patient donations of tissues and embryos, consumers, and industrial support. In this volume it is argued that this research now denotes not a specific field but a flexible web of intersecting practices, discourses, and agencies. To capture significant parts of this complex reality, this book presents recent findings from researchers, who have studied in-depth aspects of this matrix of stem cell research. This volume presents state-of-the-art examinations from senior and junior scholars in disciplines from humanities and laboratory research to various social sciences, highlighting particular normative and epistemological intersections. The book will appeal to scholars as well as wider audiences interested in developments in life science and society interactions. The novel matrix approach and the accessible case studies make this an excellent resource for science and society courses. |
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