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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Impact of science & technology on society
'The most important advance of our era. One of the pioneers of the field describes the exciting hunt for the key breakthrough and what it portends for our future' Walter Isaacson World-famous scientist Jennifer Doudna - winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating the revolutionary gene-editing technique CRISPR - explains her discovery, describes its power to reshape the future of all life and warns of its use. A handful of discoveries have changed the course of human history. This book is about the most recent and potentially the most powerful and dangerous of them all. It is an invention that allows us to rewrite the genetic code that shapes and controls all living beings. As a result, dreams of genetic manipulation have become a stark reality: the power to cure disease and alleviate suffering, as well as to re-design any species, including humans, for our own ends. Jennifer Doudna is the co-inventor of this technology - known as CRISPR - and a scientist of worldwide renown. Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, here she provides the definitive account of her discovery, explaining how this wondrous invention works and what it is capable of. She also asks us to consider what our new-found power means: how do we enjoy its unprecedented benefits while avoiding its equally unprecedented dangers? _________________ PRAISE FOR A CRACK IN CREATION: 'The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other' George Lucas 'One of the most PIONEERING women in science . . . Exhilarating' Arianna Huffington 'Thrilling' Adam Rutherford 'An instant classic' Siddhartha Mukherjee
In this book Pragati Rawat and John C. Morris identify and evaluate the impact of factors that can help explain the difference in e-participation, public participation using information and communication technology, in different countries. While cross-sectional studies have been covered, few have taken an in-depth look at cross-national studies. This book attempts to fill the gap using quantitative panel data to explore the influence of technology and institutions, and the impact of their complex relationships in a mediation and moderation analysis, on e-participation. The current study reviews the scholarly work in the field of "offline" and "online participation" to identify a set of antecedents that influence e-participation. A conceptual framework is developed, supported by the theories from the public policy and socio-technical premise. The authors utilize secondary data, primarily from the UN and World Economic Forum, for 143 countries from three waves of surveys to measure the dependent and explanatory variables. The panel data is statistically analyzed and findings reveal the role of technology as a mediator as well as a moderator for institutions' impact on e-participation. The Effects of Technology and Institutions on E-Participation provides a groundbreaking country-level analysis that will appeal to academics and students of e-government and Digital Government, Public Policy, Public Administration, Public Sector Innovation, and Public Participation.
'A rich feast of his essays, reviews, forewords, squibs and conversations, in which talent and passion are married to deep knowledge.' Matt Ridley 'Enjoy the unfailing clarity of his thought and prose, as well as the grandeur of his vision of life on Earth.' - Mark Cocker, Spectator 'Richard Dawkins is a thunderously gifted science writer.' Sunday Times Including conversations with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley and more, this is an essential guide to the most exciting ideas of our time and their proponents from our most brilliant science communicator. Books Do Furnish a Life is divided by theme, including celebrating nature, exploring humanity, and interrogating faith. For the first time, it brings together Richard Dawkins' forewords, afterwords and introductions to the work of some of the leading thinkers of our age - Carl Sagan, Lawrence Krauss, Jacob Bronowski, Lewis Wolpert - with a selection of his reviews to provide an electrifying celebration of science writing, both fiction and non-fiction. It is also a sparkling addition to Dawkins' own remarkable canon of work. Plenty of other scientists write well, but no one writes like Dawkins... here is Dawkins the teacher, the scholar, the polemicist, the joker, the aesthete, the poet, the satirist, the man of compassion as well as indignation, the slayer of superstition and, above all, the scientist. - Areo Magazine
Philosophical naturalism is taken to be the preferred and reigning epistemology and metaphysics that underwrites many ideas and knowledge claims. But what if we cannot know reality on that basis? What if the institution of science is threatened by its reliance on naturalism? R. Scott Smith argues in a fresh way that we cannot know reality on the basis of naturalism. Moreover, the "fact-value" split has failed to serve our interests of wanting to know reality. The author provocatively argues that since we can know reality, it must be due to a non-naturalistic ontology, best explained by the fact that human knowers are made and designed by God. The book offers fresh implications for the testing of religious truth-claims, science, ethics, education, and public policy. Consequently, naturalism and the fact-value split are shown to be false, and Christian theism is shown to be true.
Nature, Space and the Sacred offers the first investigative mapping of a new and highly significant agenda: the spatial interactions between religion, nature and culture. In this ground-breaking work, different concepts of religion, theology, space and place and their internal relations are discussed in an impressive range of approaches. Weaving together a diversity of perspectives, this book presents an innovative and truly transdisciplinary environmental science. Its broad range offers a rich exchange of insights, methods and theoretical engagements.
In the present ecological crisis, it is imperative that human beings reconsider their place within nature and find new, more responsible and sustainable ways of living. Assumptions about the nature of God, the world, and the human being, shape our thinking and, consequently, our acting. Some have charged that the Christian tradition has been more a hindrance than a help because its theology of nature has unwittingly legitimated the exploitation of nature. This book takes the current criticism of Christian tradition to heart and invites a reconsideration of the problematic elements: its desacralization of nature; its preoccupation with the human being to the neglect of the rest of nature; its dualisms and elevation of the spiritual over material reality, and its habit of ignoring or resisting scientific understandings of the natural world. Anna Case-Winters argues that Christian tradition has a more viable theology of nature to offer. She takes a look at some particulars in Christian tradition as a way to illustrate the undeniable problems and to uncover the untapped possibilities. In the process, she engages conversation partners that have been sharply critical and particularly insightful (feminist theology, process thought, and the religion and science dialogue). The criticisms and insights of these partners help to shape a proposal for a reconstructed theology of nature that can more effectively fund our struggle for the fate of the earth.
This book sets out a new agenda for science-theology interactions and offers examples of what that agenda might look like when implemented. It explores, in innovative ways, what follows for science-theology discussions from recent developments in the history of science. The contributions take seriously the historically conditioned nature of the categories 'science' and 'religion' and consider the ways in which these categories are reinforced in the public sphere. Reflecting on the balance of power between theology and the sciences, the authors demonstrate a commitment to moving beyond traditional models of one-sided dialogue and seek to give theology a more active role in determining the interdisciplinary agenda.
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.
'Work hard, have fun, make history' proclaims the slogan on the walls of Amazon's warehouses. This cheerful message hides a reality of digital surveillance, aggressive anti-union tactics and disciplinary layoffs. Reminiscent of the tumult of early industrial capitalism, the hundreds of thousands of workers who help Amazon fulfil consumers' desire are part of an experiment in changing the way we all work. In this book, Alessandro Delfanti takes readers inside Amazon's warehouses to show how technological advancements and managerial techniques subdue the workers rather than empower them, as seen in the sensors that track workers' every movement around the floor and algorithmic systems that re-route orders to circumvent worker sabotage. He looks at new technologies including robotic arms trained by humans and augmented reality goggles, showing that their aim is to standardise, measure and discipline human work rather than replace it. Despite its innovation, Amazon will always need living labour's flexibility and low cost. And as the warehouse is increasingly automated, worker discontent increases. Striking under the banner 'we are not robots', employees have shown that they are acutely aware of such contradictions. The only question remains: how long will it be until Amazon's empire collapses?
In an era of digital revolution, artificial intelligence, big data and augmented reality, technology has shifted from being a tool of communication to a primary medium of experience and sociality. Some of the most basic human capacities are increasingly being outsourced to machines and we increasingly experience and interpret the world through digital interfaces, with machines becoming ever more 'social' beings. Social interaction and human perception are being reshaped in unprecedented ways. This book explores this technologisation of the social and the attendant penetration of permanent liminality into those aspects of the lifeworld where individuals had previously sought some kind of stability and meaning. Through a historical and anthropological examination of this phenomenon, it problematises the underlying logic of limitless technological expansion and our increasing inability to imagine either ourselves or our world in other than technological terms. Drawing on a variety of concepts from political anthropology, including liminality, the trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, participation, and the void, it interrogates the contemporary technological revolution in a manner that will be of interest to sociologists, social and anthropological theorists and scholars of science and technology studies with interests in the digital transformation of social life.
This new volume looks at a selection of important issues resulting from the digitization of society, which has fundamentally transformed organizations. These new technological innovations are creating new opportunities as well as new challenges. This volume considers the emerging paradigm of digitization in economy and society, which covers a wide spectrum of digitization processes and consequences, accelerated by the current COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown scenario, and the increase in digitization by individuals, businesses, and governments. The book explores digital social trends, digital marketing, and the service industry, as well as the societal consequences of technologies and solutions to those problems. The diverse topics include the societal impact of digitization on gender issues, virtual relationships, e-government, online privacy, the gig economy (using Uber as an example), work life changes, online education, online media health public service advertisements, loneliness of the elderly, and more. This book is essential reading for students and faculty of social sciences, economics, and management technology to understand the broad dimensions of digitization in our everyday life and the theoretical and practical utilization and outcome of digitization.
Originally published in 1995 this is the fifth volume in the series Creationism in 20th Century America. It re-publishes After Its Kind - a critique on theories of biological evolution and a defense of the biblical account of creation which Nelson wrote when he was a Pastor in New Jersey where he also attended classes in genetics and zoology at Rutgers university. His 1931 volume The Deluge Story in Stone: A History of the Flood Theory of Geology, also reprinted here was continuously in print until the 1960s. As his scientific and theological correspondence expanded in the wake of his publications, Nelson became further involved in the 'evolution debates'. During the late 1930s his writings concentrated on early man and the glacial phenomena he saw all about him in Wisconsin and he compiled the materials he thought necessary to relate Scripture to the evidence of human antiquity.
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, The Antievolution Pamphlets of Harry Rimmer is the sixth volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America. The volume brings together original sources from the prominent evangelist and pastor Harry Rimmer. The consortium of pamphlets in this volume detail Rimmer's antievolutionist sentiments, a notion which characterized his early writings. The pamphlets detail Rimmer's rhetoric on evolution and science from the early part of the 20th century as he travelled across America to disseminate his writings. The works in this volume address Rimmer's polemic on the danger posed by modern science and the consequential disassociation with religion. While Rimmer did not discount science itself, he argued for, what he termed, 'true science', claiming that modern science was based only in scientific opinion and not fact. As a self-proclaimed scientist, these writings take a unique view of the relationship between religion and science from this period through Rimmer's dual nature as both scientist and pastor. This volume will be of great interest to historians of natural history, science and religion.
Originally published in 1995, The Selected Works of George McCready Price is the seventh volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America, reissued in 2021. The volume brings together the original writings and pamphlets of George McCready Price, a leading creationist of the early antievolution crusade of the 1920s. McCready Price labelled himself the 'principal scientific authority of the Fundamentalists' and as a self-taught scientist he enjoyed more scientific repute amongst fundamentalists of the time. This interesting and unique collection of original source material includes five of his writings between 1906 and 1924, challenging the new Darwinian theory of evolution and natural selection through his writings on the natural sciences. His literature covers the topics of evolution and biology and critiques biological arguments for evolution. He also wrote widely on geology offering his own alternative argument of 'flood geography' in opposition to the Darwinian theory concerning palaeontology and geology. This volume will be of interest to historians of natural history and the creationism movement, as well as scholars of religion and American history.
Originally published in 1995, The Early Writings of Harold W. Clark and Frank Lewis Marsh is the eighth volume in the Creationism in Twentieth Century America series, reissued in 2019. The book is a collection of original writings by the prominent creationist Harold W. Clark, and the biologist, educator and young Earth creationist Frank Lewis Marsh. Although both were significant figures in the anti-evolutionist movement of the early 20th century, unlike other members of the movement, both Marsh and Clarke were trained scientists studying under eminent evolutionists of the time. Both writers struggled to reconcile new scientific understandings of geology, botany and palaeontology, supported by Darwin's theory of evolution, with their own creationist beliefs in genesis and flood theory. Both scientists as such began to develop their own theories of evolution that remained in line with creationist beliefs. This compact and unique collection includes the writings of Marsh and Clark from this period, featuring some of their well-known works on the subject including 'Back to Creation' and 'Fundamental Biology'. This volume of original sources will be of interest to academics of religion, natural history and historians of the 19th century.
Originally published in 1995, Creation and Evolution in the Early American Scientific Affiliation is the tenth volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America, reissued in 2021. The volume comprises of original primary sources from the American Science Affiliation, a group formed following an invitation from the president of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, in answer to the perceived need for an academic society for American Evangelical Scientists to explicate the relationship between science and faith. The society confronted the debate between creation and evolution head on, leaving a paper trail documenting their thoughts and struggles. This diverse and expansive collection includes 53 selections that appeared during the organisation's first two decades and focuses on the encounter between science and American evangelicalism in the twentieth century, in particular the debates surrounding the ever-increasing preference for evolutionary theory. The collection will be of especial interest to natural historians, and theologians as well as academics of philosophy, and history.
Originally published in 1995, Antievolutionism Before World War I is the first volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America, reissued in 2021. The volume brings together original sources from the beginning of the twentieth century, critiquing Darwinism and the theory of natural selection. The sources included in this collection debate the role of natural selection in evolution, as well wider aspects of Darwinian theory from a creationist stance. The essays feature prominent figures from the period in the fields of naturalism, philosophy and theology and includes contributions from Alexander Patterson, Eberhard Dennert, Luther Tracy Townsend and George Frederick Wright. The collection will be of especial interest to natural historians, and theologians as well as academics of philosophy, geology and history.
Originally published in 1995, The Antievolution Works of Arthur I. Brown is the third volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America. The volume brings together original sources from the prominent surgeon and creationist Arthur I. Brown. Brown discredited evolution as it was contrary to the 'clear statements of scripture' which he believed infallible, stating evolution instead to be both a hoax and 'a weapon of Satan'. The works included focus on Brown's polemic through his early twentieth century writings. The essays focus on his scientific investigations and provide a negative commentary upon Darwin's theory of evolution instead focusing on biblical explanations for evolution. As a scientist Brown's unique view of evolution from a creationist and scientific viewpoint provides a fascinating lens through which to view the historical debates surrounding evolution and provides a unique insight into how Darwinian theory affected both the scientific and religious communities. This book will be of interest to natural historians, and theologians as well as academics of philosophy and history.
This book provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South Asia, giving voice to Indian scientists and shedding valuable light on their engagement with religion. Drawing on biographical, autobiographical, historical, and ethnographic material, the volume focuses on scientists' religious life and practices, and the variety of ways in which they express them. Renny Thomas challenges the idea that science and religion in India are naturally connected and argues that the discussion has to go beyond binary models of 'conflict' and 'complementarity'. By complicating the understanding of science and religion in India, the book engages with new ways of looking at these categories.
The liberating promise of big data and social media to create more responsive democracies and workplaces is overshadowed by a nightmare of election meddling, privacy invasion, fake news and an exploitative gig economy. Yet, while regressive forces spread disinformation and hate, 'guerrilla democrats' continue to foster hope and connection through digital technologies. This book offers an in-depth analysis of platform-based radical movements, from the online coalitions of voters and activists to the Deliveroo and Uber strikes. Combining cutting edge theories with empirical research, it makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the relationship between technology and society.
What does God's creation of humanity through the process of evolution mean for human flourishing? The emerging field of evolutionary psychology remains controversial, perhaps especially among Christians. Yet according to Justin Barrett and Pamela Ebstyne King it can be a powerful tool for understanding human nature and our distinctively human purpose. Thriving with Stone Age Minds provides an introduction to evolutionary psychology, explaining key concepts like hyper-sociality, information gathering, and self-control. Combining insights from evolutionary psychology with resources from the Bible and Christian theology, Barrett and King focus fresh attention on the question, What is human flourishing? When we understand how humans still bear the marks of our evolutionary past, new light shines on some of the most puzzling features of our minds, relationships, and behaviors. One key insight of evolutionary psychology is how humans both adapt to and then alter our environments, or "niches." In fact, we change our world faster than our minds can adapt-and then gaps in our "fitness" emerge. In effect, humans are now attempting to thrive in modern contexts with Stone Age minds. By integrating scientific evidence with wisdom from theological anthropology, we can learn to close up nature-niche gaps and thrive, becoming more what God has created us to be. BioLogos Books on Science and Christianity invite us to see the harmony between the sciences and biblical faith on issues including cosmology, biology, paleontology, evolution, human origins, the environment, and more.
Science and Religion: Edwin Salpeter, Owen Gingerich and John Polkinghorne is a collection of interviews being published as a book. These interviews have been conducted by one of England's leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane. Filmed over a period of 40 years, the five conversations in this volume, are part of Social Science Press's series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions also form a part of a larger set of interviews that cut across various disciplines, from the social sciences, the sciences and to the performing and visual arts. The current volume is on three foremost physicists and historians of science. Edwin Salpeter recounts rather dispassionately his departure from Austria to Australia to escape Nazi persecution. And in doing so broaches, not only, on the prevailing anti-Semitic sentiment of the time, but takes the debate forward into the one between science and religion. Though he only touches upon it, this debate finds resonance in the words of Owen Gingerich who belonged to the Mennonite dispensation and who has been rather vocal about the pro-Christian anti-creationist ideology. However, it is John Polkinghorne who provides a deep insight into the ongoing debate on science and religion. Immensely riveting as conversations, this collection reveals how intrinsically related science and religion are, how pertinent it is to understand the workings of science in the context of religion. The book will be of enormous value not just to those interested in Astronomy and Cosmology as well as the History of Science, but also to those with an inquisitive mind. Please note: This title is co-published with Social Science Press, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Contemporary thought is marked by heated debates about the character, purpose and form of religious thinking and its relation to a range of ideals: spiritual, moral, aesthetic, political and ecological, to name the obvious. This book addresses the interrelation between theological thinking and the complex and diverse realms of human ideals. What are the ideals appropriate to our moment in human history, and how do these ideals derive from or relate to theological reflection in our time? In Theological Reflection and the Pursuit of Ideals internationally renowned scholars from a range of disciplines (physics, art, literary studies, ethics, comparative religion, history of ideas, and theology) engage with these crucial questions with the intention of articulating a new and historically appropriate vision of theological reflection and the pursuit of ideals for our global times. |
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