How should a free society protect privacy? Dramatic changes in national security law and surveillance, as well as technological changes from social media to smart cities mean that our ideas about privacy and its protection are being challenged like never before. In this interdisciplinary book, Chris Berg explores what classical liberal approaches to privacy can bring to current debates about surveillance, encryption and new financial technologies. Ultimately, he argues that the principles of classical liberalism - the rule of law, individual rights, property and entrepreneurial evolution - can help extend as well as critique contemporary philosophical theories of privacy.

In this first comparative study of Chinese and Zimbabwean railway experiences, Gao examines the role played by technological progress in generating significant social change. His principal concern is with indigenous people whose efforts to meet this technological advance has been neglected or underestimated. Gao shows how different cultural traditions, political situations, and individual interests create an attractive variety of local responses to the challenges and opportunities afforded by technology. He not only describes the final consequences of railway development, but emphasizes the dynamic process by which indigenous people first derived, then gradually lost, most of the gains from modern transport advances. In addition, Gao explores a number of permanent impacts of railways on the two areas, including demographic and structural changes, and divisions of race and class. An intriguing study for researchers and students of imperialism, and Chinese and African history.

What difference does a worldview make? These eclectic essays from twenty scholars show how embodying a biblical Christian worldview helps transform mere existence into fullness of life. Read them to discover . . . How Genesis answers the four most important human questions of pre-modern and post-modern times (W. Brouwer); Why the concept "Christian worldview" fits the unique experience of reality Christianity affords, despite recent criticisms of the term and concept (R. Kurka); How worldview competition in the global South differs from the West (D. Button); How Western civilization lost its Christian mind and can find it again (M. E. Roberts); How well the reasons celebrity scholar Bart Ehrman gives for his "deconversion" stack up (E. Meadors); How higher education has abandoned its own source by expelling "religion of the heart" (R. Wenyika & W. Adrian); How an "engineering mindset" helps evaluate worldviews and how a Christian worldview fares (D. Halsmer); Christian Humanism as an exodus from the cultural wasteland for today's youth (R. Williams); The worldview John Grisham's fiction expresses (J. Han & M. Bagley); How Intelligent Design strengthens its status as science by using the concept of "design" in a new way (D. Leonard); In the spirit of "The Screwtape Letters," a new epistle to Wormwood that praises compartmentalized Christianity (D. K. Naugle); How an orphaned Japanese girl experienced "the American dream," God's way (K. Takeuchi); How words, grammar, and style embody one's worldview, for good or ill (S. Robbins); What happens to preaching-and the church-when emotional response to visual stimuli preempts thought (W. Wilson II); . . . and much more. "That which God has created and sin has divided Christ is reuniting . . ., and this includes the divisions generated by our . . . compartmentalizations. Our gracious, redeeming God is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again For Christian scholars and teachers, this magnificent truth is fraught with implications for us . . . personally and professionally." - David K. Naugle, "Squashing Screwtape: Debunking Dualism and Restoring Integrity in Christian Educational Thought and Practice"

George John Romanes, close friend and colleague of Darwin, remains a terribly misunderstood figure in the history of evolutionary science. Although his scientific contributions have been valued, his religious journey has been either neglected or misjudged. Typically scholars only acknowledge some of the work on theism he did at the very end of his life and usually blame his wife for doctoring the record with her pieties. His extensive poetry writing, much of it religious, has never been explored and his Memorial Poem to Darwin has been completely overlooked. The recent discovery of the original typescript of the poem, lost for more than a century and reprinted in this book for the first time, allows us to enter the mind of a major Darwinian as we watch him struggle to put together faith and science on a positive basis. The original typescript of the Memorial Poem contains numerous corrections inserted by Romanes as well as several handwritten poems. The recovery of this unique poetic exploration is a major event for Darwin studies and Pleins is the first author to study it and draw out its full significance in the history of the religion/science debate.Pleins recounts Romanes's journey from belief to skepticism and back to faith as he arrives at a new understanding of the religious implications of Darwin's theory of evolution. Throughout, Romanes shows how it is possible for a Darwinian to reframe in creative ways the relation between faith and science. Given that many today invoke Darwin to legitimate religious skepticism, the publication of this poem composed by one of the original Darwinians will spark new discussions regarding these questions.

The era of rapidly progressing technology we live in generates vast amounts of data; however, the challenge exists in understanding how to aggressively monitor and make sense of this data. Without a better understanding of how to collect and manage such large data sets, it becomes increasingly difficult to successfully utilize them. Managing Big Data Integration in the Public Sector is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the application of big data analytics in government contexts and identifies various strategies in which big data platforms can generate improvements within that sector. Highlighting issues surrounding data management, current models, and real-world applications, this book is ideally designed for professionals, government agencies, researchers, and non-profit organizations interested in the benefits of big data analytics applied in the public sphere.

"The Scientific Worldview" presents a balanced theoretical perspective that has profound implications for the social and physical sciences. Author Glenn Borchardt outlines the philosophical alternatives and those necessary for consistent scientific thinking.

The balanced outlook requires beginning assumptions alien to classical mechanism and modern systems philosophy. The central concept of the resulting philosophical system is univironmental determinism-a new universal mechanism of evolution founded on the simple proposition that whatever happens to a thing is a result of the infinite variety of matter in motion within and without.

Borchardt argues that the biased outlook of the twentieth century "scientific worldview," systems philosophy, which overemphasizes systems and neglects environments, taints our most fundamental theories about the universe. But with the philosophy of univironmental determinism, we can gain the feeling of control in our lives and achieve a newfound level of consciousness through which we "will" change the world for the betterment of all.

Identifying scientism as religion's secular counterpart, this collection studies contemporary contestations of the authority of science. These controversies suggest that what we are witnessing today is not an increase in the authority of science at the cost of religion, but a dual decline in the authorities of religion and science alike. This entails an erosion of the legitimacy of universally binding truth claims, be they religiously or scientifically informed. Approaching the issue from a cultural-sociological perspective and building on theories from the sociology of religion, the volume unearths the cultural mechanisms that account for the headwind faced by contemporary science. The empirical contributions highlight how the field of academic science has lost much of its former authority vis-a-vis competing social realms; how political and religious worldviews define particular research findings as favorites while dismissing others; and how much of today's distrust of science is directed against scientific institutions and academic scientists rather than against science per se.

This thought-provoking book points out that the most significant change in international relations in the 20th century was not the defeat of communism, nor the end of the Cold War, but the huge advances in communications technologies. Hisham Nazer, a leading Saudi Arabian intellectual and petroleum industry leader, argues that the West has used its control over these capabilities to superimpose its cultural and political values on the rest of the world. CNN, films and television, and the Internet have become the means of promoting Western products--including soft drinks, detergents, and even the ideals of democracy and human rights--in relatively powerless non-Western nations. This process of creating a global culture through the propagation of Western political and philosophical constructs as world brands poses grave dangers for the entire international community. As countries become aware of their exploitation, the possibilities for frustration and violence become increasingly real.

"Power of a Third Kind" is directed toward Western and non-Western leaders alike. For the former, it provides a new perspective from outside the mirror of our Western culture, pointing out that current practices are actually endangering the security of our hemisphere. The author calls on Western leaders to work on a dialogue with other societies as an alternative to exporting to them a monologue designed for passive absorption. And for the latter, this book will inspire them to steer out of their current course in time to protect their histories and the integrity of their cultures. Through meaningful dialogue, well-meaning nations will find a way for the most beneficial aspects of Western culture--self-rule and basic human rights--to evolve within the context of local cultures, resulting in a world both more stable and more humane.

The shift from orality to literacy that began with the invention of the phonetic alphabet, and which went into high-gear with Gutenberg's printing press more than 500 years ago, helped make the modern world. Some commentators have argued that this shift from orality to literacy marked a much broader, cultural shift of cataclysmic proportions. Today, with everything from e-mail to blogs, iPods and podcasts, through Google, Yahoo, eBay, and with cutting-edge smart phones, we find ourselves developing relationships with these newest communication tools that aren't simply allowing us to communicate faster, farther and with more ease than ever before. We aren't just moving around ideas, data, and information at unimaginable speed and scale. Our interminglings and fusions with digital communication technologies are also altering both individual and group consciousness in fundamental ways-how we form and sustain relationships, how we think and perceive, what it means to see and to feel. We are remaking human identity once more, and manufacturing a new kind of culture along the way. The processes bound up in our digination may well be consequential to the trajectory of human evolution. That time-honored trope: the notion that technology is not the problem, rather, it's how people use technology that's the problem is shown to be wanting. Highlighting Marshall McLuhan's "tetrads" or laws of media as a primary tool of analysis, R.C. MacDougall argues in line with other media ecologists that it's not so much how we use certain tools that matters, it's that we use them. More than any other technological form perhaps, communication technologies play particularly powerful and systemic roles in our culture, or any culture for that matter. Late adopters and even abstainers are not exempt from the psychological, social and cultural effects (and side-effects) of modern digital communication technology. While there are certainly varying degrees of immersion-that is to say, while some of us live in the high-rise downtown district, some at the city limits, and still others out in the proverbial "woods"-we all live in Digination today.

Atlantic Communications examines the historical development of communications technology and its impact on German-American relations from the 17th to the 20th century. Chronologically organized, the book is divided into five parts, each scrutinizing one or two central themes connected to the specific time period and technology involved. The book starts with speech as a dominant medium of the 17th and 18th centuries, when cultural brokers played a significant role in producing and spreading knowledge about America. During the 19th century, the technological competition between the old and the new world became a driving force for the history of transatlantic relations. This competition developed new dimensions with the invention of the telegraph and the emergence of news agencies. Information became commercialized. technologically possible. Print media, daily journals and especially weekly magazines became the medium of a critical style of journalism. The Muckrakers, representatives of a political and intellectual elite, criticized the social and cultural consequences of technological progress, thereby highlighting the negative effects of modernization. During the 1920s and 1930s, radio developed as a new mass medium, the first one to be used widely for political purposes. Not only did Josef Goebbels recognize the political possibilities of reaching the people directly via radio, Franklin Roosevelt used the radio as well to transmit his political messages in the form of fireside chats. to communicate the past, especially the historical experience of the Holocaust. Specific cultures of memory developed in both America and Germany. The demand to tackle the psychological and social problems stemming from the experiences during the Third Reich, advocated especially by the student movement, was most successfully taken up by the media. The television miniseries Holocaust had a far more profound impact on the public than efforts taken by school teachers, history professors or the institutions for political education who were officially in charge of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung.

The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These "technological futurisms" have arisen from significant advances in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology and are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophical and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the growing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological growth by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long historical tradition of technological dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our contemporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and science fiction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett's argument arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jungel and Jurgen Moltmann. Throughout, the author highlights points of correspondence and divergence between technological futurisms and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the future.

A unique resource that synthesizes existing primary and secondary sources to provide a fascinating introduction to the development and dissemination of science within history's great empires, as well as the complex interaction between imperialism and scientific progress over two centuries. Imperialism and Science is a scholarly yet accessible chronicle of the impact of imperialism on science over the past 200 years, from the effect of Catholicism on scientific progress in Latin America to the importance of U.S. government funding of scientific research to America's preeminent place in the world. Spanning two centuries of scientific advance throughout the age of empire, Imperialism and Science sheds new light on the spread of scientific thought throughout the former colonial world. Science made enormous advances during this period, often being associated with anti-Imperialist struggle or, as in the case of the science brought to 19th-century China and India by the British, with Western cultural hegemony. Packed with portraits of key scientists, their discoveries, and their achievements, bringing to life the contribution of scientists from even the most far-flung corners of empire Includes a detailed chronology, bibliography, and a glossary of key scientific terms of the era, helping to make the history of science accessible to the general reader

For many centuries, science and religion have remained staunchly independent. Whenever issues have developed that simultaneously touched on both areas, debate often ensued-for example, when scientists first proposed that the earth revolved around the sun, or when the theory of evolution was proposed. There has always been a cultural disconnect between science and religion that has caused dissention and distrust. Research conducted by author Fred R. David, however, reveals that the missing link between science and religion may be UFOs or, more specifically, the beings inside those crafts.

"The UFO-Christianity Connection: Fact or Fiction"

reveals that UFOs played a significant role in how ancient civilizations built megalithic structures and predicted celestial events perfectly; brings to life the close association that ancient civilizations had with ancient astronauts-whom they called gods or sky people;

reveals that many events described in ancient writings, including the Bible, involved UFO encounters;

gives readers a unique perspective to engage others in discussing angels, God, UFOs, Bigfoot, Satan, giants, the underworld, the flood, Atlantis, and Jesus.

The scientific information presented here is vital for people of all faiths on all continents. Explore the missing link that bridges the gap between science and religion.

The two historical debates studied here are concerned with the impact of technological change on unemployment and on the economy generally. The topic is of enduring interest among both economists and the public at large. The history of these 20th century debates has not previously been studied in detail, and the book provides valuable insight into the evolution of the understanding of a fundamental issue in the economy. By providing insight into idea evolution and economic methodology, the book is a valuable description of the ways in which economists work and react to each other.

Despite continued public interest in issues relating to gender and computing, there exists a relative scarcity of texts on this topic. Gender and Social Computing: Interactions, Differences and Relationships provides an overview of the major questions that researchers and practitioners are addressing, outlining possible future directions for theory development and empirical research on gender and computing. This comprehensive reference focuses on three areas of research on gender and computing: gender and computing in the work arena, gender and computing in cyberspace, and gender in eDating.

As the global information communications technology revolution continues to reshape our public and private institutions, e-democracy should also continue to make significant strides across the world. Information Communication Technologies and the Virtual Public Sphere: Impacts of Network Structures on Civil Society demonstrates how the virtual public sphere uses information communications technology to empower ordinary citizens to engage in effective public discourse and provide the technological means to effect political change. Written with professionals, researchers of various disciplines and interested laypersons in mind, this text aims to help readers understand. the phenomenon of deliberative e-democracy that is occurring throughout the world.

Nanotechnology, clean technology, and geoengineering span the scale of human ingenuity, from the imperceptibly small to the unimaginably large. Yet they are united by a commonality of ethics that permeates how and why they are developed, and how the resulting consequences are managed. The articles in this volume provide a comprehensive account of current thinking around the ethics of development and use within each of the technological domains, and addresses challenges and opportunities that cut across all three. In particular, the collection provides unique insights into the ethics of 'noumenal' technologies - technologies that are impossible to see or detect or conceive of with human senses or conventional tools. This collection will be of relevance to anyone who is actively involved with ensuring the responsible and sustainable development of nanotechnology, geoengineering or clean technology.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

"This is a spectacular collection of essays on the present and future of virtual worlds. It's a perfect introduction for those who have yet to experience them, and more important, a thoughtful companion for those who do."
--Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University

"The State of Play is an extremely comprehensive look into digital worlds and how those worlds are evolving cultures, changing lives, reshaping the way we think and communicate. If you want to understand where modern culture is headed and learn more about incredibly fascinating experiences taking place in virtual worlds, pick up and read this book now."
--Richard Garriott, a.k.a. Lord British, Creator of Ultima Online and Executive Producer, NCsoft

"These essays, by the best thinkers in their fields, will be read, debated, taught, and cited in court cases as we struggle to figure out how to live in a world which is part digital and part social, part real and part imaginary."
--Henry Jenkins, author of "Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide"

aIs useful and interesting for students of surveillance.a--"Surveillance & Society"

aWith diverse essays from game designers, social scientists and legal scholars, The State of Play is a provocative consideration of virtual jurisprudence.a
--"Paste Magazine"

aFor those who want to skip over the hype and dive into the issue, it is hard to imagine a better resource.a
--Cecily Deane Mak, Senior Counsel, Music at RealNetworks.

aReading The State of Play is an adventure. It is the first real step of a journey into the outer limits of the physical world and the inner realms of the virtualwithin the boundaries of societyas comfort zone. It is an exploratory glimpse into how digital worlds may change the future, reshape our own reflection, and challenge real-world laws.a
--"New York Law Journal"

a...traces the fate of playtime over the centuries.a
--"Slate.com"

The State of Play presents an essential first step in understanding how new digital worlds will change the future of our universe. Millions of people around the world inhabit virtual words: multiplayer online games where characters live, love, buy, trade, cheat, steal, and have every possible kind of adventure. Far more complicated and sophisticated than early video games, people now spend countless hours in virtual universes like Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies not to shoot space invaders but to create new identities, fall in love, build cities, make rules, and break them.

As digital worlds become increasingly powerful and lifelike, people will employ them for countless real-world purposes, including commerce, education, medicine, law enforcement, and military training. Inevitably, real-world law will regulate them. But should virtual worlds be fully integrated into our real-world legal system or should they be treated as separate jurisdictions with their own forms of dispute resolution? What rules should govern virtual communities? Should the law step in to protect property rights when virtual items are destroyed or stolen?

These questions, and many more, are considered in The State of Play, where legal experts, game designers, and policymakers explore the boundaries of free speech, intellectual property, and creativity in virtual worlds. The essays explore both the emergence of law inmultiplayer online games and how we can use virtual worlds to study real-world social interactions and test real-world laws.

Contributors include: Jack M. Balkin, Richard A. Bartle, Yochai Benkler, Caroline Bradley, Edward Castronova, Susan P. Crawford, Julian Dibbell, A. Michael Froomkin, James Grimmelmann, David R. Johnson, Dan Hunter, Raph Koster, F. Gregory Lastowka, Beth Simone Noveck, Cory Ondrejka, Tracy Spaight, and Tal Zarsky.

In this book experts in the environment, theology and science argue that the challenge posed to society by biotechnology lies not only in terms of risk/benefit analysis of individual genetic technologies and interventions, but also has implications for the way we think about human identity and our relationship to the natural world. Such a profound--they would suggest religious--challenge requires a response that is genuinely interdisciplinary in nature, a conversation that draws as much on expertise in theology and philosophy as on the natural sciences and risk assessment techniques. They argue that an adequate response must also be sociologically informed in at least two ways. First it must draw on contemporary sociological insights about contemporary cultural change, the complex role of expert knowledge in modern complex society and the specific social dynamics of contemporary technological risks. Secondly, it must endeavour to pay sensitive attention to the voice of the lay public in the current controversy over the new genetics. This book attempts to realise such an aim, as a contribution not just to academic scholarship, but also to the public debate about biotechnology and its regulation. Thus the collection includes contributions from scholars in a range of intellectual domains (indeed, many of the chapters themselves draw on more than one discipline in new and challenging ways). The book invites the reader to enter into this conversation in a creative way and come to appreciate more fully the many-sided nature of the debate.

This book discusses globalization trends and influences on traditional African oral literary performance and the direction that Ilorin oral art is forced to take by the changes of the twenty-first century electronic age. It seeks a new definition of contemporary African bourgeois in terms of its global reach, imitation of foreign forms and collaboration with the owners of the primary agencies. Additionally, it makes a case that African global lords or new bourgeoisie who are largely products of the new global capital and multinational corporations' socio-political and cultural influences fashion their tastes after western cultures as portrayed in the digital realm.

From egg timers to commuter cups, this thorough reference details the domestic technology and innovations that in part defined the 20th century. This amusing and thought provoking A–Z encyclopedia examines modern domestic technology and innovations during the 20th century, exploring the social and cultural conditions that produced such products as the electric iron and the vacuum cleaner.