A collection of twenty cutting-edge essays on issues raised by biotechnology's increasing impact on humans and nature, The Meaning of Life in the 21st Century provides a forward-looking discussion by a wide array of prominent experts on where today's scientific discoveries are taking humankind. The theme is that there are expanded perspectives for retaining unique meanings of being human in the 21st century. This collection is the result of a 2005 conference organized by the Yoko Civilization Research Institute of Japan. Organized into themes by Dr. Don Hanlon Johnson, these essays present deeply informed, sometimes conflicting views of complex issues, which, in the contemporary world, are inescapably global, including: Science and religion in a pivotal age Science, experience, and values Stem cells, embryos, and the meaning of embodiment Enhancement and transformative practices Religion and ecology: a growing alliance Bringing a diversity of prominent thinkers from several continents to the scientific, sociopolitical, and religious issues at the forefront of contemporary challenges, this collection makes clear that the world is now a community which faces these issues together. This serious, thoughtful book, rich in dialogue, provides hope for new perspectives for developing a positive, sustainable future.

The Philosophy of Practical Affairs: An Introduction addresses the problems of everyday life, problems that from time to time fate drops on normal twenty-first-century western individuals. Addressing both students and philosophers, Joseph Agassi considers the usefulness of the treatment of daily problems within academic philosophy, including rationalism and fundamental issues of practical wisdom, the community, and the individual's relationship to community. Unlike most philosophy-of-life literatures from pop-philosophy-especially religious homilies or wisdom literature, including the (pseudo-)cabbalist or (pseudo-)Buddhist, and their like-the book acknowledges real, disturbing situations. Warning the reader against various kinds of intellectual dishonesty, and committed to their rational autonomy, the author thinks through philosophical concepts that are in the end practical issues of philosophy of life.

Jeremy Brown offers the first major study of the Jewish reception of the Copernican revolution, examining four hundred years of Jewish writings on the Copernican model. Brown shows the ways in which Jews ignored, rejected, or accepted the Copernican model, and the theological and societal underpinnings of their choices. Throughout New Heavens and a New Earth are deft historical studies of such colorful figures as Joseph Delmedigo, the first Jewish Copernican and a student of Galileo's; Tuviah Cohen, who called Copernicus the "Son of Satan; " Zelig Slonimski, author of a famed collection of essays on Halley's Comet and other astronomical phenomena; and the modern neo-goecentrists who use Einstein's Theory of Relativity to argue that the Earth does not actually revolve around the sun. Brown also provides insightful comparisons of concurrent Jewish and Christian writings on Copernicus, demonstrating that the Jewish reception of Copernicus was largely dependent on local factors and response. The book concludes by noting the important lessons that may be learned from the history of the Jewish reception of Copernican thought and showing how religions make room for new scientific descriptions of reality while upholding most cherished beliefs.

Like all other forms of modern media, video games impact society and human behavior in often surprising ways. Understanding the growing effect of digital entertainment on twenty-first century culture is critical to anticipating the future of social interactions. Cases on the Societal Effects of Persuasive Games investigates the connection between multimedia technologies and game-based learning for an improved understanding of the impact and effectiveness of serious games in modern societies. With examples from the fields of education, business, healthcare, and more, this book serves as a crucial reference source for researchers, educators, developers, and students in higher and continuing education.

In recent years, India's ''sacred groves,'' small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine and anthropologists. Environmentalists disillusioned by the failures of massive state-sponsored solutions to ecological problems have hailed them as an exemplary form of traditional community resource management. For, in spite of pressures to utilize their trees for fodder, housing and firewood, the religious taboos surrounding sacred groves have led to the conservation of pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, Eliza F. Kent offers a compelling examination of the religious and social context in which sacred groves take on meaning for the villagers who maintain them, and shows how they have become objects of fascination and hope for Indian environmentalists. Sacred Groves and Local Gods traces a journey through Tamil Nadu, exploring how the localized meanings attached to forested shrines are changing under the impact of globalization and economic liberalization. Confounding simplistic representations of sacred groves as sites of a primitive form of nature worship, the book shows how local practices and beliefs regarding sacred groves are at once more imaginative, dynamic, and pragmatic than previously thought. Kent argues that rather than being ancient in origin, as previously asserted by scholars, the religious beliefs, practices, and iconography found in sacred groves suggest origins in the politically de-centered eighteenth century, when the Tamil country was effectively ruled by local chieftains. She analyzes two projects undertaken by environmentalists that seek to harness the traditions surrounding sacred groves in the service of forest restoration and environmental education.

The first systematic, comprehensive and critical English-language study of radio in China, this book documents a historical understanding of Chinese radio from the early twentieth century to the present. Covering both public matters and private lives, Radio and Social Transformation in China analyses a range of themes from healthcare, migration and education, to intimacy, family and friendship. Through a concentrated and thorough scrutiny of a variety of new genres and radio practices in post-Mao China, it also investigates the interaction between radio and social change, particularly in the era of economic reform. Building on the core theoretical concept of 'compressed modernity', each of the radio genres explored is shown to embody China's efforts to achieve modernity, while simultaneously exemplifying radio's capacity to manage the challenges that have arisen from the country's distinctive and perhaps unique process of modernization. Written in an engaging style, this book makes an important contribution to radio history internationally. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of broadcast media, radio and Communication Studies, as well as Chinese culture and society.

In this moment of climate precarity, Victorian studies scholar Barbara Leckie considers the climate crisis as a problem of time. Spanning the long nineteenth century through our current moment, her interdisciplinary treatment of climate change at once rethinks time and illustrates that the time for climate action is now. Climate Change, Interrupted argues that linear, progress-inflected temporalities are not adequate to a crisis that defies their terms. Instead, this book advances a theory and practice of interruption to rethink prevailing temporal frameworks. At the same time, it models the anachronistic, time-blending, and time-layering temporality it advances. In a series of experimental chapters informed by the unlikely trio of Walter Benjamin, Donna Haraway, and Virginia Woolf, Leckie reinflects and cowrites the traditions and knowledges of the long nineteenth century and the current period in the spirit of climate action collaboration. The current moment demands as many approaches as possible, invites us to take risks, and asks scholars and activists adept at storytelling to participate in the conversation. Climate Change, Interrupted, accordingly, invests in interruption to tell a different story of the climate crisis.

The complex relationship between technology and social outcomes is well known and has recently seen significant attention due to the deepening of technology use in many domains. This includes issues such as the reproduction of inequality due to the digital divide, threats to democracy due to misinformation propagated through social networking platforms, algorithmic biases that can perpetuate structural injustices, hardships caused to citizens due to misplaced assumptions about the gains expected from the use of information technology in government processes, and simplistic beliefs that technology can easily lead to social development. This timely work draws attention to the varying factors by which technology often leads to disempowerment effects. Featuring a Foreword by Tim Unwin, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, Seth makes a call to technologists to burst the technology optimism bubble, build an ethos for taking greater responsibility in their work, collectivize to similarly shape the internal governance of their organizations, and engage with the rest of society to strengthen democracy and build an acceptance that the primary goal of technology projects should be to bring equality by overturning unjust societal structures.

William Bainbridge takes an in-depth look at the fantasy religions that exist in 34 different massively multiplayer online roleplaying games. He categorizes the religions, noting similarities across the games. He points, for instance, to the prevalence of polytheism: a system which, Bainbridge argues, can function as an effective map of reality in which each deity personifies a concept. Religions are as much about conceptualizing the self as conceptualizing the sacred. Most games allow the players to have multiple avatars, an idea Bainbridge likens to contemporary scientific ideas about personality. He also focuses on sacred spaces; the prevalence of magic and its relationship to the computer program and programmer; the fostering of a tribal morality by both religion and rules programmed into the game; the rise of cults and belief systems within the game worlds (and how this relates to social science theories of cult formation in the real world); and, of course, how the gameworld religions depict death. As avatars are immortal, death is merely a minor setback in most games. At the same time, much of the action in some gameworlds centers on the issue of mortality and the problematic nature of resurrection. Bainbridge contends that gameworlds are giving us a new perspective on the human quest, one that combines the arts and simulates most aspects of real life. The quests in gameworlds also provide meaning for human action, in terms of narratives about achieving goals by overcoming obstacles. Perhaps meaning does not naturally exist in our universe, but must be created by us, both in our fantasies and in day-to-day life. Like the games analyzed in this book, he says, traditional religions are fantasies that should be respected as works of art in a future civilization of disbelief.

We live in a world that's constantly redesigned. Today's redesign is tomorrow's vintage look. But times of crisis rapidly change the picture. Suddenly, the whole world is in dire need of a proper redesign. From capitalism to communication, from work to supply chains, from cities to office space - it's hard to find an area of our lives that's not due for an overhaul. This is a challenge, but also a huge opportunity: to design a better world.

The word 'data' has entered everyday conversation, but do we really understand what it means? How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? In Data Lives, renowned social scientist Rob Kitchin explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven technologies have become essential to how society, government and the economy work. Creatively blending scholarly analysis, biography and fiction, he demonstrates how data are shaped by social and political forces, and the extent to which they influence our daily lives. He reveals our data world to be one of potential danger, but also of hope.

'Witty, rigorous, and as urgent as a fire alarm' Dorian Lynskey 'Cooly prosecutorial' Guardian Nobody meant for this to happen. Facebook didn't mean to facilitate a genocide. Twitter didn't want to be used to harass women. YouTube never planned to radicalise young men. But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more 'engagement'. In so doing, they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships. Social warming has happened gradually - as a by-product of our preposterously convenient digital existence. But the gradual deterioration of our attitudes and behaviour on- and offline - this vicious cycle of anger and outrage - is real. And it can be corrected. Here's how.

Is there such a thing as natural knowledge of God? C. Stephen Evans presents the case for understanding theistic arguments as expressions of natural signs in order to gain a new perspective both on their strengths and weaknesses. Three classical, much-discussed theistic arguments - cosmological, teleological, and moral - are examined for the natural signs they embody. At the heart of this book lie several relatively simple ideas. One is that if there is a God of the kind accepted by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, then it is likely that a 'natural' knowledge of God is possible. Another is that this knowledge will have two characteristics: it will be both widely available to humans and yet easy to resist. If these principles are right, a new perspective on many of the classical arguments for God's existence becomes possible. We understand why these arguments have for many people a continued appeal but also why they do not constitute conclusive 'proofs' that settle the debate once and for all. Touching on the interplay between these ideas and contemporary scientific theories about the origins of religious belief, particularly the role of natural selection in predisposing humans to form beliefs in God or gods, Evans concludes that these scientific accounts of religious belief are fully consistent, even supportive, of the truth of religious convictions.

Throughout history, humans have explored new places, making both good and bad moral decisions along the way. As humanity proceeds to explore space, it is important that we learn from the successes and not repeat the mistakes of the past. This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to ethics as it applies to space exploration and use. It examines real-world case studies that exemplify the ethical challenges we face in exploring beyond Earth: space debris, militarization in space, hazardous asteroids, planetary protection, the search for extraterrestrial life, commercial and private sector activities in space, space settlements, very long duration missions, and planetary-scale interventions. Major themes include human health, environmental concerns, safety and risk, governance and decision-making, and opportunities and challenges of multidisciplinary and international contexts. Ideal for classroom use and beyond, the book provides ways of thinking that will help students, academics and policymakers examine the full range of ethical decisions on questions related to space exploration.

Written by perhaps the world's foremost authority on the relationship between science and theology, Reason and Reality brings together essays in which John Polkinghorne pursues more deeply themes touched on in his earlier works. The result is a deeply satisfying interpretation of the nature and scope of human knowledge, the extent and limits of science, and the proper place of theology as what Polkinghorne calls science's "cousin under the skin"

This volume provides an analysis of the relationship between technology, ethics and culture. Topics covered in this title include: environmental ethics and the recovery of culture; media, identity and politics; technological enlightenment as a continuation of modern thinking; and, the rhetoric of eugenics.

Citizens opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive – as individuals, as organisations, as nations, even as a species.

Jon Alexander’s consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of Britain’s biggest organisations such as the Co-op, The Guardian and the National Trust. Here, with the New York Times bestselling writer Ariane Conrad, he shows how human history has moved from the Subject Story of kings and empires to the current Consumer Story. Now, he argues compellingly, it is time to enter the Citizen Story.

Because when our institutions treat people as citizens rather than consumers, everything changes. Unleashing the power of everyone equips us to face the challenges of economic insecurity, climate crisis, public health threats, and polarisation.

Citizens is an upbeat handbook, full of insights, clear examples to follow, and inspiring case studies, from the slums of Kenya to the backstreets of Birmingham. It is the perfect pick-me-up for leaders, founders, elected officials – and citizens everywhere.

The first nuclear engineers emerged from the Manhattan Project in the USA, UK and Canada, but remained hidden behind security for a further decade. Cosseted and cloistered by their governments, they worked to explore applications of atomic energy at a handful of national labs. This unique bottom-up history traces how the identities of these unusually voiceless experts - forming a uniquely state-managed discipline - were shaped in the context of pre-war nuclear physics, wartime industrial management, post-war politics and utopian energy programmes. Even after their eventual emergence at universities and companies, nuclear workers carried the enduring legacy of their origins. Their shared experiences shaped not only their identities, but our collective memories of the late twentieth century. And as illustrated by the Fukushima accident seven decades after the Manhattan project began, this book explains why they are still seen conflictingly as selfless heroes or as mistrusted guardians of a malevolent genie.

Baark examines the transfer of telegraph technology to China in the late nineteenth century. He shows how the initial Chinese rejection of the telegraph as an inconvenient technology contributed to violent conflicts between foreigners and the Chinese, but that this resistence gradually gave way to an assimilation of the telegraph into Chinese society.

The transfer and assimilation of advanced technology has been an important challenge for China's modernization for more than a century. Baark examines some of the dilemmas faced by Chinese modernizers of the "yangwu" (Western affairs) movement from the 1860s to the 1890s. Telegraph technology emerged in the West on the basis of scientific discoveries in electricity in the early nineteenth century, and was greeted with enthusiasm by governments and the public alike.

The Chinese attitudes to the telegraph, however, were informed by entirely different political and cultural priorities. Baark examines the tensions which existed between the Chinese and the foreign companies seeking to extend telegraph technology to East Asian cities, and he shows how the domestic network was shaped by indigenous social and cultural forces. This book will be of considerable interest to historians of modern China, technology, and economic development.

"Science, Technology and Society: A Sociological Approach" is a comprehensive guide to the emergent field of science, technology, and society (STS) studies and its implications for today's culture and society.
Discusses current STS topics, research tools, and theories
Tackles some of the most urgent issues in current STS studies, including power and culture, race, gender, colonialism, the Internet, cyborgs and robots, and biotechnology
Includes case studies, a glossary, and further reading lists

Beginning from the program for phenomenology set forth in Edmund Husserl's The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Ian H. Angus investigates the crisis of reason in a contemporary context. In Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World, Angus connects the late work of Marx to human motility, natural fecundity (excess), and ecology. Angus's overall conception of phenomenology is Socratic in that it is concerned with the presuppositions and application of knowledge-forms to their lifeworld grounding. He argues that the crisis produced by the formalization of reason creates an inability to foster differentiated community as expected by both Husserl and Marx and that the formalization of human motility by the regime of value reveals the ontological productivity of natural fecundity (excess) and shows the priority of ecology as the contemporary exemplary science. Husserl's idea of Europe as the home for philosophy is surpassed. Angus further argues that the contemporary task for Socratic phenomenology is in the epochal confrontation between planetary technology and place-based Indigeneity. He demonstrates that community and labor depend upon natural fecundity (excess) and locates their realization in the dialogue between civilizational-cultural lifeworlds, especially with respect to their ecological formation and access to transcendentality. This book lays out the fundamental concepts of a systematic phenomenological Marxian philosophy.

Deepen your connection to the natural world with this inspiring meditation, "a path to the place where science and spirit meet" (Robin Wall Kimmerer).In Rooted, cutting-edge science supports a truth that poets, artists, mystics, and earth-based cultures across the world have proclaimed over millennia: life on this planet is radically interconnected. Our bodies, thoughts, minds, and spirits are affected by the whole of nature, and they affect this whole in return. In this time of crisis, how can we best live upon our imperiled, beloved earth?Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt's highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways-from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness-and wildness-that sustains humans and all of life.In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Mary Oliver, Haupt writes with urgency and grace, reminding us that at the crossroads of science, nature, and spirit we find true hope. Each chapter provides tools for bringing our unique gifts to the fore and transforming our sense of belonging within the magic and wonder of the natural world.

This book describes novel approaches designed to enhance the professional training of physics teachers, and explores innovations in the teaching and learning of physics in the classroom and laboratory. It features selected contributions from the International Research Group on Physics Teaching (GIREP) and Multimedia in Physics Teaching and Learning (MPTL) Conference, held in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, in July 2018, which brought together two communities: researchers in physics education and physics teachers. The book covers a broad range of topics, highlighting important aspects of the relationship between research and innovation in the teaching of physics, and presenting fresh insights to help improve learning processes and instruction. Offering a contemporary vision of physics teaching and the learning process, the book is of interest to all teachers and researchers committed to teaching and learning physics on the basis of good evidence.

Since its founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.