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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues
Communication and assessment of scientific information is as
important as the science itself, especially when policy-makers,
politicians, and media specialists lack scientific backgrounds.
Scientific advice has never been in greater demand; nor has it been
more contested. This book explores the effect of the public
communication of science on the interaction between science and
policy development in the regulation of the environment, food,
health, and transport sectors. This second "Science and the Law"
book by these editors presents a series of case studies that
illustrate the impact of science communication to lawmakers and the
general public in other areas of policy development, including
nutrition, tobacco science, drugs, and environmental issues. The
chapter contributors all present an interesting cross-section of
current, hot-button issues that revolve around scientific
principles, and they clearly demonstrate the extent to which
accurate and appropriate communication of science influences
leaders and legislation.
Exam Board: Pearson BTEC Academic Level: BTEC National Subject:
Applied Science First teaching: September 2016 First Exams: Summer
2017 For all four of the externally assessed units 1, 3, 5 and 7.
Builds confidence with scaffolded practice questions. Unguided
questions that allow students to test their own knowledge and
skills in advance of assessment. Clear unit-by-unit correspondence
between this Workbook and the Revision Guide and ActiveBook.
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Learn
(Paperback)
Dr Bill Thompson
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R357
Discovery Miles 3 570
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Smile, lift up your Voices. Life is your Play. Wander around on the
stage of Life and Learn. LEARN is the fifth book by the secular
philosopher bill thompson after SMILE, VOICES, PLAY, WANDER, and
now LEARN. The book is for those who have had enough of Homo
Sapiens and are turning to Homo Conatus who is always waiting in
the wings of the greek theatres of words. Homo Conatus, wanting to
exist and enhance the SELF. Individuals needing a progressive
politics, a shared EARTH in order to flourish safely. This requires
DEPTH, an existential that and how. A basic understanding of
biology and cosmology on top of any old sapient understandings of
space and time machines. This new understanding that Homo Conatus
requires turns Freudianism upside down and microcosmic. Hysteria is
normal. Boring is normal. In between is Play. This new deal for the
children of the 21st Century has been researched by the Greeks
[Aristotle], Romans [Cicero], Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz,
and Newton [not as a mechanics but] as the complexity that
surpasses the understandings of the older Homo Sapiens because of
quantum electrodynamics or chemistry for short. Quantum Dynamic
Homeostasis. So Darwin and then secular universities around the
world for our teleonomic developments, new technologies. Any
chances of a maintaining a civil order whilst opening up to diverse
opinionsa has to change gear from sapiens to Conatus and embrace
the teleonomics of the modern synthesis [1958]. Not a lot of people
know enough about this yet, and Learn is the fifth a introduction
to Homo Conatusa by the secular philosopher bill thompson [who is
still trying to work out what it is like to be human]. And is that
not what you do on a daily basis?
When ordinary people - mathematicians among them - take something
to follow (deductively) from something else, they are exposing the
backbone of our self-ascribed ability to reason. Jody Azzouni
investigates the connection between that ordinary notion of
consequence and the formal analogues invented by logicians. One
claim of the book is that, despite our apparent intuitive grasp of
consequence, we do not introspect rules by which we reason, nor do
we grasp the scope and range of the domain, as it were, of our
reasoning. This point is illustrated with a close analysis of a
paradigmatic case of ordinary reasoning: mathematical proof.
What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of
consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a
science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and
controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified
framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting
with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers
builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a
nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies
to many critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive
theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of
how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of
consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external
world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the
"consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual
experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical
problems about consciousness and the external world. This book will
be required reading for anyone interested in the problems of mind,
brain, consciousness, and reality.
Written in an accessible style with comprehensive coverage, the
Handbook of Gender and Technology provides an excellent foundation
examining gender equity in technology fields. Covering the state of
the art, chapters consider three key influences - environmental,
identity and individual - to highlight interventions to address the
gender gap in technology. Using qualitative and quantitative
methods, the expert contributors seek to understand the subjective
reality of those experiencing gender barriers and provide the
reader with both theory and research results into gender diversity
in technology. This Handbook provides a comprehensive review of
issues faced by women and gender minorities in technology fields.
It is global in perspective, including chapters about Africa,
Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America. It is intersectional in
approach, including the standpoint of racial and ethnic minorities,
persons with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Providing a unified look at the challenges faced, this insightful
Handbook will be an excellent resource for scholars interested in
gender and social inclusion in technology fields. It will also
provide an informative guide for policymakers and managers in
global organisations tasked with developing interventions using
data-driven practices to address the gender gap.
For a decade, Ecco has published the most outstanding science
writing in America, collected in highly acclaimed annual volumes
edited by some of the most impressive and most important names in
science and science writing today: James Gleick, Timothy Ferris,
Matt Ridley, Oliver Sacks, Dava Sobel, Alan Lightman, Atul Gawande,
Gina Kolata, Sylvia Nasar, and Natalie Angier.
Now series editor Jesse Cohen invites the previous guest
editors to select their favorite essays for this one-of-a-kind
anthology. The result is an outstanding compendium--the best
science writing of the new millennium, featuring an introduction by
the series' 2010 editor and "New York Times" bestselling author of
"How Doctors Think," Jerome Groopman.
Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the
universe infinite or does it have boundaries? These are just some
of the questions considered in the internationally acclaimed
masterpiece by the world renowned physicist - generally considered
to have been one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by
reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein,
before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of
space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral
galaxies and strong theory. To this day A Brief History of Time
remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and
clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and
its wonders. This new edition includes recent updates from Stephen
Hawking with his latest thoughts about the No Boundary Proposal and
offers new information about dark energy, the information paradox,
eternal inflation, the microwave background radiation observations,
and the discovery of gravitational waves. It was published in
tandem with the app, Stephen Hawking's Pocket Universe.
Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of
nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of
the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not
seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory
gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern
in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all
appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists
hold that it cannot, and that this implies that there is something
illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that
the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance
or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold
that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some
limitation of our self-understanding.
In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is
based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of
science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy
fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of
science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True
reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the
conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of
armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century
Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain
are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the
way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences,
there is little reason to expect them in the case of
psychology.
Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the
contemporary problematic inphilosophy of mind. Reductionism,
dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each
severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science,
and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm.
Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive
Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us
to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized,
and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular
representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such
an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is
plausible on evolutionary grounds.
What if we could have babies without having to bear children, eat meat without killing animals, have the perfect sexual relationship without compromise or choose the time of our painless death?
To find out, Jenny Kleeman has interviewed a sex robot, eaten a priceless lab-grown chicken nugget, watched foetuses growing in plastic bags and attended members-only meetings where people learn how to kill themselves.
Many of the people Kleeman has met say they are finding solutions to problems that have always defined and constricted humankind. But what truly motivates them? What kind of person devotes their life to building a death machine? What kind of customer is desperate to buy an artificially intelligent sex doll – and why? Who is campaigning against these advances, and how are they trying to stop them? And what about the many unintended consequences such inventions will inevitably unleash?
Sex Robots & Vegan Meat is not science fiction. It’s not about what might happen one day – it’s about what is happening right now, and who is making it happen. In the end, it asks a simple question: are we about to change what it means to be human . . . for ever?
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