Showing titles in Philosophy

In the wake of a divorce, science writer and single mother Kayt Sukel made herself a guinea pig in the labs of some unusual love experts to find out. This Is Your Brain on Sex is her lively and hilarious examination of the big questions about love and sex, previously published in hardcover as Dirty Minds. Each chapter of this edgy romp through the romantic brain looks at a different aspect of love above the belt.

Does life exist on Mars? The question has captivated humans for centuries, but today it has taken on new urgency. NASA plans to send astronauts to Mars orbit by the 2030s. SpaceX wants to go by 2024, while Mars One wants to land a permanent settlement there in 2032. As we gear up for missions like these, we have a responsibility to think deeply about what kinds of life may already inhabit the planet - and whether we have the right to invite ourselves in.

In this book, two distinguished scientists tackle common misconceptions about race, human biology, and racism. Using an accessible question-and-answer format, Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Alan H. Goodman explain the differences between social and biological notions of race. Although there are many meaningful human genetic variations, they do not map onto socially constructed racial categories. Drawing on evidence from both natural and social science, Graves and Goodman dismantle the malignant myth of gene-based racial difference.

Sports is a religion. No, really. From pilgrimages and cathedrals, gods and fallen angels, holy wars and holy ghosts, organized sports has every aspect of an organized faith. In fact, it might be even better: all it takes to believe is to stand and cheer. Nobody knows this better than the preeminent sports documentarian Gotham Chopra, who just so happens to be the son of world-renowned spiritualist Deepak Chopra. While his father taught him to find faith through prayer, Gotham felt pulled towards the Boston Garden and Larry Bird instead.

Ob vergessene Lemuren-Arten, Müll auf dem Mond, Pandemie-Simulationen in World of Warcraft oder berüchtigte Zombie-Ameisen: Neurowissenschaftler Dr. Jens Foell widmet sich in 42 Kapiteln den nerdigsten Tatsachen aus der Welt Wissenschaft. Und erklärt ganz nebenbei, wie Forschung funktioniert. Mit einem Vorwort von Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim. Nacktmulle: Warum sie keinen Schmerz spüren und wie man das ändern kann.

Alles ist messbar: Kaffee und Galaxien ebenso wie Quarks und Schwarze Löcher, der Mensch, die Natur, die Städte–kurz, alles, was uns umgibt. Das Einzige, was man dafür braucht, sind die sieben Maßeinheiten Meter, Kilogramm, Sekunde, Ampere, Kelvin, Mol und Candela.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan created one of the dumbest talking points of all time: "I'm not a scientist, but..." Since then, politicians have repeatedly committed egregious transgressions against scientific knowledge prefaced by this seemingly innocuous phrase. Yet, as science journalist Dave Levitan reveals, that line is just the tip of the melting iceberg when it comes to rhetorical tools wielded to attack scientific findings that don't cooperate with political agendas.

In this fascinating exploration of the changing status of dogs and cats in society, pet lover and award-winning journalist David Grimm explores the rich and surprising history of our favorite companion animals. He treks the long and often torturous path from their wild origins to their dark days in the middle ages to their current standing as the most valued animals on Earth. For pet lovers or anyone interested in how we decide who gets to be a “person” in today’s world, Citizen Canine is a must-have. It is a pet tale like no other.

We've pinpointed the destination, refined the technology, designed the habitat. Are we forgetting something? A timely reminder that it's not just rocket science, this book explores the all-too-human issues raised by the prospect of settling in outer space. Accordingly, her work highlights the complex ethical challenges that accompany any other-worldly venture—questions about the environment, labor rights, and medical ethics, among others.

From the beginning of history, measurement has been interwoven into the human experience, shaping our understanding of nature, personal relationships, and the supernatural. We measure the world to know our past, comprehend the present, and plan the future.

Impressive Deception offers an inside look at the deceiving portrayal of evolution by the media and in our public schools. DeeDee Briski uncovers the media bias that forms the basis of the worldview that has become the accepted view in our mainstream educational systems.

De ses mythes fondateurs à son effondrement face aux invasions barbares, ce coffret retrace l'épopée de l'Histoire de Rome. La petite cité, vouée par la légende à un avenir illustre, conquiert l'intégralité du monde connu de l'époque. Dans sa chute même, Rome, à la fois ville et empire, établit les racines de notre civilisation.

Bill McKibben, examines the dangers inherent in an array of technologies that threaten not just our survival, but our identity. Imagine a future where lab workers can reprogram human embryos to make our children "smarter" or "more sociable" or "happier." Enough examines such possibilities, and explains how we can avoid their worst consequences while still enjoying the fruits of our new scientific understandings.

Come custodire il più prezioso dei sentimenti in un tempo che sembra fagocitare le emozioni, le scelte, i desideri per crearne sempre di nuovi? Come ricavare, nella fretta dei giorni, lo spazio per il giardino emotivo dove l’amore nasce e cresce, per prendercene cura e per dedicarvi le nostre risorse migliori? Uomini e donne vivono l’amore in modo profondamente diverso gli uni dalle altre e questo dà luogo a infiniti equivoci e incomprensioni. In un lavoro durato tre anni Francesco Alberoni e Cristina Cattaneo hanno indagato questi punti controversi.

We know that eating animals is bad for the planet and bad for our health, and yet we do it anyway. Ask anyone in the plant-based movement and the solution seems obvious: stop eating meat. But, for many people, that stark solution is neither appealing nor practical. In Meat Me Halfway, author and founder of the reducetarian movement Brian Kateman puts forth a realistic and balanced goal: mindfully reduce your meat consumption.

Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry guide listeners through time and space, through our bodies and brains, showing how emotions shape our view of reality, how our minds tell us lies, and why a mostly bald and curious ape decided to begin poking at the fabric of the universe.

The real nature of time is still a mystery, even after thousands of years of philosophers and scientists analyzing it and proposing theories about it. Prophecy has existed for most of humanity’s time on Earth, and there is a lot of reason to think that seeing the future does reveal some of what happens and is about to happen. I also wrote two books on this subject, including the history of prophecy and my own experiences.

C. S. Lewis is best known for his Narnia tales and Christian apologetics, works that have sold more than 100 million copies. But Lewis was also a trained philosopher and a professor at Cambridge and Oxford. An intellectual giant, he fiercely and extensively critiqued the fashionable dogma known as scientism - the idea that science is the only path to knowledge, and matter the fundamental reality.

Les Presses Universitaires de France et Frémeaux & Associés proposent des cours particuliers sur l'histoire de la littérature française, racontée, expliquée et analysée par Alain Viala, professeur émérite à l'Université de Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, avec des extraits lus par Daniel Mesguich, comédien, metteur en scène et écrivain. À l'issue de la Première Guerre mondiale, tout est à reconstruire. Le traumatisme collectif s'exorcise dans la littérature par un renouveau frénétique, une intensité de création, un désir de révolution.

It is not too often that a brilliant scientist is also a wonderfully gifted writer. Sir Arthur Eddington was both. Brought up as a Quaker (he was a pacifist during World War One), Eddington was by all accounts a brilliant mathematician and physicist, who eventually became a professor of astronomy at Cambridge University. Sir Arthur Eddington is perhaps most famous for partially confirming Albert Einstein's theory of relativity back in 1919.