John Tyler Bonner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157016
- eISBN:
- 9781400846429
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157016.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This book challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. The book makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection. ...
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This book challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. The book makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection. The book makes an argument for the underappreciated role that randomness—or chance—plays in evolution. Due to the tremendous and enduring influence of Darwin's natural selection, the importance of randomness has been to some extent overshadowed. The book shows how the effects of randomness differ for organisms of different sizes, and how the smaller an organism is, the more likely it is that morphological differences will be random and selection may not be involved to any degree. The book then traces the increase in size and complexity of organisms over geological time, and looks at the varying significance of randomness at different size levels, from microorganisms to large mammals. The book also discusses how sexual cycles vary depending on size and complexity, and how the trend away from randomness in higher forms has even been reversed in some social organisms.Less
This book challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. The book makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection. The book makes an argument for the underappreciated role that randomness—or chance—plays in evolution. Due to the tremendous and enduring influence of Darwin's natural selection, the importance of randomness has been to some extent overshadowed. The book shows how the effects of randomness differ for organisms of different sizes, and how the smaller an organism is, the more likely it is that morphological differences will be random and selection may not be involved to any degree. The book then traces the increase in size and complexity of organisms over geological time, and looks at the varying significance of randomness at different size levels, from microorganisms to large mammals. The book also discusses how sexual cycles vary depending on size and complexity, and how the trend away from randomness in higher forms has even been reversed in some social organisms.
Paul U. Unschuld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520257658
- eISBN:
- 9780520944701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520257658.003.0017
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
The ruler of Qin conquered his opponents in the year 221 bc and was able to rule over a unified China and called himself the “First Emperor of Qin.” He was able to create an integrated whole out of ...
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The ruler of Qin conquered his opponents in the year 221 bc and was able to rule over a unified China and called himself the “First Emperor of Qin.” He was able to create an integrated whole out of states that for the most part had been culturally and economically independent. He ordered a common script, common track width (on roads), and common weights and measures, thereby laying the foundation for a lasting exchange of goods and people in his kingdom that was necessary to support the huge new cities in distant parts of the country. The new state organism offered China an experience of being an organism consisting of several units, where each unit contributed to the well-being of the whole. For some philosophers of the time, the effect of this new economic and social organism on their worldview was so profound that they could not avoid internalizing the model as a whole, extending it even to their understanding of the body. The body organism in the new medicine was nothing but the state organism transferred onto the body.Less
The ruler of Qin conquered his opponents in the year 221 bc and was able to rule over a unified China and called himself the “First Emperor of Qin.” He was able to create an integrated whole out of states that for the most part had been culturally and economically independent. He ordered a common script, common track width (on roads), and common weights and measures, thereby laying the foundation for a lasting exchange of goods and people in his kingdom that was necessary to support the huge new cities in distant parts of the country. The new state organism offered China an experience of being an organism consisting of several units, where each unit contributed to the well-being of the whole. For some philosophers of the time, the effect of this new economic and social organism on their worldview was so profound that they could not avoid internalizing the model as a whole, extending it even to their understanding of the body. The body organism in the new medicine was nothing but the state organism transferred onto the body.
Paul U. Unschuld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520257658
- eISBN:
- 9780520944701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520257658.003.0028
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
The idea that a body as an organism has self-interest and tries to heal its own wounds and overcome difficult crises on its own is based on the model image of the self-regulating, autonomous polis. ...
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The idea that a body as an organism has self-interest and tries to heal its own wounds and overcome difficult crises on its own is based on the model image of the self-regulating, autonomous polis. The polis had transformed itself from the monarchy and the rule of the noble families into a democratic structure that was optimal for the situation of the time, a democracy in which the citizens were the sovereigns of their own fates through their meetings. The polis was a social organism and it was entirely unavoidable that its structures lent the plausibility needed for the explanatory model of the self-healing powers to find general acceptance. The fact that sickness heals on its own is also described repeatedly in the ancient Chinese literature. The ancient Chinese literature does not contain descriptions of the course of a normally fatal illness taking an unanticipated and unexpected turn for the better. China has never known trust in the self-regulating powers of the pan-societal organism.Less
The idea that a body as an organism has self-interest and tries to heal its own wounds and overcome difficult crises on its own is based on the model image of the self-regulating, autonomous polis. The polis had transformed itself from the monarchy and the rule of the noble families into a democratic structure that was optimal for the situation of the time, a democracy in which the citizens were the sovereigns of their own fates through their meetings. The polis was a social organism and it was entirely unavoidable that its structures lent the plausibility needed for the explanatory model of the self-healing powers to find general acceptance. The fact that sickness heals on its own is also described repeatedly in the ancient Chinese literature. The ancient Chinese literature does not contain descriptions of the course of a normally fatal illness taking an unanticipated and unexpected turn for the better. China has never known trust in the self-regulating powers of the pan-societal organism.
Henry Sidgwick
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198250234
- eISBN:
- 9780191598432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198250231.003.0023
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This piece includes both Bradley's response to Sidgwick's critique of his Ethical Studies and Sidgwick's reply to that response. Bradley states that he has no pretension to solve the problem of the ...
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This piece includes both Bradley's response to Sidgwick's critique of his Ethical Studies and Sidgwick's reply to that response. Bradley states that he has no pretension to solve the problem of the individual in general, and the origin of the Self in particular. Moreover, he says that he repudiates the doctrine that one's self‐realization is achieved when someone else brings about something one desires. To these and other defences, Sidgwick offers various replies: (1) Bradley scarcely attempts to address the charge that his exposition of the self lacks clarity and coherence; and (2) Bradley misunderstands the position that the social organism of which the individual is said to be an essential part is a relative whole, not an absolute whole.Less
This piece includes both Bradley's response to Sidgwick's critique of his Ethical Studies and Sidgwick's reply to that response. Bradley states that he has no pretension to solve the problem of the individual in general, and the origin of the Self in particular. Moreover, he says that he repudiates the doctrine that one's self‐realization is achieved when someone else brings about something one desires. To these and other defences, Sidgwick offers various replies: (1) Bradley scarcely attempts to address the charge that his exposition of the self lacks clarity and coherence; and (2) Bradley misunderstands the position that the social organism of which the individual is said to be an essential part is a relative whole, not an absolute whole.
Carol Wayne White
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823269815
- eISBN:
- 9780823269853
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823269815.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This book explores a new religious ideal within African American culture that emerges from humanistic assumptions and is grounded in religious naturalism. Identifying African American religiosity as ...
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This book explores a new religious ideal within African American culture that emerges from humanistic assumptions and is grounded in religious naturalism. Identifying African American religiosity as the ingenuity of a people constantly striving to inhabit their humanity and eke out a meaningful existence for themselves amid culturally coded racist rhetoric and practices, it constructs a concept of sacred humanity and grounds it in existing hagiographic and iconic African American writings. The first part of the book argues for a concept of sacred humanity that is supported by the best available knowledge emerging from science studies, philosophy of religion, and the tenets of religious naturalism. With this concept, the book features capacious views of humans as dynamic, evolving, social organisms having the capacity to transform ourselves and create nobler worlds where all sentient creatures flourish, and as aspiring lovers of life and of each other. Within the context of African American history and culture, the sacred humanity concept also offers new ways of grasping an ongoing theme of traditional African American religiosity: the necessity of establishing and valuing blacks’ full humanity. In the second part, the book traces indications of the sacred humanity concept within select works of three major African American intellectuals of the early and mid-twentieth century: Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Dubois, and James Baldwin. The theoretical linkage of select ideas and themes in their writings with the concept of sacred humanity marks the emergence of an African American religious naturalism.Less
This book explores a new religious ideal within African American culture that emerges from humanistic assumptions and is grounded in religious naturalism. Identifying African American religiosity as the ingenuity of a people constantly striving to inhabit their humanity and eke out a meaningful existence for themselves amid culturally coded racist rhetoric and practices, it constructs a concept of sacred humanity and grounds it in existing hagiographic and iconic African American writings. The first part of the book argues for a concept of sacred humanity that is supported by the best available knowledge emerging from science studies, philosophy of religion, and the tenets of religious naturalism. With this concept, the book features capacious views of humans as dynamic, evolving, social organisms having the capacity to transform ourselves and create nobler worlds where all sentient creatures flourish, and as aspiring lovers of life and of each other. Within the context of African American history and culture, the sacred humanity concept also offers new ways of grasping an ongoing theme of traditional African American religiosity: the necessity of establishing and valuing blacks’ full humanity. In the second part, the book traces indications of the sacred humanity concept within select works of three major African American intellectuals of the early and mid-twentieth century: Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Dubois, and James Baldwin. The theoretical linkage of select ideas and themes in their writings with the concept of sacred humanity marks the emergence of an African American religious naturalism.
