A philosophical analysis of concepts and arguments used by Darwin and in contemporary evolutionary biology, sometimes using probability theory as a tool.
How should the concept of evidence be understood? And how does the concept of evidence apply to the controversy about creationism as well as to work in evolutionary biology about natural selection and common ancestry? In this rich and wide-ranging book, Elliott Sober investigates general questions about probability and evidence and shows how the answers he develops to those questions apply to the specifics of evolutionary biology. Drawing on a set of fascinating examples, he analyzes whether claims about intelligent design are untestable; whether they are discredited by the fact that many adaptations are imperfect; how evidence bears on whether present species trace back to common ancestors; how hypotheses about natural selection can be tested, and many other issues. His book will interest all readers who want to understand philosophical questions about evidence and evolution, as they arise both in Darwin's work and in contemporary biological research.
Writing in an engaging lecture-style format, Elliott Sober shows students how philosophy is best used to evaluate many different kinds of arguments and to construct sound theories. Well-known historical texts are discussed, not as a means to honor the dead or merely to discuss what various philosophers have thought, but to engage with, criticize, and even improve ideas from the past. In addition—because philosophy cannot function apart from its engagement with the wider society—traditional and contemporary philosophical problems are brought into dialogue with the physical, biological, and social sciences. Text boxes highlight key concepts, and review questions, discussion questions, and a glossary of terms are also included. Core Questions in Philosophy has served as a premier introductory textbook for more than two decades, with updates to each new edition. New improvements to this seventh edition include a lower price and a new Routledge companion website that includes: Updated supplementary readings, with the inclusion of more work from female philosophers New videos and podcasts, organized by their relevance to each chapter in the book. Visit the companion website at: www.routledge.com/cw/sober.
The Nature of Selection is a straightforward, self-contained introduction to philosophical and biological problems in evolutionary theory. It presents a powerful analysis of the evolutionary concepts of natural selection, fitness, and adaptation and clarifies controversial issues concerning altruism, group selection, and the idea that organisms are survival machines built for the good of the genes that inhabit them. "Sober's is the answering philosophical voice, the voice of a first-rate philosopher and a knowledgeable student of contemporary evolutionary theory. His book merits broad attention among both communities. It should also inspire others to continue the conversation."-Philip Kitcher, Nature "Elliott Sober has made extraordinarily important contributions to our understanding of biological problems in evolutionary biology and causality. The Nature of Selection is a major contribution to understanding epistemological problems in evolutionary theory. I predict that it will have a long lasting place in the literature."-Richard C. Lewontin
No matter what we do, however kind or generous our deeds may seem, a hidden motive of selfishness lurks--or so science has claimed for years. This book, whose publication promises to be a major scientific event, tells us differently. In Unto Others philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloan Wilson demonstrate once and for all that unselfish behavior is in fact an important feature of both biological and human nature. Their book provides a panoramic view of altruism throughout the animal kingdom--from self-sacrificing parasites to insects that subsume themselves in the superorganism of a colony to the human capacity for selflessness--even as it explains the evolutionary sense of such behavior. Explaining how altruistic behavior can evolve by natural selection, this book finally gives credence to the idea of group selection that was originally proposed by Darwin but denounced as heretical in the 1960s. With their account of this controversy, Sober and Wilson offer a detailed case study of scientific change as well as an indisputable argument for group selection as a legitimate theory in evolutionary biology. Unto Others also takes a novel evolutionary approach in explaining the ultimate psychological motives behind unselfish human behavior. Developing a theory of the proximate mechanisms that most likely evolved to motivate adaptive helping behavior, Sober and Wilson show how people and perhaps other species evolved the capacity to care for others as a goal in itself. A truly interdisciplinary work that blends biology, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology, this book will permanently change not just our view of selfless behavior but also our understanding of many issues in evolutionary biology and the social sciences.
About the Book Life as an Addict: The Twelve Steps That Saved My Life is a true story of one man’s journey from addiction and loss to hope and faith. Michael Elliott shares his unique experiences before addiction with the tragic death of his son. He then describes the painful journey he took from addiction to sobriety. Michael breaks down his own perspective and his personal application of each of the twelve steps used in programs around the world. About the Author Michael Elliott was born in Medina, Ohio. He suffered eleven years of substance abuse before realizing that he had an addiction. He practiced as a Registered Nurse with a level one trauma center and various other facilities and has been in the medical field since 1998. He also graduated from Daytona State College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business. Currently, Michael leads a life of sobriety, and he is working hard to help those who suffer from addiction. He has a positive attitude toward life now and wants to continue his sobriety so he can be an inspiration to others who suffer from addiction.
How I Quit Drinking (and how you can too) is a practical, helpful (and sometimes humorous) guide from an award winner blogger, who ploughed her own sober path and made it through!
About the Book Life as an Addict: The Twelve Steps That Saved My Life is a true story of one man’s journey from addiction and loss to hope and faith. Michael Elliott shares his unique experiences before addiction with the tragic death of his son. He then describes the painful journey he took from addiction to sobriety. Michael breaks down his own perspective and his personal application of each of the twelve steps used in programs around the world. About the Author Michael Elliott was born in Medina, Ohio. He suffered eleven years of substance abuse before realizing that he had an addiction. He practiced as a Registered Nurse with a level one trauma center and various other facilities and has been in the medical field since 1998. He also graduated from Daytona State College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business. Currently, Michael leads a life of sobriety, and he is working hard to help those who suffer from addiction. He has a positive attitude toward life now and wants to continue his sobriety so he can be an inspiration to others who suffer from addiction.
In the spring of 2007, a brilliant computer programmer named Hans Reiser stands accused of murdering his estranged wife, Nina. Despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence against him, he proclaims his innocence. The case takes a twist when Nina's former lover, and Hans's former best friend, Sean Sturgeon, confesses to eight unrelated murders that no one has ever heard of. At the time of Sturgeon's confession, Stephen Elliott is paralyzed by writer's block, in the thrall of Adderall dependency, and despondent over the state of his romantic life. But he is fascinated by Sturgeon, whose path he has often crossed in San Francisco's underground S&M scene. What kind of person, he wonders, confesses to a murder he likely did not commit? One answer is, perhaps, a man like Elliott's own father. So begins a riveting journey through a neon landscape of false confessions, self-medication, and torturous sex. Set against the backdrop of a nation at war, in the declining years of the Silicon Valley tech boom and the dawn of Paris Hilton's celebrity, The Adderall Diaries is at once a gripping account of a murder trial and a scorching investigation of the self. Tough, tender, and unflinchingly honest, it is the breakout book by one of the most daring writers of his generation.
All the furniture in the house got wrecked except this one old wooden china cabinet in my grandmother’s kitchen, which somehow remained standing despite all odds. One night, in the midst of a prayer, I glanced over at it and thought, If this cabinet could talk... What madness it had seen. The Lord spoke to me then. “You’re both here, and you both survived, and just like this cabinet, you remain unbroken.” Tracy Elliott led a rough life. This honest memoir takes you into the heart of the gritty realities of the street and a life of addiction. But it is the story of a broken person's history and how God taught her that, in his loving eyes, she is whole. As a young, orphaned girl growing up in her grandmother's house with five alcoholic uncles, Tracy witnessed constant violence and experienced abuse. Later in life, as a stripper in her mid-twenties, she lived hard and suffered the consequences. Now, she tells how her life was put back together by the grace of God. Tracy says, "No matter where you came from and what you've done, God wants you. No one is unforgivable, and no one is beneath His grace. god loved me when I was seven years old in old brown clogs, He loved me when I was working in strip clubs, and He loves me still." Unbroken is a moving story of a young woman who has discovered the power of God's loving forgiveness and grace?and who wants to share it with a hurting world.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “vivid and devastating” (The New York Times) portrait of an indomitable girl—from acclaimed journalist Andrea Elliott “From its first indelible pages to its rich and startling conclusion, Invisible Child had me, by turns, stricken, inspired, outraged, illuminated, in tears, and hungering for reimmersion in its Dickensian depths.”—Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Atlantic, The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, Library Journal In Invisible Child, Pulitzer Prize winner Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care. Out on the street, Dasani becomes a fierce fighter “to protect those who I love.” When she finally escapes city life to enroll in a boarding school, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning your family, and yourself? A work of luminous and riveting prose, Elliott’s Invisible Child reads like a page-turning novel. It is an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family and the cost of inequality—told through the crucible of one remarkable girl. Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize • Finalist for the Bernstein Award and the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award • Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize
From intertextuality to postmodern cultural studies, narratology to affect theory, poststructuralism to metamodernism, and postcolonialism to ecocriticism, humanities adaptation studies has engaged with a host of contemporary theories. Yet theorizing adaptation has been declared behind the theoretical times compared to other fields and charged with theoretical incorrectness by scholars from all theoretical camps. In this thorough and groundbreaking study, author Kamilla Elliott works to explain and redress the problem of theorizing adaptation. She offers the first cross-disciplinary history of theorizing adaptation in the humanities, extending back to the sixteenth century, revealing that until the late eighteenth century, adaptation was valued for its contributions to cultural progress, before its eventual and ongoing marginalization by humanities theories. The second half of the book offers ways to redress the troubled relationship between theorization and adaptation. Ultimately, Theorizing Adaptation proffers shared ground upon which adaptation scholars can debate productively across disciplinary, cultural, and theoretical borders.
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