Provides a devastating critique of genetic determinism and reductionism within science while exploring a broad range of issues including the nature of science, biology, evolution, the environment, public health, and dialectics." -- Monthlyreview.org.
Scientists act within a social context and from a philosophical perspective that is inherently political. Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.
Professor Levins, one of the leading explorers in the field of integrated population biology, considers the mutual interpenetration and joint evolution of organism and environment, occurring on several levels at once. Physiological and behavioral adaptations to short-term fluctuations of the environment condition the responses of populations to long-term changes and geographic gradients. These in turn affect the way species divide the environments among themselves in communities, and, therefore, the numbers of species which can coexist. Environment is treated here abstractly as pattern: patchiness, variability, range, etc. Populations are studied in their patterns: local heterogeneity, geographic variability, faunistic diversity, etc.
Willard Cochrane watched the dramatic decline in American family farming from a vantage point few can claim. He became one of the country's premier agricultural economists and carried the standard of liberalism for President Kennedy in the last serious fight to save the family farm. Then, for forty long years, he held to the principles while traditional agriculture faded into what he once called "family farms in form but not in spirit." This book is about the spirit of family farming: Thomas Jefferson's dream of an agrarian democracy. What should we do in the face of globalization, high technology, and corporate control of our food supply? Willard Cochrane and the American Family Farm recounts how one man faced these issues and where he would wish us to go in the twenty-first century.
Understanding dynamic complexity is the central scientific problem of our time. We need to look at science itself as an object of study, a historically developed way of producing knowledge that creates a rich mix of insights and confusions. Our approach needs to be partisan, rejecting the notion that feeling is the enemy of reason or that a commitment to human well-being is an enemy of objectivity. Richard Levins, an ex-tropical farmer turned Harvard University ecologist, biomathematician and philosopher of science, gives us his first book since the hugely influential The Dialectical Biologist. He argues for a good, combative, perceptive scientific method that is more reflective of the complex, dynamic world in which we live and more supportive of precautionary decisions. Talking About Trees ranges widely, from personal narratives to theoretical discussions on the need for the precautionary principle in science. Levins offers a strong critique of the industrial-commercial pathway to development; in its place he promotes an alternative development pathway that emphasizes economic viability with equity, ecological and social sustainability and empowerment of the dispossessed.
Collects Captain America (1968) #411-419, Captain America Annual (1971) #11-12, Ghost Rider/Captain America: Fear (1992) #1, U.S.Agent (1993) #1-4, material from Silver Sable & the Wild Pack (1992) #15. Steve Rogers is back in the red, white and blue! With his familiar shield in hand, Steve battles alongside Nick Fury and takes on the Supreme Soviets! But his return to the mantle of Cap may come to a swift end as he struggles to survive Mother Night's camp of hate - while transformed into a scrawny teenager! And the erstwhile Cap, John Walker, makes his return as the take-no-prisoners U.S.Agent! Then, a classic caper begins as Baron Zemo targets the powerful Bloodstone - and Cap joins the hunt along with Diamondback! She's a foe turned friend, but could she be more? Before the saga is over, they'll face Batroc's Brigade, cannibals, sharks, snakes and even mummies! Plus: Crossbones targets Diamondback, Sub-Mariner goes wild and Magneto nearly kills the Red Skull!
Is our nature—as individuals, as a species—determined by our evolution and encoded in our genes? If we unravel the protein sequences of our DNA, will we gain the power to cure all of our physiological and psychological afflictions and even to solve the problems of our society? Today biologists—especially geneticists—are proposing answers to questions that have long been asked by philosophy or faith or the social sciences. Their work carries the weight of scientific authority and attracts widespread public attention, but it is often based on what the renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin identifies as a highly reductive misconception: "the pervasive error that confuses the genetic state of an organism with its total physical and psychic nature as a human being." In these nine essays covering the history of modern biology from Darwin to Dolly the sheep, all of which were originally published in The New York Review of Books, Lewontin combines sharp criticisms of overreaching scientific claims with lucid expositions of the exact state of current scientific knowledge—not only what we do know, but what we don't and maybe won't anytime soon. Among the subjects he discusses are heredity and natural selection, evolutionary psychology and altruism, nineteenth-century naturalist novels, sex surveys, cloning, and the Human Genome Project. In each case he casts an ever-vigilant and deflationary eye on the temptation to look to biology for explanations of everything we want to know about our physical, mental, and social lives. These essays—several of them updated with epilogues that take account of scientific developments since they were first written—are an indispensable guide to the most controversial issues in the life sciences today. The second edition of this collection includes new essays on genetically modified food and the completion of the Human Genome Project. It is an indispensable guide to the most controversial issues in the life sciences today.
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