What exactly is "human nature"? Are we correct in accepting ourselves as unchangeable, determined by biology, or is this idea an obstacle to our cognitive, emotional, and evolutionary development? George Mandler explores these questions from a fresh evolutionary and social perspective. He examines the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology and suggests a mid-course correction. Topics are approached from a variety of backgrounds, drawing on relevant literature and Mandler's own research. He begins with what we know about evolution and gene expression, then moves on to the complex phenomena of consciuosness and emotion. The constraints of both nature and nurture are discussed as limiting forces on human development, and natural selection is considered in the context of our social fabric, which draws on both psychological and anthropological knowledge. Mandler considers human difference, particularly in regard to intelligence and gender, and discusses the nature of human values, including our need for morality and freedom. The book concludes with an appraisal of human cognition and language.

Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the seventh and seemingly last Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. Marked by conflicting tendencies, Schneerson was a radical messianic visionary who promoted a conservative political agenda, a reclusive contemplative who built a hasidic sect into an international movement, and a man dedicated to the exposition of mysteries who nevertheless harbored many secrets. Schneerson astutely masked views that might be deemed heterodox by the canons of orthodoxy while engineering a fundamentalist ideology that could subvert traditional gender hierarchy, the halakhic distinction between permissible and forbidden, and the social-anthropological division between Jew and Gentile. While most literature on the Rebbe focuses on whether or not he identified with the role of Messiah, Elliot R. Wolfson, a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism and the phenomenology of religious experience, concentrates instead on Schneerson's apocalyptic sensibility and his promotion of a mystical consciousness that undermines all discrimination. For Schneerson, the ploy of secrecy is crucial to the dissemination of the messianic secret. To be enlightened messianically is to be delivered from all conceptual limitations, even the very notion of becoming emancipated from limitation. The ultimate liberation, or true and complete redemption, fuses the believer into an infinite essence beyond all duality, even the duality of being emancipated and not emancipated--an emancipation, in other words, that emancipates one from the bind of emancipation. At its deepest level, Schneerson's eschatological orientation discerned that a spiritual master, if he be true, must dispose of the mask of mastery. Situating Habad's thought within the evolution of kabbalistic mysticism, the history of Western philosophy, and Mahayana Buddhism, Wolfson articulates Schneerson's rich theology and profound philosophy, concentrating on the nature of apophatic embodiment, semiotic materiality, hypernomian transvaluation, nondifferentiated alterity, and atemporal temporality.

For general readers, Gornick, a memoirist, essayist, and critic, draws from interviews with about 100 women to describe their experiences as scientists and the contributions they made to biology, chemistry, physics, physiology, experimental psychology, and other sciences, addressing issues of discrimination and stereotypes along the way. Updated to include recent developments, this revised edition has been published on the 25th anniversary of the book's first publication and as part of the Women Writing Science Project of the National Science Foundation.

In this fundamental analysis, Rapoport asks: Why do we have wars? Doesn't humanity always seem on the verge of self-annihilation? Is there something in human genetic structure that makes people want to kill each other? Perhaps this impulse is a matter of good versus evil, or just plain human nature. Rapoport moves beyond cliches by claiming that the sources of modern violence reside in the imbalance between a lag in the system of values inherited from the past and the structure of science and technology that awaits no revision of values to move ahead. As a result, Rapoport argues that the study of war and peace should be considered a science, just like biology or, for that matter, political science. The same rules of empirical engagement and experimentation should apply. Before we can have a theory of peace, we need a methodology of conflict. Using the writings of thinkers who have made significant contributions to the predominant ideas and ideals of our society, Rapoport weaves together the strands of independent thought and research into a single, thought-provoking work. After investigating the whys of violence, using ideological, psychological, strategic, and systemic perspective, Rapoport moves to an in-depth analysis of possible varieties of conflict resolution. He explores such mechanisms as mediation, education, and applying the results of scientific research. He documents the impact of ideologies countervailing dominant ones that place obstacles in the way of peacemaking. Rapoport argues that conciliation and game theories can be utilized to replace the concept of winner take all or total victory. The Origins of Violence is a needed contribution to our understanding of warfare, and provides a forward-looking perspective that can be of wide use to each of the policy sciences, starting with military strategy and ending with international development.

Published in 1938: The new volume presents a full and profusely illustrated account of progress made during the eighteenth century in Mathematics, Mechanics, Astronomy, Physics, Meteorology, Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Psychology, Demography, Economics, Philosophy, and Technology.

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These companion volumes, long out of print, are now presented together for the first time so that the reader may better grasp their essential unity. In Ether, God and Devil, Wilhelm Reich describes the process of functional thinking and reveals how the inner logic of this objective thought technique led him to the discovery of cosmic orgone energy. In Cosmic Superimposition , Reich steps beyond the character structure of man to an understanding of how man is rooted in nature. The super-imposition of two orgone-energy systems which is demonstrable in the genital embrace is revealed as a common functioning principal that exists in all of nature. Concluding this work, Reich returns to the human sphere "to ponder about the greatest riddle of all: the ability of man to think, and by mere thinking to know what nature is and how it works."

The Negev , first published over a decade ago, told the story of some twenty years of study of southern Israel's desert. It synthesized the findings of botanists, geologists, soil scientists, agronomists, archaeologists, historians, and engineers and told how the applications of their work produced an agricultural surplus in this forbiddingly dry, hot region. , Now Michael Evenari has amplified the book with data from another decade of work. He describes the efforts at a new farm at Wadi Mashash, extends the weather data another ten years, presents further work on the adaptations of plants and animals to desert conditions, and takes a much deeper look at the historical precedents for the method of runoff agriculture, which has made the desert bloom.

No detailed description available for "Genetic Mosaics and Other Essays".

Beginning with the origin of life and ending with the role of biology in the future of human society, the study brings together in a single volume the reports of twenty-one scientific panels made up of authorities in particular disciplines.

This book is divided into two parts. The first of the book describes my personal life, hobbies, church activities and interactions with family. The second half of the book provides a brief summary of my scientific life. It also has a list of honors, questions and publications that resulted from my research. My hope is that my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will know me better and know that I love and appreciate them.

This book deals with a key area of population genetics: the ratio of the sexes in a population, or the allocation of resources to male versus female reproductive function. Samuel Karlin and Sabin Lessard establish the formal theoretical aspects of the evolution of sex ratio within the constraints of genetic mechanisms of sex determination. Their results generalize and unify existing work on the topic, strengthening previous conceptions in some cases and, in other instances, offering new directions of research. There are two main approaches to understanding the causes and effects of sex ratio. One approach focuses on the optimization and adaptive functions of sex allocation, while the other emphasizes the consequences of genetic sex determination mechanisms. In discussing the utility of these two approaches, Professors Karlin and Lessard examine the principal sex-determining mechanisms and facts involved in sex ratio representations, the various genetic and environmental factors that contribute to adaptive sex expression, and the evolution of sex determining systems and controls. From a population genetic perspective, the authors derive evolutionary properties in support of the high incidence of 1:1 sex ratio in natural populations and investigate the conditions that can explain the occurrence of biased sex ratio.

From a distant world the invaders came. They were a race not unlike mankind but technologically advanced enough to impose their genocidal interests on Earth. In their wake nearly all of the human population is disintegrated, blanketing the surface of the planet in white dust. This holocaust is the ultimate waste of life, as the aliens discover the new world they have conquered and colonized is incompatible with their biology. Now scattered survivors, both human and alien, trudge through this post-apocalyptic wasteland: a power-hungry science fiction writer, a brilliant scientist losing his battle with schizophrenia, a man convinced he's the robot he portrayed on television in pre-invasion times, a recalcitrant hero who has proclaimed himself the son of God, a former boxer tortured by his past and the tribe of misfits who follow him, and a young girl chosen to bear the children of a new civilization in the last known settlement of humanity. Some are aimless, others purposeful, but all cling to survival and their own sanity, unaware their fates are intertwined. When Earth's champions gather, is there hope for a better world? No, definitely not.

Since the publication of "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" by von Neumann and Morgenstern, the concept of games has played an increasing role in economics. It also plays a role of growing importance in other sciences, including biology, political science, and psychology. Many scientists have made seminal advances and continue to be leaders in the field, including Harsanyi, Shapley, Shubik, and Selten. Professor Robert Aumann, in addition to his important contributions to game theory and economics, made a number of significant contributions to mathematics. This volume provides a collection of essays in mathematical economics and game theory, including cutting-edge research on noncooperative game theory and its foundations, bargaining theory, and general equilibrium theory. Also included is a reprint of Aumann's classic paper, "Acceptable Points in General Cooperative n-Person Games" and of the oft-cited, yet hard to find, paper by Maschler, "The Worth of a Cooperative Enterprise to Each Member". This book illustrates the wide range of applications of mathematics to economics, game theory, and social choice. The volume is dedicated to Professor Robert J. Aumann, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, for his contributions in mathematics and social sciences.

This book discusses the emergence of life, the development of the individual, and the study of the interaction between individuals and species. It gives the student of theoretical biology some idea of the flavor of current research in the field.