"Mazur's book treats luck in a fresh light. The philosophy and emotional aspects (along with a little mathematics) are all there. The reader who delves in will be lucky indeed." --Persi Diaconis, Stanford University "Blending math with memoir, probability with psychology, and heuristics with history, Mazur has written an essential book for anyone who wants to get a better idea of why we consistently bet against the odds. From the betting window to Wall Street, he offers insights into both the mechanics of chance and the enduring appeal that luck holds for those who wager every day, whether they call it gambling, speculation, or just hoping for the best. Engaging and illuminating, this is a guaranteed winner." --David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and author of Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling "This is a fascinating book. It's a fresh, funny, philosophical look at gambling by a mathematician who knows what he's talking about, and who has quite obviously thought about gambling for a long time. Mazur isn't afraid to make provocative, opinionated statements. I have not seen a gambling book like this before. I think it will attract a lot of readers." --Paul J. Nahin, author of Digital Dice "This book is significant in that it offers a lively and diverse collection of gambling-related ideas. Mazur's robust blend of anecdotes, history, psychology, and mathematics differs from other attempts to discuss these ideas. He offers plenty of insights into the questions and issues he raises." --Edward Packel, author of The Mathematics of Games and Gambling

"Music research has entered something of a Golden Age. Technological advances and scholarly inquiry have merged in interdisciplinary studies--drawing on psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology and other fields--that illuminate the musical nature of our species. This volume develops, supports and challenges that body of research"--

"From the time of Pythagoras, we have been tempted to treat numbers as the ultimate or only truth. This book tells the history of that habit of thought. But more, it argues that the logic of counting sacrifices much of what makes us human, and that we have a responsibility to match the objects of our attention to the forms of knowledge that do them justice. Humans have extended the insights and methods of number and mathematics to more and more aspects of the world, even to their gods and their religions.Today those powers are greater than ever, as computation is applied to virtually every aspect of human activity.But the rules of mathematics do not strictly apply to many things-from elementary particles to people-in the world.By subjecting such things to the laws of logic and mathematics, we gain some kinds of knowledge, but we also lose others. How do our choices about what parts of the world to subject to the logics of mathematics affect how we live and how we die?This question is rarely asked, but it is urgent, because the sciences built upon those laws now govern so much of our knowledge, from physics to psychology.Number and Knowledge sets out to ask it. In chapters proceeding chronologically from Ancient Greek philosophy and the rise of monotheistic religions to the emergence of modern physics and economics, the book traces how ideals, practices, and habits of thought formed over millennia have turned number into the foundation-stone of human claims to knowledge and certainty.But the book is also a philosophical and poetic exhortation to take responsibility for that history, for the knowledge it has produced, and for the many aspects of the world and of humanity that it ignores or endangers.To understand what can be counted and what can't is to embrace the ethics of purposeful knowing"--

In this compassionate work, Rabbi Marc Angel addresses a universal but largely overlooked phenomenon: adult orphanhood. This book presents a thoughtful discussion of the processes of adult orphanhood, including anticipating the death of a parent, mourning the parent, and internalizing the reality of the parent's death.

The Obsession is a deeply committed and beautifully written analysis of our society's increasing demand that women be thin. It offers a careful, thought provoking discussion of the reasons men have encouraged this obsession and women have embraced it. It is a book about women's efforts to become thin rather than to accept the natural dimensions of their bodies--a book about the meaning of food and its rejection.

"No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeply-some would say totally-involved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today's young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be "app-dependent" versus "app-enabled" and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era. Gardner and Davis are concerned with three vital areas of adolescent life: identity, intimacy, and imagination. Through innovative research, including interviews of young people, focus groups of those who work with them, and a unique comparison of youthful artistic productions before and after the digital revolution, the authors uncover the drawbacks of apps: they may foreclose a sense of identity, encourage superficial relations with others, and stunt creative imagination. On the other hand, the benefits of apps are equally striking: they can promote a strong sense of identity, allow deep relationships, and stimulate creativity. The challenge is to venture beyond the ways that apps are designed to be used, Gardner and Davis conclude, and they suggest how the power of apps can be a springboard to greater creativity and higher aspirations"--

The Holocaust never happened. The planet isn't warming. Vaccines harm children. There is no such thing as AIDS. The Earth is flat. Denialism comes in many forms, often dressed in the garb of scholarship or research. It's certainly insidious and pernicious. Climate change denialists have built well-funded institutions and lobbying groups to counter action against global warming. Holocaust deniers have harried historians and abused survivors. AIDS denialists have prevented treatment programmes in Africa. All this is bad enough, but what if, as Keith Kahn-Harris asks, it actually cloaks much darker, unspeakable, desires? If denialists could speak from the heart, what would we hear? Kahn-Harris sets out not to unpick denialists' arguments, but to investigate what lies behind them. The conclusions he reaches are shocking and uncomfortable. In a world of 'fake news' and 'post-truth', are the denialists about to secure victory?

"Many topics of interest to health professionals, such as vegetarianism, dietary fibers, lactose intolerance, favism, cannibalism and changes in nutritional status wrought by the decline of hunter-gathering and the rise of horticulture. Many sections will appeal to the general reader." --Journal of Applied Nutrition The old adage "you are what you eat" may be more accurate than anyone could have ever imagined. This unprecedented interdisciplinary effort by scholars in primatology, biological anthropology, archaeology, nutrition, psychology, agricultural economics, and cultural anthropology suggests that there is a systematic theory behind why humans eat what they eat. Includes discussions ranging in time from prehistory to the present, and from the most simple societies to the most complex, including South American Indian groups, African hunter-gatherers, and countries such as India, Bangladesh, Peru, and Mexico. "Exceptionally well-edited. High quality individual papers are of comparable scope and are uniformly well referenced and detailed in presentation of supporting data Introductory and concluding chapters as well as section overviews create an integrated whole." --Choice "Compelling...complete and...recommended." --Science Books & Films "Should be of value to all nutrition educators who have an interest in the social, cultural, and international aspects of foods and nutrition." --Journal of Nutrition Education

"If a science has to be supported by fraudulent means, let it perish. " With these words of Kepler, Agassi plunges into the actual troubles and glories of science (321). The SOciology of science is no foreign intruder upon scientific knowledge in these essays, for we see clearly how Agassi transforms the tired internalistJexternalist debate about the causal influences in the history of science. The social character of the entire intertwined epistemological and practical natures of the sciences is intrinsic to science and itself split: the internal sociology within science, the external sociology of the social setting without. Agassi sees these social matters in the small as well as the large: from the details of scientific communication, changing publishing as he thinks to 'on-demand' centralism with less waste (Ch. 12), to the colossal tension of romanticism and rationality in the sweep of historical cultures. Agassi is a moral and political philosopher of science, defending, dis turbing, comprehending, criticizing. For him, science in a society requires confrontation, again and again, with issues of autonomy vs. legitimation as the central problem of democracy. And furthermore, devotion to science, pace Popper, Polanyi, and Weber, carries preoccupational dangers: Popper's elitist rooting out of 'pseudo-science', Weber's hard-working obsessive . com mitment to science. See Agassi's Weberian gloss on the social psychology of science in his provocative 'picture of the scientist as maniac' (437).

Social Motivation, Justice, and the Moral Emotions proposes an attribution theory of interpersonal or social motivation that distinguishes between the role of thinking and feeling in determining action. The place of this theory within the larger fields of motivation and attributional analyses is explored. It features new thoughts concerning social motivation on such topics as help giving, aggression, achievement evaluation, compliance to commit a transgression, as well as new contributions to the understanding of social justice. Included also is material on moral emotions, with discussions of admiration, contempt, envy, gratitude, and other affects not considered in Professor Weiner's prior work. The text also contains previously unexamined topics regarding social inferences of arrogance and modesty and the role of mediators versus moderators in theory building. Divided into five chapters, this book: *Considers the logical development and structure of a proposed theory of social motivation and justice; *Reviews meta-analytic tests of the theory within the contexts of help giving and aggression and examines issues related to cultural and individual differences; *Focuses on moral emotions including an analysis of admiration, envy, gratitude, jealousy, scorn, and others; *Discusses conditions where reward decreases motivation while punishment augments strivings; and *Provides applications that are beneficial in the classroom, in therapy, and in training programs. Social Motivation, Justice, and the Moral Emotions appeals to practicing and research psychologists and advanced students in a variety of fields including social, educational, personality, political/legal, health, and clinical psychology. It will also serve as a supplement in courses on motivational psychology, emotion and motivation, altruism and/or pro-social behavior, aggression, social judgment, and morality. Also included is the raw material (e.g., questionnaires, surveys, etc.) for 13 experiments relating to core predictions of the proposed attribution theory.

TV comedy double act Ronni Ancona and Alistair McGowan look at the wrangles, rows and off-side rules of relationships. Ronni's challenge is this: to wean a die-hard football fan off the not-so-beautiful game. Her guinea pig is her best friend and ex-boyfriend, the truly obsessed Alistair McGowan.