Impact of science and technology on society Books

Book SynopsisA new dawn of brain tracking and hacking is coming. Will you be prepared for what comes next?Imagine a world where your brain can be interrogated to learn your political beliefs, your thoughts can be used as evidence of a crime, and your own feelings can be held against you. A world where people who suffer from epilepsy receive alerts moments before a seizure, and the average person can peer into their own mind to eliminate painful memories or cure addictions.Neuroscience has already made all of this possible today, and neurotechnology will soon become the universal controller for all of our interactions with technology. This can benefit humanity immensely, but without safeguards, it can seriously threaten our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination.From one of the world's foremost experts on the ethics of neuroscience, The Battle for Your Brain offers a path forward to navigate the complex legal and ethic

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Book SynopsisAMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2019 PICKFORTUNE WRITERS AND EDITORS'' RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF 2019 PICKUser Friendly is a tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting.EDWARD TENNER, The New York Times Book ReviewIn User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women's rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this book unpacks the ways in which the world has beenand continues to beremade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.In this essential text, Kuang and Fabricant map the hidden rules of the designed world and shed light on how those rules have cau

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Book SynopsisThe author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to catsand what they reveal about humans'' torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats--the animal that has most captured our imagination--than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne''s house cat, whose un-examine

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Book SynopsisJames Robert Brown is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada. His previous publications include The Rational and the Social (Routledge, 1989), Smoke and Mirrors: How ScienceReflects Reality (Routledge, 1994), Philosophy of Mathematics (Routledge, Second Edition 2008) and The Laboratory of the Mind (Routledge, Second Edition 2009), Who Rules in Science: A Guide to the Wars (Harvard 2001), and Platonism, Naturalism, and Mathematical Knowledge (Routledge 2011).Trade ReviewThis book delivers twice on its title: it offers a comprehensive discussion of key thinkers in philosophy of science of the past 150 years and the authors are a dozen of their most distinguished and innovative successors at work today. The result shows a vibrant discipline in which each generation reflects on—and moves beyond—the classic debates. An insightful and inspiring survey of philosophy of science, its history, and its progress. -- James W. McAllister, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Leiden, The Netherlands and Editor of International Studies in the Philosophy of ScienceTable of Contents1. Introduction James Robert Brown; 2. Experience and Necessity: Whewell and Mill Laura Snyder; 3. Conventionalism: Poincare, Duhem, Reichenbach; 4. The Vienna Circle: Carnap and Neurath Alan Richardson; 5. Logical Empiricism: Hempel and Quine Martin Curd; 6. Induction and Falsification: Popper Steve Fuller; 7. Historical Approaches: Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend Martin Carrier; 8. Sociology of Science: Bloor, Collins, Latour Martin Kusch; 9. Realism: Putnam and van Fraassen Stathis Psillos; 10. Beyond Theories: Hacking and Cartwright; 11. Feminist Critiques: Harding and Longino Janet Kourany; 12. Current Trends James Robert Brown; Further Reading; Index.

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Book SynopsisA new cultural icon strode the world stage at the turn of the twenty-first century: the celebrity scientist, as comfortable in Vanity Fair and Vogue as Smithsonian. Declan Fahy profiles eight of these eloquent, controversial, and compelling sellers of science to investigate how they achieved celebrity in the United States and internationallyand explores how their ideas influence our understanding of the world. Fahy traces the career trajectories of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Stephen Jay Gould, Susan Greenfield, and James Lovelock. He demonstrates how each scientist embraced the power of promotion and popularization to stimulate thinking, impact policy, influence research, drive controversies, and mobilize social movements. He also considers critical claims that they speak beyond their expertise and for personal gain. The result is a fascinating look into how celebrity scientists help determine what it means to be human, the naturTrade ReviewA former reporter, Fahy understands how electronic media shape public perception of all aspects of society. This includes science, for which media have created a new breed of scientist, ‘celebrity scientists’ who are in the public eye by dint of popular books, television, and/or newsprint. These individuals are the scientific world’s version of movie stars and star athletes. Fahy considers eight well-known contemporary scientists: Stephen Hawking, who inherited Einstein’s mantle; evolutionist Richard Dawkins, who carries the banner of militant atheism; James Lovelock, the maverick outsider who proposed the Gaia hypothesis; and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has replaced Carl Sagan as television’s go-to science expert. Others include cosmologist Brian Greene; the Baroness Susan Greenfield, who studies Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease; the late evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, and psychologist Stephen Pinker. This interesting book covers the work and life of each in some depth, and extensive chapter notes direct those who wish to delve more deeply into their lives. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. * CHOICE *When thinking of celebrity culture, science may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But science and fame go hand in hand in School of Communication professor Declan Fahy’s new book The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and into the Limelight. . . .The New Celebrity Scientists works to debunk the myth that science is simply meant to stay in laboratories or for the elite. . . .Fahy delves into the world of science through both a formal and personal lens, bringing the contemporary figures that are driving scientific discussion into the limelight. * The Eagle *The result of The New Celebrity Scientists is a in-depth look into how celebrity scientists help determine what it means to be human, the nature of reality, and how to prepare for society's uncertain future. * Physics.org *Very timely and well written…. I recommend this book to anyone interested not only in science and its protagonists or communication studies but also in a field that has been little considered but can provide us with many insights into today’s culture: the sociology of science. * Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal *[The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and into the Limelight] is a source of authority that influences public policy, public opinion and even the scientific life. (Translated from the original French) * Communication *Relax in your favorite chair and lose yourself in this absorbing, critical examination of the best-selling scientists that we love, admire, and sometimes hate. Fahy's genius book will challenge your strongest assumptions and change the way you think about science, celebrity, and society. -- Matthew Nisbet, Northeastern UniversityDeclan Fahy tells an engaging, informed story about how leading scientists evolved, scrabbled, and maneuvered–under the fierce glare of post-1960’s mass media–to become something new to science: big-time celebrities. -- Joshua Brown, University of VermontIn The New Celebrity Scientists, Declan Fahy delves into the complex, captivating world of science by profiling the people who have helped popularize it. His vivid account follows the rise of several key scientific figures of the 20th and 21st centuries—and the consequences of their fame within the scientific community and society at large. Clear, organized, and rich in narrative detail, this book is well-suited for audiences both inside and outside the classroom. -- Michael A. Cacciatore, University of GeorgiaAt a time when science struggles to grow its share-of-voice in American culture and politics, Fahy provides an evocative look at some of our most visible scientific emissaries. His thoughtful analysis takes us on a journey that demystifies these individuals, laying bare their motivations, foibles, and contributions to science in public culture. -- Anthony Dudo, The University of Texas at AustinScientific research is often marginalized in modern culture, but a handful of scientists have found a path around that tendency. Fahy shows how, why, and to what effect certain recent scientists have consciously used the tools of today’s celebrity culture to make themselves—and thus science—active participants in public discussion. They make science central to modern culture…and sometimes make culture central to science. -- Bruce V. Lewenstein, Cornell UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1—A Brief History of Scientific Celebrity 2—The Paradoxical Fame of Stephen Hawking 3—Richard Dawkins’s Image Problem 4—Steven Pinker’s Academic Stardom 5—The Political Celebrity of Stephen Jay Gould 6—Fame and the Female Scientist—Susan Greenfield 7—The Reluctant Fame of James Lovelock 8—The Charming Stardom of Brian Greene 9—Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Star Quality 10—A New Scientific Elite Notes Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays investigating key historical and scientific questions relating to the concept of natural purpose in Kant's philosophy of biology. Understanding Purpose is an exploration of the central concept of natural purpose [Naturzweck] in Kant's philosophy of biology. Kant's work in this area is marked by a strong teleological concern: living organisms, in his view, are qualitatively different from mechanistic devices, and as a result they cannot be understood by means of the same principles. At the same time, Kant's own use of the concept of purpose does not presuppose any theological commitments, and is merely "regulative"; that is, it is employed as a heuristic device. The contributors to this volume also investigate the following key historical questions relating to Kant's philosophy of biology: How does it relate to European work in the life sciences that was done before Kant arrived on the scene? How did Kant's unique approach to the philosophy of biology in turn influence later work in this area? The issues explored in this volume are as pertinent to the history of philosophy as they are to the history of science -- it is precisely the blurred boundaries between these two disciplines that allows for new perspectives on Kantianism and early nineteenth-century German biology to emerge. Contributors: Jean-Claude Dupont, Mark Fisher, Philippe Huneman, Robert J. Richards, Phillip R. Sloan, Stéphane Schmitt, and John Zammito. Philippe Huneman is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unit of the Université Paris.Table of ContentsPre-Kantian Revival of Epigenesis: Caspar Friedrich Wolff's De formatione intestinorum (1768-69) - Jean-Claude Dupont Kant's Persistent Ambivalence toward Epigenesis, 1764-90 - John H. Zammito Reflexive Judgment and Wolffian Embryology: Kant's Shift between the First and the Third Critiques - Philippe Huneman Kant's Explanatory Natural History: Generation and Classification of Organisms in Kant's Natural Philosophy - Mark Fisher Succession of Functions and Classifications in Post-Kantian Naturphilosophie around 1800 - Stéphane Schmitt Goethe's Use of Kant in the Erotics of Nature - Robert J. Richards Kant and British Bioscience - Phillip R. Sloan

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Book SynopsisVirilio and Lotringer revisit their prescient book on the invisible war waged by technology against humanity since World War II.In June 2007, Paul Virilio and Sylvère Lotringer met in La Rochelle, France to reconsider the premises they developed twenty-five years before in their frighteningly prescient classic, Pure War. Pure War described the invisible war waged by technology against humanity, and the lack of any real distinction since World War II between war and peace. Speaking with Lotringer in 1982, Virilio noted the “accidents” that inevitably arise with every technological development: from car crashes to nuclear spillage, to the extermination of space and the derealization of time wrought by instant communication. In this new and updated edition, Virilio and Lotringer consider how the omnipresent threat of the “accident”—both military and economic—has escalated. With the fall of the Soviet bloc, the balance of power between East and West based on nuclear deterrence has given way to a more diffuse multi-polar nuclear threat. Moreover, as the speed of communication has increased exponentially, “local” accidents—like the collapse of the Asian markets in the late 1980s—escalate, with the speed of contagion, into global events instantaneously. “Globalization,” Virilio argues, is the planet''s ultimate accident.Paul Virilio was born in Paris in 1932 to an immigrant Italian family. Trained as an urban planner, he became the director of the École Speciale d''Architecture in the wake of the 1968 rebellion. He has published twenty-five books, including Pure War (1988) (his first in English) and The Accident of Art (2005), both with Sylvère Lotringer and published by Semiotext(e). Sylvère Lotringer, general editor of Semiotext(e), lives in New York and Baja California. He is the author of Overexposed: Perverting Perversions (Semiotext(e), 2007) and other books.

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