...Systems Research and Behavioral Science Syst. Res. 15, 365–372 (1998) & Research Paper Evolution and Thermodynamics: The New Paradigm{ Jeffrey S. Wicken* Department of Biochemistry, Penn State University, Erie, Pennsylvania, USA This paper introduces the new evolutionary paradigm born of the synthesis of Darwinism and thermodynamics. It also introduces this volume, whose theme is the integration of life and social process with physical law. The sense of this expansion is as follows: Darwinism has come under intense scrutiny in recent years, from several fields. These range from statistical mechanics to developmental biology. In this paper, I will discuss the direction the revision of the Darwinian program is taking through thermodynamics, which is the science of irreversible process and self-organization. My objective is to show the coherence of life with the rest of nature. # 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Keywords evolution; emergence; thermodynamics INTRODUCTION Evolutionary theory is presently undergoing the kind of massive conceptual restructuring that marked the two great scientific revolutions of our century: relativity and quantum mechanics. Like those two revolutions, the one occurring in evolutionary theory has tremendous practical and epistemological implications for understanding, and dealing with, nature. Much is dissonant in the Darwinian world. The ecological relationality of life had, from the time of Aristotle, suggested a functional order of nature...
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...PAPER 2 – THE RISE OF FUNDAMENTALISM PRESENTED TO PROFESSOR MARK NICKENS FOR CHHI 302 – DO1 BY REV. JOSEPH T. WHITAKER, III LU23755920 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY LYNCHBURG VIRGINIA NOVEMBER 19, 2014 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 THE RISE OF FUNDAMENTALISM -------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CHRISTIAN REACTION TO DARWINISM AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC THEORIES— THE RISE OF HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE-------------------------------------------------- THE SOCIAL GOSPEL--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE FUNDAMENTALS------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SCOPES TRIAL----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONCLUSION------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIBLIOGRAPHY---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...
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...Colonial authority was based on the notion that Europeans in the colonies were a biological and social superior entity in comparison to the indigenous people. Types of British identities were engraved in the diverse colonial settings, just as the metropolitan British identities were being forced in relation to “others” (people of dissimilarity) in the 18th and 19th century. Legal and social classifications designated who could or who could not obtain membership to the elite group, and who could become a citizen rather than a subject. In the 17th century the Dutch and the British colonized the previously unexplored South Africa in a drive for modernity. The rapid English domination of the Dutch offspring (known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted...
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...THE SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS PAPER Social psychology is the scientific field that pursues to understand the nature of individual behavior in social situations. It uses science to find out how people interact with people and how people think about others. When we think of science, many people feel that it has always been around when in actuality the field of social psychology has only come about in the twentieth century. Since then a form of psychology emerged they study every part of social behavior and social thought. Social psychologists often use experimentation and correlational methods in their research. Experimentation is procedures in which researchers systematically vary one or more factors to examine the impact of change in an area of social behavior or thought. During correlation, scientists observe and measure two or more variables to determine if changes in one are made by changes of others. Social psychologists also use a statistical procedure called a research synthesis or a meta-analysis because they need to compare the results of the other studies. It is interesting that social psychologists are guided by formal theories. These are logical frameworks that seek to explain various aspects of social behavior and thought. Organizational behavior is the study of human and group behavior. Organizations using methods such as sociology, anthropology, political science, and psychology. This study includes the understanding of key concepts to help us to understand...
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...I chose procreation as a topic for this paper for a few reasons. First, because of complicity of the issue. Scope of this problem almost unlimited and correlates not only with modern legal and ethical general acceptable principals, but also with core issues of human existence. Second, I do believe, that understanding of origin of procreation and ability to build personal approach in this issue plays significant role for every professional in the Health Care System. Even if in real life situation some of us will never directly participate in solving such problem, still establishing firm personal position on this issue will benefited everyone who involved in running of human services. Third, I think that in the scope of course “Legal and Ethical issues in Health Care”, procreation could be a best example to justify my personal opinion on the social role of ethics and its priority over the social role of legal system. In comparing law and ethics, many people thinking about law as a sphere of clearly identified and easy to recognize points, while sphere of ethical issues for many, more-less limited to the individual stand points in terms of what is good and what is bad. However, it is an ethics established law, not law established ethics. Especially in the procreation dilemma, it turns out ethics plays a big part in all aspects of breeding, in the sense that ethics makes our choices relevant to other people. The decision to have or not to have children has a profound impact on all...
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...Ryan Fahrenkopf English 201 Fremio Sepulveda Research Paper “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate." – Edward W. Said “Life and Debt” is a documentary directed by Stephanie Black with the screen play and voice over done by Jamaica Kincaid about how the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organizations destroyed Jamaica economically. This movie is based specifically on what happened in Jamaica but it is a model for how the IMF and first world countries have impacted the rest of the world. The film is about globalization and exposing first world countries, mainly the United States, for destroying third world countries. The Oxford English dictionary defines a documentary as a factual, realistic, applied esp. to a film or literary work, etc., based on real events or circumstance, and intended primarily for instruction purposes. “Life and Debt” mostly follows this definition because it does present real factual information, although it varies a little from the definition of a documentary because it is a little biased on the side of Jamaica. Another critical concept from the film is the term globalization. The Oxford English Dictionary defines globalization as the action, process, or fact of making global; esp. (in later use) the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international...
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...7. How important is the concept of “race” for understanding contemporary Malaysia? Introduction The concept of race as defined by Rex and Mason is “an essentially biological concept based on distinctive sets of hereditary phenotypical features that distinguish varieties of mankind” (1986, p. 189). In Malaysia however, race is oftentimes used to mean ‘ethnicity’, which is incorrect as ethnic groups are sub-divisions of a particular racial stock differentiated by history and cultural practices (Rex and Mason, 1986, p. 189). Nevertheless, the concept of race is an important one in understanding how it has shaped the politics and society of Malaysia. In this essay I will explain how Malaysia’s colonial past and affirmative action policies has contributed to the formation of a society divided along racial lines and how that has created racial tensions among the ethnic groups of Malaysia. Malaysia which touts itself as a ‘plural society’ is a country constituted by different race/ethnic groups, the three largest being the Malay, Chinese and Indian groups. As of 2010, the Malaysian population consists of 28.3 million people, with 91.8% Malaysian citizens. The Malaysian citizens are made up of 67.4% bumiputera (translated as ‘son of the soil’, a group composed of predominantly ethnic Malays along with various other indigenous tribes and native groups), 24.6% Chinese, 7.3% Indians and 0.7% Others (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2010). With so many different ethnic groups within...
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...discipline with very precise interpretations. However, this is far from the truth. For instance, two organizations that are otherwise homogeneous can apply different valuation methods giving entirely distinct but equally correct answers. One may argue that a choice between accounting schemes is merely an “accounting construct” the sorts of “games” accountants play that are exclusively of relevance to them but have no pertinent in the “real world.” Once again this is entirely false. For example, valuation of inventory using either LIFO (Last-in-last-out) or FIFO (First-in-first-out) has an impact on income tax, especially in the US. Therefore an accounting construct possesses an essential “social reality” i.e. the amount of income tax that is paid. Income tax payments are not the only social reality that accounting numbers affect. Income numbers also influence dividend payments, price of a firm’s stock, the cost of capital as well as salaries and bonuses since it can be used as an instrument in evaluating the performance...
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...prevention of crime” (Legal Dictionary, 2015). Understanding crime and the events that happen leading up to the act help compare and contrast the causes, effects, and patterns of criminal behavior. The studies of such involve developing theories; this is the development of criminology. Scientific research is conducted to better understand individuals in societies. Criminology is the foundation of the justice system where crime is studied along with issues related to crime. This paper is intended to discuss the sociobiological theory that will explain the relationship between personality and criminal behavior, to compare key elements of sociobiological with biological and psychological theories, and finally, to identify the philosophical basis to each of these theories. The Relationship between Personality and Criminal Behavior Sociobiological theory is based on the combination of human behavior that occurs naturally with the effects of society. Researchers have thought of this theory by means of learning behaviors that are genetic compared to the environments that individuals are surrounded by. Founded by E.O. Wilson, the sociobiological theory used principles are Darwinism, in that human behaviors are evolutionary (Stanford, 2009). There are predisposition behaviors that will separate a criminal from an upstanding citizen. One example can be found among gang members as they have developed territorial traits which lead to violence. Criminal behavior is can be argued to...
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...Raymond Arthur Dart, born in 1893 in Queensland, Australia, was a neuroanatomist and a paleoanthropologist. He was most famous for discovering the Taung Child. His discoveries of fossil hominins (members of the human lineage) led to important insights into human evolution. He was raised on a dairy farm near Laidley, attended Toowong and Blenheim state and Ipswich Grammar schools. He graduated from the University of Queensland with first-class honours in biology, and studied medicine at University of Sydney. He acted vice-principal of St. Andrew’s College in 1917. He was a medical officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and as a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps, served in England and France. In England, Dart took a post at University College, London, as senior demonstrator in anatomy. Then, he spent a year on Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in USA. He married to Dora Tyree, an instructor in anatomy, in 1921. In January 1923, he moved to South Africa, as a professor of anatomy at The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. In November 1924 Dart was given a fossil skull that had been found recently at Taungs. He extracted the fossil from the hard matrix and found that the skull was a child’s. It was a mixture of apish and human features. Its teeth were human-like while its brain was the size of an ape’s. Raymond Dart had found the missing link in the man-ape line of evolution. He died on 22nd November 1988 at the age of 95 in Reno, Nevada. I am interested...
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...used to describe the feelings, characteristics and behavioral traits shared by all humans, according to Wikipedia. However, to fully comprehend what human nature is we should examine both the physical and psychological aspects in more depth. Through the required readings for this essay, cited on the reference page, I was able to explore several views that help support my position on human nature. I believe that human nature is derived from a complex combination of genetic, or physiopsychology, behavioral, or cognitive psychology, and environmental, or social psychology. Simply put, human nature is a combination of both trait and state psychology. There are certainly practical advantages for considering even the simplest understanding of human nature as it relates to business, culture and productivity all of which I intend to prove throughout this reaction paper. Let’s examine physical psychology in more depth. Research has provided us with information suggesting that a person is born with certain abilities as it relates to the make-up of the brain, nerves, hormones and other physical factors. These items collectively create our psychological core of which sets limits as to how much information we can process. In other words, when we are born we’re “hard-wired” with a certain capacity to process and interpret information at some level. According to Nicolson (1998), humans are hard-wired due our drive for survival which stems from Darwin’s theory of evolution. This theory...
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...Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology PSYCH 101 Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology What makes you think, feel, and behave the way you do? Were you born predisposed to live the life you are currently living, or were you born a blank canvas upon which your experiences gave shape and expression to the person you are today? These are the types of questions the Nature vs. Nurture debate has posed and scientists have probed for over a century. In this paper we will look at some of the aspects of this debate the scientific community does not attend to, or dismisses, the origin and history of this debate, the essential characteristics around which this issue is debated, and where scientists are today in understanding this issue. What are your thoughts on the Nature vs. Nurture argument? Sir Galton wrote in his book English Men of Science (1874), “Nature is all that a man brings with him into the world; nurture is every influence that affects him after his birth,” (p. 12). I have been led to believe that our biology (nature), our environment (nurture), and our cognitive abilities all interplay and influence our resulting personality and other existing traits. We are, as Myers (2012) continuously asserts, biopsychosocial beings (p.124). These aspects of our existence work in accord to actuate the developmental potential written into our genetic code. Where I think there is a deficiency in the theories proffered, in attempt to answer the Nature vs. Nurture...
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...explain what we are and do in genetic terms, began with the English polymath Francis Galton, who in 1883 coined the term "eugenics" to refer to his proposal that humanity improve itself through judicious breeding. Galton's measurements of the physical and mental characteristics of various groups had convinced him that upper-class gentlemen like himself were innately smarter than poor white men, let alone "inferior races" like Africans. On a trip to Africa, however, Galton was mightily impressed with the physical endowments of Hottentot women, whose bodies he measured from afar with a sextant because he was too timorous to approach them. Galton's ideas were carried forward in the United States by Charles Davenport, who directed biological research at the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island around the turn of the last century. Davenport believed in the heritability of traits like pauperism, shiftlessness, and the ability to be a naval officer. The latter, he asserted, was composed of subtraits for thalassophilia,...
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...HISTORY 4C: WESTERN CIVILIZATION: 1715-PRESENT Description of the Course: This course surveys the history of Europe from the beginning of the 18th century until the end of the 20th century. We will study major political, economic, social and intellectual developments that affected European societies during that time period and changed lives of people throughout the world. Major themes of the course will include the French and Industrial Revolutions, emergence of ideologies such as liberalism, nationalism and socialism as well as their practical impact on politics and culture, the rise and fall of European global dominance, wars and revolution of the 20th century. Goals of the Course: I. Understanding Historical Heritage of our Civilization: The major purpose of this course is to familiarize you with heritage of the western civilization and help you understand significance of its impact on contemporary world. This class will aim to illustrate how the past impacts people’s lives in the present and how our actions, ideas, and self-image are shaped by historical developments. II. Acquiring Critical Thinking: History consists of more than just memorization of names, dates and narratives of historical events. Although knowledge of factual information is imperative, it is important to realize that history is interpretation of facts, trends and ideas. Therefore, neither professor nor Teaching Assistants will give you “right” or “wrong” answers. Instead, another major...
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...latest expression of pseudo scientific theories with respect to race and intelligence. This paper gives an historical and ideological insight behind the development and application of intelligence tests by citing examples of their impact on legislation, social policy and intervention programmes in relation to Blacks. More importantly, a discussion of cultural bias in test design focuses on the response of Black psychologists who developed Black intelligence tests that portray whites as intellectually inferior in the same manner that Blacks are portrayed as intellectually inferior on tests devised by white psychologist. Furthermore, The hereditary perspective of intelligence is challenged by empirical evidence that centres on children with white ancestry to assess whether white genes influence intelligence while citing several sources that support the environmental explanation of the race gap in test scores. Consequently, this discussion questions the reliability and validity of intelligence tests that are used to reinforce the Black intellectual inferiority myth. The conclusive argument suggests in no uncertain terms that the Bell Curve is nothing more than the repackaging of racist pseudo-scientific conclusions by right wing academics, intent on rekindling a political debate premised on a racist manifesto to justify the withdrawal of intervention programmes that challenge existing social and racial hierarchies, that are perceived to transfer white power and privileges to undeserving...
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