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Author: Benjamin S Minch Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
If the human race were a tree, all of human history would be a giant gardening experiment gone wrong. In this book, we explore this experiment in gardening as we look into 2000 years of human history. The human tree is constantly replanted into new soils, new cultures, new ways of thinking about the world and itself. Each of these new soils brings about good fruit at first. Scientific advances, economic prosperity, and increased civil and human rights are among these good fruits. Each soil, however, is not perfect. Religion bred the Crusades, secularism bred the French Revolution, technology bred the World Wars, and the list could go on and on. What then is causing all of the pain and bad fruits of the human tree? Is it a soil problem? Should the human tree keep trying out different worldviews and thought patterns until we find the one that ends suffering and evil? I believe there is a better way. A better way to help bring reconciliation to a broken world. A better way to really rid the injustices that plague our society. A better way to understand the cause of all of the evil systems in the world such as sex trafficking, slavery, and dictatorships. This way builds on the foundational ideas of Jesus, Paul, Augustine, and Solzhenitsyn concerning humanity and is the key to treating the bad fruits of the human tree. What is wrong with the world, you ask? To answer that, we must travel to the very roots of the human tree.
Author: Benjamin S Minch Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
If the human race were a tree, all of human history would be a giant gardening experiment gone wrong. In this book, we explore this experiment in gardening as we look into 2000 years of human history. The human tree is constantly replanted into new soils, new cultures, new ways of thinking about the world and itself. Each of these new soils brings about good fruit at first. Scientific advances, economic prosperity, and increased civil and human rights are among these good fruits. Each soil, however, is not perfect. Religion bred the Crusades, secularism bred the French Revolution, technology bred the World Wars, and the list could go on and on. What then is causing all of the pain and bad fruits of the human tree? Is it a soil problem? Should the human tree keep trying out different worldviews and thought patterns until we find the one that ends suffering and evil? I believe there is a better way. A better way to help bring reconciliation to a broken world. A better way to really rid the injustices that plague our society. A better way to understand the cause of all of the evil systems in the world such as sex trafficking, slavery, and dictatorships. This way builds on the foundational ideas of Jesus, Paul, Augustine, and Solzhenitsyn concerning humanity and is the key to treating the bad fruits of the human tree. What is wrong with the world, you ask? To answer that, we must travel to the very roots of the human tree.
Author: Frans B. M. de Waal Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674033027 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
How did we become the linguistic, cultured, and hugely successful apes that we are? Our closest relatives--the other mentally complex and socially skilled primates--offer tantalizing clues. In Tree of Origin nine of the world's top primate experts read these clues and compose the most extensive picture to date of what the behavior of monkeys and apes can tell us about our own evolution as a species. It has been nearly fifteen years since a single volume addressed the issue of human evolution from a primate perspective, and in that time we have witnessed explosive growth in research on the subject. Tree of Origin gives us the latest news about bonobos, the make love not war apes who behave so dramatically unlike chimpanzees. We learn about the tool traditions and social customs that set each ape community apart. We see how DNA analysis is revolutionizing our understanding of paternity, intergroup migration, and reproductive success. And we confront intriguing discoveries about primate hunting behavior, politics, cognition, diet, and the evolution of language and intelligence that challenge claims of human uniqueness in new and subtle ways. Tree of Origin provides the clearest glimpse yet of the apelike ancestor who left the forest and began the long journey toward modern humanity.
Author: David Quammen Publisher: Simon & Schuster ISBN: 1476776636 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 480
Book Description
In this New York Times bestseller and longlist nominee for the National Book Award, “our greatest living chronicler of the natural world” (The New York Times), David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology affect our understanding of evolution and life’s history. In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important; we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree, “the grandest tale in biology….David Quammen presents the science—and the scientists involved—with patience, candor, and flair” (Nature). We learn about the major players, such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. “David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story” (The Wall Street Journal). In The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life—including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition—through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. “The Tangled Tree is a source of wonder….Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure” (The Boston Globe).
Author: Bryan Sykes Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 9780393323146 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
This national bestseller, now in paperback, reveals how all humans are descended from seven prehistoric women--the Seven Daughters of Eve.
Author: Kjell Nilsson Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9048198062 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 428
Book Description
The link between modern lifestyles and increasing levels of chronic heart disease, obesity, stress and poor mental health is a concern across the world. The cost of dealing with these conditions places a large burden on national public health budgets so that policymakers are increasingly looking at prevention as a cost-effective alternative to medical treatment. Attention is turning towards interactions between the environment and lifestyles. Exploring the relationships between health, natural environments in general, and forests in particular, this groundbreaking book is the outcome of the European Union’s COST Action E39 ‘Forests, Trees and Human Health and Wellbeing’, and draws together work carried out over four years by scientists from 25 countries working in the fields of forestry, health, environment and social sciences. While the focus is primarily on health priorities defined within Europe, this volume explicitly draws also on research from North America.
Author: Alan Walker Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674016750 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 316
Book Description
Detailing the unfolding discovery of a crucial link in our evolution, this book is written in the voice of Walker, whose involvement with Proconsul began when his graduate supervisor analyzed the tree-climbing adaptations in the arm and hand of this extinct creature. Today, Proconsul is the best-known fossil ape in the world.
Author: Douglas Soltis Publisher: Academic Press ISBN: 0128125594 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 186
Book Description
The Great Tree of Life is a concise, approachable treatment that surveys the concept of the Tree of Life, including chapters on its historical introduction and cultural connection. The Tree of Life is a metaphor used to describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct. It has been widely recognized that the relationship between the roughly 10 million species on earth drives the ecological system. This work covers options on how to build the tree, demonstrating its utility in drug discovery, curing disease, crop improvement, conservation biology and ecology, along with tactics on how to respond to the challenges of climate change. This book is a key aid on the improvement of our understanding of the relationships between species, the increasing and essential awareness of biodiversity, and the power of employing modern biology to build the tree of life. - Provides a single reference describing the properties, history and utility of The Tree of Life - Introduces phylogenetics and its applications in an approachable manner - Written by experts on the Tree of Life - Includes an online companion site containing various original videos to enhance the reader's understanding and experience
Author: Suzanne Simard Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0525656103 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. In this, her first book, now available in paperback, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes--in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies--and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. And Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world.
Author: Spencer Wells Publisher: Random House ISBN: 0307830454 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 230
Book Description
Around 60,000 years ago, a man—genetically identical to us—lived in Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. How did this real-life Adam wind up as the father of us all? What happened to the descendants of other men who lived at the same time? And why, if modern humans share a single prehistoric ancestor, do we come in so many sizes, shapes, and races? Examining the hidden secrets of human evolution in our genetic code, Spencer Wells reveals how developments in the revolutionary science of population genetics have made it possible to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. Replete with marvelous anecdotes and remarkable information, from the truth about the real Adam and Eve to the way differing racial types emerged, The Journey of Man is an enthralling, epic tour through the history and development of early humankind.
Author: Benjamin S Minch
Author: Benjamin S Minch
Author: Frans B. M. de Waal
Author: David Quammen
Author: Bryan Sykes
Author: Kjell Nilsson
Author: Alan Walker
Author: Douglas Soltis
Author: Theodore W. Pietsch
Author: Suzanne Simard
Author: Spencer Wells