Physical Theory In Biology: Foundations And Explorations PDF Download

Author: Charles J Lumsden
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 981454633X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506

View

Book Description
What is the physics of life and why does it matter? The essays in this book probe this question, celebrating modern biology's vibrant dialog with theoretical physics — a scientific adventure in which biological understanding is enriched by physical theory without losing its own inherent traditions and perspectives. The book explores organic complexity and self-organization through research applications to embryology, cell biology, behavioral neuroscience, and evolution. The essays will excite the interest of physics students in thinking about biology's “grand challenges”, in part by means of self-contained introductions to theoretical computer science, symmetry methods in bifurcation theory, and evolutionary games. Seasoned investigators in both the physical and life sciences will also find challenging ideas and applications presented in this volume.This is a Print On Demand title. We no longer stock the original but will recreate a copy for you. While all efforts are made to ensure that quality is the same as the original, there may be differences in some areas of the design and packaging.

Author: Charles J. Lumsden
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9789810230821
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486

View

Book Description
What is the physics of life and why does it matter? The essays in this book probe this question, celebrating modern biology's vibrant dialog with theoretical physics — a scientific adventure in which biological understanding is enriched by physical theory without losing its own inherent traditions and perspectives. The book explores organic complexity and self-organization through research applications to embryology, cell biology, behavioral neuroscience, and evolution. The essays will excite the interest of physics students in thinking about biology's “grand challenges”, in part by means of self-contained introductions to theoretical computer science, symmetry methods in bifurcation theory, and evolutionary games. Seasoned investigators in both the physical and life sciences will also find challenging ideas and applications presented in this volume.This is a Print On Demand title. We no longer stock the original but will recreate a copy for you. While all efforts are made to ensure that quality is the same as the original, there may be differences in some areas of the design and packaging.

Author: Kees van Kooten Niekerk
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000887863
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

View

Book Description
Originally published in 2004. Thanks to computer simulations science is beginning to understand complex natural processes such as the weather, earthquakes and the evolution of life. The Significance of Complexity deals with the importance of the sciences of complexity - for the humanities and theology. First, three scientists explain the science of complexity and illustrate it with concrete examples. Second, two scholars consider the concept of complexity and possible applications of complexity theory within the humanities, e.g. as a tool to understand the interplay between the artist, the work of art and the user in interactive art. Finally, three theologians ask what can be learned from the science of complexity for a religious understanding of humankind and the world. The Significance of Complexity is a pioneering work exploring the import of a fascinating new branch of science for human self-understanding. It caters for all those who are interested in relating science to the quest for the meaning of life.

Author: Gabriele A. Losa
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3764374128
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

View

Book Description
This volume is number four in a series of proceedings volumes from the International Symposia on Fractals in Biology and Medicine in Ascona, Switzerland which have been inspired by the work of Benoît Mandelbrot seeking to extend the concepts towards the life sciences. It highlights the potential that fractal geometry offers for elucidating and explaining the complex make-up of cells, tissues and biological organisms either in normal or in pathological conditions.

Author: L. Douglas Kiel
Publisher: EOLSS Publications
ISBN: 1905839111
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 412

View

Book Description
Knowledge Management, Organizational Intelligence and Learning, and Complexity is the component of Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme on Knowledge Management, Organizational Intelligence and Learning, and Complexity in the Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources provides the latest scientific insights into the evolution of complexity in both the natural and social realms. Emerging perspectives from the fields of knowledge management, computer-based simulation and the organizational sciences are presented as tools for understanding and supporting this evolving complexity and the earth's life support systems. These three volumes are aimed at the following a wide spectrum of audiences from the merely curious to those seeking in-depth knowledge: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

Author: William Dembski
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497648955
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

View

Book Description
Recent years have seen the rise to prominence of ever more sophisticated philosophical and scientific critiques of the ideas marketed under the name of Darwinism. In Uncommon Dissent, mathematician and philosopher William A. Dembski brings together essays by leading intellectuals who find one or more aspects of Darwinism unpersuasive. As Dembski explains, Darwinism has gathered around itself an aura of invincibility that is inhospitable to rational discussion—to say the least: “Darwinism, its proponents assure us, has been overwhelmingly vindicated. Any resistance to it is futile and indicates bad faith or worse.” Indeed, those who question the Darwinian synthesis are supposed, in the famous formulation of Richard Dawkins, to be ignorant, stupid, insane, or wicked. The hostility of dogmatic Darwinians like Dawkins has not, however, prevented the advent of a growing cadre of scholarly critics of metaphysical Darwinism. The measured, thought-provoking essays in Uncommon Dissent make it increasingly obvious that these critics are not the brainwashed fundamentalist buffoons that Darwinism’s defenders suggest they are, but rather serious, skeptical, open-minded inquirers whose challenges pose serious questions about the viability of Darwinist ideology. The intellectual power of their contributions to Uncommon Dissent is bracing.

Author: Franklin M. Harold
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195163389
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

View

Book Description
Schrodinger's riddle -- The quality of life -- Cells in nature and in theory -- Molecular logic -- A (almost) comprehensible cell -- It takes a cell to make a cell -- Morphogenesis: where form and function meet -- The advance of the microbes -- By descent with modification -- So what is life? -- Searching for the beginning.

Author: Charles J Lumsden
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 981448069X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

View

Book Description
Long considered one of the most provocative and demanding major works on human sociobiology, Genes, Mind, and Culture introduces the concept of gene-culture coevolution. It has been out of print for several years, and in this volume Lumsden and Wilson provide a much needed facsimile edition of their original work, together with a major review of progress in the discipline during the ensuing quarter century. They argue compellingly that human nature is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, and identify mechanisms that energize the upward translation from genes to culture. The authors also assess the properties of genetic evolution of mind within emergent cultural patterns. Lumsden and Wilson explore the rich and sophisticated data of developmental psychology and cognitive science in a fashion that, for the first time, aligns these disciplines with human sociobiology. The authors also draw on population genetics, cultural anthropology, and mathematical physics to set human sociobiology on a predictive base, and so trace the main steps that lead from the genes through human consciousness to culture.

Author: Bruce J West
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814465119
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

View

Book Description
This book provides a lens through which modern society is shown to depend on complex networks for its stability. One way to achieve this understanding is through the development of a new kind of science, one that is not explicitly dependent on the traditional disciplines of biology, economics, physics, sociology and so on; a science of networks. This text reviews, in non-mathematical language, what we know about the development of science in the twenty-first century and how that knowledge influences our world. In addition, it distinguishes the two-tiered science of the twentieth century, based on experiment and theory (data and knowledge) from the three-tiered science of experiment, computation and theory (data, information and knowledge) of the twenty-first century in everything from psychophysics to climate change.This book is unique in that it addresses two parallel lines of argument. The first line is general and intended for a lay audience, but one that is scientifically sophisticated, explaining how the paradigm of science has been changed to accommodate the computer and large-scale computation. The second line of argument addresses what some consider the seminal scientific problem of climate change. The authors show how a misunderstanding of the change in the scientific paradigm has led to a misunderstanding of complex phenomena in general, and the causes of global warming in particular.

Author: Stephen J. Guastello
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139867261
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 1020

View

Book Description
While many books have discussed methodological advances in nonlinear dynamical systems theory (NDS), this volume is unique in its focus on NDS's role in the development of psychological theory. After an introductory chapter covering the fundamentals of chaos, complexity and other nonlinear dynamics, subsequent chapters provide in-depth coverage of each of the specific topic areas in psychology. A concluding chapter takes stock of the field as a whole, evaluating important challenges for the immediate future. The chapters are written by experts in the use of NDS in each of their respective areas, including biological, cognitive, developmental, social, organizational and clinical psychology. Each chapter provides an in-depth examination of theoretical foundations and specific applications and a review of relevant methods. This edited collection represents the state of the art in NDS science across the disciplines of psychology.