scholarly journals Chapter 19. Linguistics and evolutionary biology continue to cross-fertilize each other and may do so even more in the future, including in the field of creolistics

2017 ◽  
pp. 385-388
Author(s):  
Finn Borchsenius
PARADIGMI ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
Massimo Pigliucci

Evolutionary theory went through several phases ever since the publication of the original Darwin-Wallace paper, including neo-Darwinism, the Modern Synthesis and, possibly, a currently ongoing Extended Synthesis. In this paper I tackle the question of whether evolutionary biology ever underwent anything like a Kuhn-style paradigm shift. I conclude that it did not, and is not likely to do so in the future, although a paradigmlike shift did occur early on, at the transition between natural theology and Darwinism. Parole chiave: Darwinismo, Paradigmi, Sintesi estesa, Sintesi moderna, Teologia naturale


Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson

Why do we age? Why cooperate? Why do so many species engage in sex? Why do the tropics have so many species? When did humans start to affect world climate? This book provides an introduction to a range of fundamental questions that have taxed evolutionary biologists and ecologists for decades. Some of the phenomena discussed are, on first reflection, simply puzzling to understand from an evolutionary perspective, whilst others have direct implications for the future of the planet. All of the questions posed have at least a partial solution, all have seen exciting breakthroughs in recent years, yet many of the explanations continue to be hotly debated. Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution is a curiosity-driven book, written in an accessible way so as to appeal to a broad audience. It is very deliberately not a formal text book, but something designed to transmit the excitement and breadth of the field by discussing a number of major questions in ecology and evolution and how they have been answered. This is a book aimed at informing and inspiring anybody with an interest in ecology and evolution. It reveals to the reader the immense scope of the field, its fundamental importance, and the exciting breakthroughs that have been made in recent years.


1990 ◽  
Vol 18 (1_part_1) ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
John M. Frazier ◽  
Alan M. Goldberg

Biomedical endeavours can be divided into three major categories: research, education, and testing. Within the context of each of these categories, activities involving whole animals have made major contributions and will continue to do so in the future. However, with technological developments in the areas of biotechnology and computers, new methods are already reducing the use of whole animals in certain areas. This article discusses the general issues of alternatives and then focuses on the development of new approaches to toxicity testing.


2001 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Goggin ◽  
Catherine Griff

Much of the present debate about content on the internet revolves around how to control the distribution of different sorts of harmful or undesirable material. Yet there are considerable issues about whether sufficient sorts of desired cultural content will be available, such as ‘national’, ‘Australian’ content. In traditional broadcasting, regulation has been devised to encourage or mandate different types of content, where it is believed that the market will not do so by itself. At present, such regulatory arrangements are under threat in television, as the Productivity Commission Broadcasting Inquiry final report has noted. But what of the future for certain types of content on the internet? Do we need specific regulation and policy to promote the availability of content on the internet? Or is such a project simply irrelevant in the context of gradual but inexorable media convergence? Is regulating for content just as quixotic and fraught with peril as regulating of content from a censorship perspective often appears to be? In this article, we consider the case of Australian content for broadband technologies, especially in relation to film and video, and make some preliminary observations on the promotion and regulation of internet content.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. e1611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Vogd

In this article, I draw attention to the societal arrangements that permit or produce the autonomy of professions since professionals have the task of holding the tension among different perspectives. To do so, they must apply differing, irreconcilable logics of reflection and balance them in their decision-making. To gain a differentiated understanding of the complexities of these processes, I propose a metatheoretical conceptualization of the dynamics of professions based on Gotthard Günther’s theory of “polycontexturality,” which can be used both to analyse the interaction processes and to embed them in society. I illustrate this argument with an example from the field of medical treatment. The proposed approach also lays the basis for a differentiated understanding of phenomena, which psychoanalysis has traditionally described in terms of transference and countertransference.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-169
Author(s):  
Gustavo Fornari Dall'Agnol

O presente artigo visa a explorar teoricamente o nível doméstico no programa de pesquisa do Realismo Neoclássico. Para tal, revisa-se o programa desde suas origens na década de 1990 até seu desenvolvimento mais atual, aqui analisado na obra de Ripsman, Lobell e Taliaferro (2016). Faz-se uma revisão crítica do emprego das variáveis domésticas, de maneira, aqui argumentada, indiscriminada e prejudicial ao futuro do programa de pesquisa. Ademais irá propor-se que o Realismo Neoclássico, como possível solução, reorganize as variáveis de nível doméstico empregadas em suas análises e construções teóricas, de maneira a dar primazia a variáveis mais ligadas à ontologia e epistemologia realista. Conclui-se que essa é uma maneira para superar as críticas feitas ao programa de pesquisa, que do ponto de vista do presente estudo, vem contribuindo decisivamente para o estudo da política internacional e pode continuar a fazê-lo.     Abstract: The present paper aims at theoretically exploring the domestic level in the Neoclassical Realist research program. In order to do so, it analyzes the program since its origins in the 1990 towards its most recent development, expressed by the work of Ripsman, Lobell and Taliaferro (2016). A critical review of the employment of domestic variables is realized, arguing that they are introduced in a non-systematic manner and are an obstacle for the future of the research program. Beyond that, it will be proposed, that Neoclassical Realism, as a possible solution, reorganizes its domestic level variables employed in their analysis and theoretical constructions, in a manner of giving primacy to variables closer to the realist ontology and epistemology. The conclusion is that this is one way of overcoming the critics towards the research program, which from the perspective of this work, has been contributing decisively to the study of international politics and can keep doing so. Key-words: Neoclassical Realism; Domestic Variables; Realpolitik.       Recebido em: junho/2019 Aprovado em: dezembro/2020


Design Issues ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virve Hyysalo ◽  
Sampsa Hyysalo

We address the design issue of mundane and strategic work in collaborative design. We do so through an examination of a series of participatory design activities in building a flagship library of the future. Both strategic and mundane work are found to permeate the processes, results, and further uptake of collaborative design outcomes as internal issues of user involvement, and not just as external context or excludable routine execution, which has been the prevailing view to them in design research to date.


Author(s):  
Teja Miholič

The communication power of the social network Instagram is important to address due to its relaxed nature of presenting details from the ordinary lives of individuals. A comparison of the manners in which influencers and politicians represent themselves brings to front a changed dynamic of social power, as it is available online to anyone who can persuade followers to identify with them or to wish to do so in the future. Two ways of identification with an influencer are assumed, namely increasing and decreasing of distance between them and their followers. The text focuses on the latter, where politicians approach the people by showing the banality of their everyday lives. After reviewing the profiles of two Slovenian politicians, a noticeable pattern is that they most often do so with photographs of puppies and kittens. Keywords: populists’ rhetoric, master, Instagram, politics, pets, selfie


Author(s):  
Neel Ahuja

Ahuja calls our attention to the ways that environmentalists, artists, writers, and ecocritics have deployed the idea of “the Anthropocene” in order to critique human-caused climate change and environmental destruction. While this critique might be urgently needed, Ahuja reveals how it also tends to rely upon a universalized and essentialized construction of “the human” that glosses over major differences between various human groups, in which less privileged people are both less culpable and more vulnerable in relation to the dramatic effects that climate change will increasingly have on the planet. Exloring a range of texts emerging after 9/11, from the paintings of Alexis Rockman to Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, Junot Diaz’s “Monstro”, and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People, Ahuja calls for paying more attention to what he calls “the human of precarious futures,” a figure that seems necessary for dramatizing the dangerous coming results of climate change, but one that also risks flattening out all the ways that racism and inequality and injustice distinguish human groups today and might continue to do so into the future.


Author(s):  
Christopher Wills

No field of science has cast more light on both the past and the future of our species than evolutionary biology. Recently, the pace of new discoveries about how we have evolved has increased (Culotta and Pennisi, 2005). It is now clear that we are less unique than we used to think. Genetic and palaeontological evidence is now accumulating that hominids with a high level of intelligence, tool-making ability, and probably communication skills have evolved independently more than once. They evolved in Africa (our own ancestors), in Europe (the ancestors of the Neanderthals) and in Southeast Asia (the remarkable ‘hobbits’, who may be miniaturized and highly acculturated Homo erectus). It is also becoming clear that the genes that contribute to the characteristics of our species can be found and that the histories of these genes can be understood. Comparisons of entire genomes have shown that genes involved in brain function have evolved more quickly in hominids than in more distantly related primates. The genetic differences among human groups can now be investigated. Characters that we tend to think of as extremely important markers enabling us to distinguish among different human groups now turn out to be understandable at the genetic level, and their genetic history can be traced. Recently a single allelic difference between Europeans and Africans has been found (Lamason et al., 2005). This functional allelic difference accounts for about a third of the differences in skin pigmentation in these groups. Skin colour differences, in spite of the great importance they have assumed in human societies, are the result of natural selection acting on a small number of genes that are likely to have no effects beyond their influence on skin colour itself. How do these and other recent findings from fields ranging from palaeontology to molecular biology fit into present-day evolution theory, and what light do they cast on how our species is likely to evolve in the future? I will introduce this question by examining briefly how evolutionary change takes place.


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