HUMANKIND AND DISEASE

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-204
Author(s):  
W. H. McNeill ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ecological Role ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Forms Of Life

It is not absurd to class the ecological role of humankind in its relationship to other life forms as a disease. Ever since language allowed human cultural evolution to impinge upon age-old processes of biological evolution, humankind has been in a position to upset older balances of nature in quite the same fashion that disease upsets the natural balance within a host's body. Time and again, a temporary approach to stabilization of new relationships ocurred as natural limits to the ravages of humankind upon other life forms manifested themselves. Yet sooner or later, and always within a span of time that remained minuscule in comparison with the standards of biological evolution, humanity discovered new techniques allowing fresh exploitation of hitherto inaccessible resources, thereby renewing or intensifying damage to other forms of life. Looked at from the point of view of other organisms, humankind therefore resembles an acute epidemic disease, whose occasional lapses into less virulent forms of behavior have never yet sufficed to permit any really stable, chronic relationship to establish itself.

The human brain: Chairman’s introduction

1981 ◽  
Vol 292 (1057) ◽  
pp. 151-153
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Internal Models ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Myelin Sheaths ◽  
The Brain

Much has been said at the symposium about the pre-eminent role of the brain in the continuing emergence of man. Tobias has spoken of its explosive enlargement during the last 1 Ma, and how much of its enlargement in individual ontogeny is postnatal. We are born before our brains are fully grown and ‘wired up ’. During our long adolescence we build up internal models of the outside world and of the relations of parts of our bodies to it and to one another. Neurons that are present at birth spread their dendrites and project axons which acquire their myelin sheaths, and establish innumerable contacts with other neurons, over the years. New connections are formed; genetically endowed ones are stamped in or blanked off. People born without arms may grow up to use their toes in skills that are normally manual. Tobias, Darlington and others have stressed the enormous survival value of adaptive behaviour and the ‘positive feedback’ relation between biological and cultural evolution. The latter, the unique product of the unprecedentedly rapid biological evolution of big brains, advances on a time scale unknown to biological evolution.

Intelligent design in cultural evolution

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Cronk
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Signaling Theory ◽  
Target Article

Intelligent design, though unnecessary in the study of biological evolution, is essential to the study of cultural evolution. However, the intelligent designers in question are not deities or aliens but rather humans going about their lives. The role of intentionality in cultural evolution can be elucidated through the addition of signaling theory to the framework outlined in the target article.

Cultural Evolution, Memes, and Proper Names

2018 ◽  
pp. 84-103
Author(s):  
Sonia Vaupot
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Proper Name

Based on the theory of cultural evolution and memetics, this paper examines the procedures of translation of proper names as memes. Firstly, it proposes an overview of contemporary theories of cultural translation, including the theory of cultural evolution. Secondly, on the basis of the above-mentioned theoretical framework of cultural evolution and the use of the proper name, the central aim of this paper is to analyze the role of memes in translation. Lastly, after presenting and categorizing the proper names as realia words and memes, this paper will verify the (un)translatability of proper names from a multilingual point of view (French, English and Slovene) and illustrate the use of some translation procedures for the rendition of proper names as cultural memes.

scholarly journals New trends in constraint satisfaction, planning, and scheduling: a survey

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Barták ◽  
Miguel A. Salido ◽  
Francesca Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Constraint Satisfaction ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Planning And Scheduling ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Open Research ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
Substantial Effort

AbstractDuring recent years, the development of new techniques for constraint satisfaction, planning, and scheduling has received increased attention, and substantial effort has been invested in trying to exploit such techniques to find solutions to real-life problems. In this paper, we present a survey on constraint satisfaction, planning, and scheduling from the Artificial Intelligence point of view. In particular, we present the main definitions and techniques, and discuss possible ways of integrating such techniques. We also analyze the role of constraint satisfaction in planning and scheduling, and hint at some open research issues related to planning, scheduling, and constraint satisfaction.

scholarly journals BESTIARIES: A NEOBARBARIC ENCYCLOPE DIA OF STRATEGIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
G. Dalla Bontà ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Main Approach ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
Method Analysis ◽  
Creative Career

In the context of Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov’s audacious “lifelong” project, an encyclopedic perspective can be traced quite clearly through various approaches, languages and methodologies throughout the artist’s creative career. Prigov’s Bestiaries not only deviate from the traditional path of encyclopedic genealogy; they are the prototype of later, more pronounced taxonomic projects, and even act as a reference to what he called his “lifelong project”. Our task is to show how the Bestiaries series is not only a study of the Russian cultural space, but is also the very concept of Prigov’s anthropology from the beginning of the history of culture to the present day in a post-Soviet and even post-human perspective, thus asserting itself as a proto-encyclopedia of his New Anthropology. In the process of researching, methods such as theoretical, general philosophical analyses (systemic method, analysis, analogy, synthesis) were used, including the analysis of texts, interviews and artistic production of Prigov. The sociological methods are also taken as the basis for drawing conclusions and the main approach moves from a semiotic and poststructuralist point of view, especially the theory of culture of Yuri Lotman, the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben and George Bataille. Thus, we have outlined the importance of the Bestaries in presenting the theory of cultural evolution of Dmitry Prigov and his “new anthropology”, referring to this series on the role of the visual conclusion of his new anthropological system

A unified science of cultural evolution should incorporate choice

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Sopher
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Significant Progress

Analogies between biological and cultural evolution may be illuminating and suggest methods to pursue in the quest for a unified science of cultural evolution. Significant progress, however, is unlikely to be made by trying to fit cultural evolution neatly into a biological evolution schema. A key element defining and differentiating cultural evolution may be the role of conscious human choices.

Complex imitation and the language-ready brain

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 273-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Mirror System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Emergence ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe present article responds to commentaries from experts in anthropology, apraxia, archeology, linguistics, neuroanatomy, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, primatology, sign language emergence and sign language neurolinguistics on the book How the brain got language: The mirror system hypothesis (Arbib 2012). The role of complex imitation is discussed, and the distinction between protolanguage and language is emphasized. Issues debated include the role of protosign in scaffolding protospeech, the interplay between biological evolution of the brain and cultural evolution of the social interactions within groups, the relations brain mechanisms for action and language, and the question of when language first emerged.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

Elucidation of block boundaries as the dissolution channels in hydrated cement

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 484-485
Author(s):  
N.V. Belov ◽  
U.I. Papiashwili ◽  
B.E. Yudovich
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Phase ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Benzoyl Peroxide ◽  
Phase Contrast ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Hardened Cement ◽  
Hydrated Cement ◽  
Hardened Cement Paste

It has been almost universally adopted that dissolution of solids proceeds with development of uniform, continuous frontiers of reaction.However this point of view is doubtful / 1 /. E.g. we have proved the active role of the block (grain) boundaries in the main phases of cement, these boundaries being the areas of hydrate phases' nucleation / 2 /. It has brought to the supposition that the dissolution frontier of cement particles in water is discrete. It seems also probable that the dissolution proceeds through the channels, which serve both for the liquid phase movement and for the drainage of the incongruant solution products. These channels can be appeared along the block boundaries.In order to demonsrate it, we have offered the method of phase-contrast impregnation of the hardened cement paste with the solution of methyl metacrylahe and benzoyl peroxide. The viscosity of this solution is equal to that of water.

Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies? (With comments by L. Pasinetti, F. Fisher, J. Felipe and J. McCombie, R. Greenfield and reply by the authors)

2009 ◽  
pp. 4-27
Author(s):  
A. Cohen ◽  
G. Harcourt
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Capital Theory

The article written by the well-known theorists and historians of economic thought contains a detailed overview of the Cambridge capital controversy, which had raged from the mid-1950-s through the mid-1970-s. The authors track the origins of the controversy and cover arguments of both sides in chronological order. From their point of view, the discussion hasnt been resolved, and its main underlying aspects were ideological beliefs and fundamental methodological controversies on the nature of equilibrium and on the role of time in economic theory. The article is published with comments written by other leading theoreticians.

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