"A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions that could revolutionize psychology, health care, the legal system, and our understanding of the human mind. Emotions feel automatic, like uncontrollable reactions to things we think and experience. Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the...

"For readers of Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking, an epic journey through the intelligent universe. With the ongoing advancement of AI and other technologies, our world is becoming increasingly intelligent. From chatbots to innovations in brain-computer interfaces to the possibility of superintelligences leading to the Singularity later this century, our reality is being transformed before our eyes. This is commonly seen as the natural result of progress,...

From Indian vultures to Chinese bees, Nature provides the 'natural services' that keep the economy going. From the recycling miracles in the soil; an army of predators ridding us of unwanted pests; an abundance of life creating a genetic codebook that underpins our food, pharmaceutical industries and much more, it has been estimated that these and other services are each year worth about double global GDP. Yet we take most of Nature's services

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What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to...

Vermeij focuses on the importance of adaptation, how organisms interact with their environment, and examines the ways that both are altered. He supports his arguments with examples from ecosystems around the globe, and also redefines the longstanding question of nature vs. nurture so as to make it more accessible to future investigation.

Henri Bergson was a French-Jewish philosopher and Nobel Prize winner in Literature, whose third major work, "Creative Evolution", provided an alternate explanation for Darwin's mechanism of evolution. First published in French in 1907 and translated into English in 1911, the work proposes an orthogenesis or progressive theory of evolution in which Bergson argues that organisms innately evolve towards an end goal. Bergson focuses on four key steps...

Lisa Sideris proposes a new way of thinking about the natural world, an environmental ethic that incorporates the ideas of natural selection and values the processes rather than the products of nature. Such an approach encourages us to take a minimally interventionist approach to nature. Only when the competitive realities of evolution are faced squarely, Sideris argues, can we generate practical environmental principles to deal with such issues as...

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014" Peter Godfrey-Smith is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection. An essential introduction to the philosophy of biology This is a concise, comprehensive, and accessible introduction to the philosophy of biology written by a leading authority...

John Harris is the Lord David Alliance Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester School of Law, joint editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, and a member of Britain's Human Genetics Commission. His many books include On Cloning and Clones, Genes, and Immortality. In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes...

The chapters in this volume attempt to establish some foundational principles of a theory of the mind/brain grounded in evolutionary and process theory. From this standpoint, the book discusses some main problems in philosophical psychology, including the nature and origins of the mind/brain state, experience and consciousness, feeling, subjective time and free will. The approach - that of microgenesis - holds that formative phases in the generation...