"The present volume represents the outcome of a workshop on Evolvability hosted in 2019 - 2020 by the Center of Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo. This book gathers the efforts of many of the people that were instrumental in the development of the evolvability concept in different fields to synthesize what we have learned about evolvability during the …
"New genomic studies on ancient remains are unveiling different forms of inequality that were prevalent in the past and have shaped the genomes of humankind"--OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.
OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.
An illustrated exploration of colors and patterns in the animal kingdom, what they communicate, and how they function in the social life of animals. Are animals able to appreciate what humans refer to as "beauty" The term scarcely ever appears nowadays in a scientific description of living things, but we humans may nonetheless find the colors, patterns, and songs of animals to be beautiful in a…
OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.
"Demystifying consciousness: how subjective experience can be explained by natural brain and evolutionary processes. Consciousness is often considered a mystery. How can the seemingly immaterial experience of consciousness be explained by the material neurons of the brain? There seems to be an unbridgeable gap between understanding the brain as an objectively observed biological organ and accou…
Can we can use the patterns and processes of convergent evolution to make inferences about universal laws of life, on Earth and elsewhere In this book, Russell Powell investigates whether we can use the patterns and processes of convergent evolution to make inferences about universal laws of life, on Earth and elsewhere. Weaving together disparate philosophical and empirical threads, Powell off…
"A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness--to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, "the sensitive soul" In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka prop…
Scholars have long been captivated by the parallels between birdsong and human speech and language. In this book, leading scholars draw on the latest research to explore what birdsong can tell us about the biology of human speech and language and the consequences for evolutionary biology. They examine the cognitive and neural similarities between birdsong learning and speech and language acquis…
'Scaffolding' is a concept that is becoming widely used across disciplines. This book investigates common threads in diverse applications of scaffolding, including theoretical biology cognitive science, social theory, science and technology studies, and human development. Despite its widespread use, the concept of scaffolding is often given short shrift; the contributors to this volume offer a …