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Phenotypic plasticity : beyond nature and nurture
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ISBN: 0801867886 9780801867880 Year: 2001 Publisher: Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University press,

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For more than two decades the concept of phenotypic plasticity has allowed researchers to go beyond the nature-nurture dichotomy to gain deeper insights into how organisms are shaped by the interaction of genetic and ecological factors. 'Phenotypic Plasticity: Beyond Nature and Nurture' is the first work to synthesize the burgeoning area of plasticity studies, providing a conceptual overview as well as a technical treatment of its major components. Phenotypic plasticity integrates the insights of ecological genetics, developmental biology, and evolutionary theory. Plasticity research asks foundational questions about how living organisms are capable of variation in their genetic makeup and in their responses to environmental factors. For instance, how do novel adaptive phenotypes originate? How do organisms detect and respond to stressful environments? What is the balance between genetic or natural constraints (such as gravity) and natural selection? The author begins by defining phenotypic plasticity and detailing its history, including important experiments and methods of statistical and graphical analysis. He then provides extended examples of the molecular basis of plasticity, the plasticity of development, the ecology of plastic responses, and the role of costs and constraints in the evolution of plasticity. A brief epilogue looks at how plasticity studies shed light on the nature/nurture debate in the popular media. 'Phenotypic Plasticity: Beyond Nature and Nurture' thoroughly reviews more than two decades of research, and thus will be of interest to both students and professionals in evolutionary biology, ecology, and genetics.


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Nonsense on stilts : how to tell science from bunk
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ISBN: 9780226495996 022649599X Year: 2018 Publisher: Chicago: University of Chicago press,

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Why do people believe bunk? What causes them to embrace pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate fact from fantasy in this exploration of the nature of science and the borderlands of fringe science. Recent polls suggest that fewer than 40 percent of Americans believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, despite it being one of science's best-established findings. Parents still refuse to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link has been consistently disproved. And about 40 percent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, including many political leaders. In this era of fake news and alternative facts, there is more bunk than ever. But why do people believe in it? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? In this fully revised second edition, noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in an entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and--borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham--the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a "taxonomy of bunk" that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. No one--neither the public intellectuals in the culture wars between defenders and detractors of science nor the believers of pseudoscience themselves--is spared Pigliucci's incisive analysis in this timely reminder of the need to maintain a line between expertise and assumption. Broad in scope and implication, Nonsense on Stilts is a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will shape the future of our planet.

Denying evolution : creationism, scientism, and the nature of science
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ISBN: 0878936599 9780878936595 Year: 2002 Publisher: Sunderland (Mass.) : Sinauer associates,

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Answers for Aristotle : how science and philosophy can lead us to a more meaningful life
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ISBN: 9780465021383 9780465032808 Year: 2012 Publisher: New York, N.Y. Basic Books

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Making sense of evolution: the conceptual foundations of evolutionary biology
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ISBN: 9780226668376 9780226668369 0226668371 0226668363 9780226668352 0226668355 Year: 2006 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. University of Chicago Press


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Philosophy of pseudoscience : reconsidering the demarcation problem
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ISBN: 9780226051963 9780226051796 022605196X 022605182X 9780226051826 9781299737631 1299737633 022605179X Year: 2013 Publisher: Chicago: University of Chicago press,

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What sets the practice of rigorously tested, sound science apart from pseudoscience ? In this volume, the contributors seek to answer this question, known to philosophers of science as «the demarcation problem.» This issue has a long history in philosophy, stretching as far back as the early twentieth century and the work of Karl Popper. But by the late 1980s, scholars in the field began to treat the demarcation problem as impossible to solve and futile to ponder. However, the essays that Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry have assembled in this volume make a rousing case for the unequivocal importance of reflecting on the separation between pseudoscience and sound science. Moreover, the demarcation problem is not a purely theoretical dilemma of mere academic interest: it affects parents’ decisions to vaccinate children and governments’ willingness to adopt policies that prevent climate change. Pseudoscience often mimics science, using the superficial language and trappings of actual scientific research to seem more respectable. Even a well-informed public can be taken in by such questionable theories dressed up as science. Pseudoscientific beliefs compete with sound science on the health pages of newspapers for media coverage and in laboratories for research funding. Now more than ever the ability to separate genuine scientific findings from spurious ones is vital, and The Philosophy of Pseudoscience provides ground for philosophers, sociologists, historians, and laypeople to make decisions about what science is or isn’t.

Phenotypic integration
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ISBN: 1280503149 0195347757 1433700832 9780195347753 0195186540 9780195186543 9781433700835 9780195160437 0195160436 9781280503146 9786610503148 6610503141 0197701809 Year: 2004 Publisher: Oxford New York Oxford University Press

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Collecting recent research on phenotype integration, this volume offers a cutting edge review of the subject, an area of increasing attention from evolutionary biologists, developmental biologists, geneticists, & organismal biologists.


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Science unlimited? The challenges of scientism
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ISBN: 9780226498140 9780226498003 9780226498287 Year: 2017 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. The University of Chicago Press

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Evolution, the extended synthesis
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ISBN: 9780262513678 0262513676 0262315149 9780262315142 Year: 2010 Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press,

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In this volume, 16 leading evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science survey the conceptual changes that have emerged since Huxley's landmark publication, not only in such traditional domains of evolutionary biology as quantitative genetics and paleontology but also in such fields of research as genomics and EvoDevo.

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