The Future Of Human Nature

Download or read book The Future of Human Nature written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic research are raising complex ethical questions concerning the legitimate scope and limits of genetic intervention. As we begin to contemplate the possibility of intervening in the human genome to prevent diseases, we cannot help but feel that the human species might soon be able to take its biological evolution in its own hands. ‘Playing God’ is the metaphor commonly used for this self-transformation of the species, which, it seems, might soon be within our grasp. In this important new book, Jürgen Habermas – the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today – takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny. His analysis is guided by the view that genetic manipulation is bound up with the identity and self-understanding of the species. We cannot rule out the possibility that knowledge of one’s own hereditary factors may prove to be restrictive for the choice of an individual’s way of life and may undermine the symmetrical relations between free and equal human beings. In the concluding chapter – which was delivered as a lecture on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2001 – Habermas broadens the discussion to examine the tension between science and religion in the modern world, a tension which exploded, with such tragic violence, on September 11th.

Download or read book Is Human Nature Obsolete? written by Harold W. Baillie and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interdisciplinary exploration of whether modern genetics and bioengineering are leading us to a posthuman future.

Download or read book Technological Nature written by Peter H. Kahn, Jr. and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-02-25 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why it matters that our relationship with nature is increasingly mediated and augmented by technology. Our forebears may have had a close connection with the natural world, but increasingly we experience technological nature. Children come of age watching digital nature programs on television. They inhabit virtual lands in digital games. And they play with robotic animals, purchased at big box stores. Until a few years ago, hunters could "telehunt"—shoot and kill animals in Texas from a computer anywhere in the world via a Web interface. Does it matter that much of our experience with nature is mediated and augmented by technology? In Technological Nature, Peter Kahn argues that it does, and shows how it affects our well-being. Kahn describes his investigations of children's and adults' experiences of cutting-edge technological nature. He and his team installed "technological nature windows" (50-inch plasma screens showing high-definition broadcasts of real-time local nature views) in inside offices on his university campus and assessed the physiological and psychological effects on viewers. He studied children's and adults' relationships with the robotic dog AIBO (including possible benefits for children with autism). And he studied online "telegardening" (a pastoral alternative to "telehunting"). Kahn's studies show that in terms of human well-being technological nature is better than no nature, but not as good as actual nature. We should develop and use technological nature as a bonus on life, not as its substitute, and re-envision what is beautiful and fulfilling and often wild in essence in our relationship with the natural world.

Download or read book Human Nature written by Geoff Blackwell and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Human Nature, 12 of today's most influential nature and conservation photographers address the biggest environmental concerns of our time. • Joel Sartore • Paul Nicklen • Ami Vitale • Brent Stirton • Frans Lanting • Brian Skerry • Tim Laman • Cristina Mittermeier • J Henry Fair • Richard John Seymour • George Steinmetz • Steve Winter Alongside their reflections, they present curated selections from their photographic careers. Stories and extraordinary images from around the world come together in a powerful call to awareness and action. • The United Nations has declared that nature is in more trouble now than at any other time in human history. • Extinction looms over one million species of plants and animals. • Human Nature wrestles with challenging questions: What do we have? What do we stand to lose? This book offers inspiration to environmentalists, activists, photography fans, and anyone concerned about the future of our world. • This illuminating book tackles our modern environmental future through the lens of preeminent photographers • Great gift for photographers, nature enthusiasts, those who enjoy backpacking and camping, and anyone who cares about Earth's climate and future • Add it to the shelf with books like National Geographic The Photo Ark Vanishing: The World's Most Vulnerable Animals by Joel Sartore, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, and Dire Predictions: The Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC by Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump.

Download or read book Our Posthuman Future written by Francis Fukuyama and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is a baby whose personality has been chosen from a gene supermarket still a human? If we choose what we create what happens to morality? Is this the end of human nature? The dramatic advances in DNA technology over the last few years are the stuff of science fiction. It is now not only possible to clone human beings it is happening. For the first time since the creation of the earth four billion years ago, or the emergence of mankind 10 million years ago, people will be able to choose their children's' sex, height, colour, personality traits and intelligence. It will even be possible to create 'superhumans' by mixing human genes with those of other animals for extra strength or longevity. But is this desirable? What are the moral and political consequences? Will it mean anything to talk about 'human nature' any more? Is this the end of human beings? Our Posthuman Future is a passionate analysis of the greatest political and moral problem ever to face the human race.

Download or read book The Map and the Territory written by Alan Greenspan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, from home to business to government at all levels. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day, one way or another. Very often, however, we’re steering by out-of-date maps, when we’re not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control. The Map and the Territory is nothing less than an effort to update our forecasting conceptual grid. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioral economists, and the fruits of the author’s own remarkable career to offer a thrillingly lucid and empirically based grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we can’t.The book explores how culture is and isn't destiny and probes what we can predict about the world's biggest looming challenges, from debt and the reform of the welfare state to natural disasters in an age of global warming. No map is the territory, but Greenspan’s approach, grounded in his trademark rigor, wisdom, and unprecedented context, ensures that this particular map will assist in safe journeys down many different roads, traveled by individuals, businesses, and the state.

Download or read book War and Human Nature written by Stephen Peter Rosen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did President John F. Kennedy choose a strategy of confrontation during the Cuban missile crisis even though his secretary of defense stated that the presence of missiles in Cuba made no difference? Why did large numbers of Iraqi troops surrender during the Gulf War even though they had been ordered to fight and were capable of doing so? Why did Hitler declare war on the United States knowing full well the power of that country? War and Human Nature argues that new findings about the way humans are shaped by their inherited biology may help provide answers to such questions. This seminal work by former Defense Department official Stephen Peter Rosen contends that human evolutionary history has affected the way we process the information we use to make decisions. The result is that human choices and calculations may be very different from those predicted by standard models of rational behavior. This notion is particularly true in the area of war and peace, Rosen contends. Human emotional arousal affects how people learn the lessons of history. For example, stress and distress influence people's views of the future, and testosterone levels play a role in human social conflict. This thought-provoking and timely work explores the mind that has emerged from the biological sciences over the last generation. In doing so, it helps shed new light on many persistent puzzles in the study of war.