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"Biologists Anecdotes."
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The Serengeti rules : the quest to discover how life works and why it matters
\"How does life work? How does nature produce the right numbers of zebras and lions on the African savanna, or fish in the ocean? How do our bodies produce the right numbers of cells in our organs and bloodstream? In [this book], ... Sean Carroll tells the stories of the pioneering scientists who sought the answers to such simple yet profoundly important questions, and shows how their discoveries matter for our health and the health of the planet we depend upon\"--Dust jacket flap.
Book
Very few scientific publications and newspaper articles focus on catastrophic events and their effects on urban wildlife
The COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life and disrupted human activity in urban centers all over the world. Stay-at-home orders emptied urban spaces, removing or decreasing stressors on urban wildlife associated with human presence. Anecdotal observations of unusual urban wildlife behavior spread virally across social media, but some of these reports were proven false or fabricated. Here we examined both scientific publications and local newspapers to understand how extensively urban catastrophes are covered with respect to their effects on wildlife. We read all article titles from January 1980–June 2023 in 100 high impact journals in biology to determine if prior research exists that could inform our understanding of this phenomenon. Additionally, we used a keyword search to find scientific journal articles about wildlife responses during events in which large-scale evacuations of urban environments occurred. We found 37 scientific articles on this topic, with 13 of those published in the highest impact biology journals. The majority of publications identified (70%) were about wildlife responses to the COVID-19 public health response. Finally, we searched local newspapers in areas where hurricanes struck urban centers. We found 25 newspaper articles reporting on wildlife in relation to urban natural disasters. These were typically anecdotes, but nearly always consulted a credible, expert source. Ultimately, more research focused on urban areas before and after catastrophic or sudden changes will allow biologists to develop a baseline expectation for urban wildlife behavior in the absence of humans.
Journal Article
Shark Tracker
Killer tales from the deep from an award-winning cinematographer and marine biologist.
eBook
ANIMAL INDIVIDUALS: A PLEA FOR A NOMINALISTIC TURN IN ANIMAL STUDIES?
This paper focuses on the concept of \"animal individuals\" and puts forward a nominalistic approach. Nominalism is an ontological thesis (only individuals exist), but also an epistemological claim: that our \"nouns\" are practical tools for a quick dispatch of things, but do not correspond to anything real. Hence for a consistent nominalist, \"animals\" do not exist, except as a powerful fiction. First, we show that the word \"animal\" commits what we call (after Plato) the \"fallacy of the crane\": it encompasses a huge range of living entities that have only one thing in common: they are not humans. Differences between our term \"animal\" and the ancient Greek \"zoon\" also show the fluctuating boundaries of \"animality.\" Besides, our ways of speaking systematically deny individuality to nonhuman animals. The philosophical meaning of the term \"individual\" implies a genuine dimension of artistic singularity and a political claim for emancipation. Portraits of apes are striking instances of such individuality, captured by photography, as is art produced by particular animals. Methodologically, this leads also to the collection of anecdotes and a focus on animal biographies. The eighteenth-century controversy between Buffon and Condillac helps us understand what is at stake in the tension between species and individuals. Buffon claims that each nonhuman animal species can be represented by a \"specimen,\" whereas Condillac shows that animal individuals feel like us and that their nature is impenetrable to us. Finally, a focus on individuals is not only a way to renew or extend historical methods. Biologists are also increasingly concerned with individuals. They develop tools to distinguish individuals from one another: \"animal bertillonage\" for morphology. They question standard norms of behavior and preferences. This emphasis on animal individuality has not only theoretical but also ethical and legal consequences.
Journal Article
Superstition
From uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring past lives through hypnosis, has superstition become pervasive in contemporary culture? Robert Park, the best-selling author ofVoodoo Science, argues that it has. InSuperstition, Park asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded. He takes on supernatural beliefs from religion and the afterlife to New Age spiritualism and faith-based medical claims. He examines recent controversies and concludes that science is the only way we have of understanding the world.
Park sides with the forces of reason in a world of continuing and, he fears, increasing superstition. Chapter by chapter, he explains how people too easily mistake pseudoscience for science. He discusses parapsychology, homeopathy, and acupuncture; he questions the existence of souls, the foundations of intelligent design, and the power of prayer; he asks for evidence of reincarnation and astral projections; and he challenges the idea of heaven. Throughout, he demonstrates how people's blind faith, and their confidence in suspect phenomena and remedies, are manipulated for political ends. Park shows that science prevails when people stop fooling themselves.
Compelling and precise,Superstitiontakes no hostages in its quest to provoke. In shedding light on some very sensitive--and Park would say scientifically dubious--issues, the book is sure to spark discussion and controversy.
eBook
