1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910792387703321

Autore

Kronfeldner Maria E.

Titolo

Darwinian creativity and memetics / / Maria Kronfeldner

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London ; ; New York : , : Routledge, , 2014

ISBN

1-317-54491-9

0-367-87220-X

1-84465-486-9

1-317-54492-7

1-315-72910-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 165 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Acumen research editions

Disciplina

303.40157682

Soggetti

Social evolution

Memetics

Creative ability

Social Darwinism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"First published 2011 by Acumen"--T.p. verso.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Light will be thrown -- Darwinian principles -- The origin of novelty -- Guided variation -- The units of culture -- Memes or minds.

Sommario/riassunto

Maria Kronfeldner critically evaluates two influential approaches to cultural change that explain creativity and diffusion as an evolutionary process by drawing an analogy between the Darwinian approach to creativity and the theory of memes, or memetics. The Darwinian approach to creativity maintains that a process of blind variation and selection creates novelty in culture. Memetics goes further by claiming that we can ignore or even eliminate the human mind as the main causal force in the explanation of creativity and culture. In a penetrating analysis Kronfeldner shows analogical reasoning from evolutionary biology to cultural change lacks the necessary descriptive adequacy, explanatory force and heuristic value to be successful. Indeed she shows that both the Darwinian approach to creativity and memetics are mere reformulations, in Darwinian language, of what has been known already and offer no new explanatory tools. The book



provides an acute philosophical examination of Darwinian creativity and memetics from within the respective evolutionary approaches including debates from genetics, evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, science studies and philosophy.

2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910966701403321

Autore

Woolfson Michael M (Michael Mark)

Titolo

The formation of the solar system : theories old and new / / Michael Woolfson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London, : Imperial College Press

Hackensack, NJ, : Distributed by World Scientific Pub. Co., c2007

ISBN

9786611867638

9781281867636

1281867632

9781860948411

1860948413

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (250 p.)

Disciplina

523.2

Soggetti

Stars

Solar system Origin

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-311) and index.

Nota di contenuto

ch. 1. Theories come and theories go -- ch. 2. Measuring atoms and the universe -- ch. 3. Greek offerings -- ch. 4. The shoulders of giants -- ch. 5. A voyage of discovery to the solar system -- ch. 6. The problem to be solved -- ch. 7. The French connection -- ch. 8. American Catherine-Wheels -- ch. 9. British big tides -- ch. 10. Russian could capture-with British help -- ch. 11. German vortices-with a little French help -- ch. 12. McCrea's floccules -- ch. 13. What earlier theories indicate -- ch. 14. Disks around new stars -- ch. 15. Planets around other stars -- ch. 16. Disks around older stars -- ch. 17. What a theory should explain now -- ch. 18. The new Solar Nebula theory: the angular momentum problem -- ch. 19. Making planets top-



down -- ch. 20. A bottom-up alternative -- ch. 21. Making planets faster -- ch. 22. Wandering planets -- ch. 23. Back to top-down -- ch. 24. This is the stuff that stars are made of -- ch. 25. Making dense cool clouds -- ch. 26. A star is born -- ch. 27. Close to the maddening crowd -- ch. 28. Close encounters of the stellar kind -- ch. 29. Ever decreasing circles -- ch. 30. How many planetary systems? -- ch. 31. Starting a family -- ch. 32. Tilting-but not as windmills -- ch. 33. The terrestrial planets raise problems! -- ch. 34. A British Bang theory: the earth and Venus -- ch. 35. Behold the wandering moon -- ch. 36. Fleet Mercury and warlike Mars -- ch. 37. Gods of the sea and the nether regions -- ch. 38. Bits and pieces -- ch. 39. Comets-the harbingers of doom! -- ch. 40. Making atoms with a biggish bang -- ch. 41. Is the capture theory valid?

Sommario/riassunto

Michael Woolfson traces the development of ideas about the origin of the Solar System from ancient times to 2007.