"The publication of the present work on The Wonders of Life has been occasioned by the success of The Riddle of the Universe, which was written five years prior to this volume. Within a few months of the issue of this study of the monistic philosophy, in the autumn of 1899, ten thousand copies were sold. The clear opposition of the author's monistic philosophy, based as it was on the most advanced and sound scientific knowledge, to the conventional ideas and to an outworn "revelation," led to the publication of a vast number of criticisms and attacks. The present work on the wonders of life is, as the title indicates, a supplementary volume to The Riddle of the Universe. While the latter undertook to make a comprehensive survey of the general questions of science--as cosmological problems--in the light of the monistic philosophy, the present volume is confined to the realm of organic science, or the science of life. It seeks to deal connectedly with the general problems of biology, in strict accord with the monistic and mechanical principles which had been laid down by the author in 1866 in his work titled, General Morphology. In the latter publication, special stress was placed on the universality of the law of substance and the substantial unity of nature, which had been further treated in the second and fourteenth chapters of The Riddle of the Universe. The arrangement of the vast material for this study of the wonders of life was modeled on that of the Riddle. Retained in the present volume is the division into larger and smaller sections and the synopses of the various chapters. Thus the whole biological content falls into four sections and twenty chapters"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

How is life related to the mind? The question has long confounded philosophers and scientists, and it is this so-called explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness that Evan Thompson explores in Mind in Life. Thompson draws upon sources as diverse as molecular biology, evolutionary theory, artificial life, complex systems theory, neuroscience, psychology, Continental Phenomenology, and analytic philosophy to argue that mind and life are more continuous than has previously been accepted, and that current explanations do not adequately address the myriad facets of the biology and phenomenology of mind. Where there is life, Thompson argues, there is mind: life and mind share common principles of self-organization, and the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of the self-organizing features of life. Rather than trying to close the explanatory gap, Thompson marshals philosophical and scientific analyses to bring unprecedented insight to the nature of life and consciousness. This synthesis of phenomenology and biology helps make Mind in Life a vital and long-awaited addition to his landmark volume The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (coauthored with Eleanor Rosch and Francisco Varela). Endlessly interesting and accessible, Mind in Life is a groundbreaking addition to the fields of the theory of the mind, life science, and phenomenology.

The effective design of scientific experiments is critical to success, yet graduate students receive very little formal training in how to do it. Based on a well-received course taught by the author, Experimental Design for Biologistsfills this gap. Experimental Design for Biologistsexplains how to establish the framework for an experimental project, how to set up a system, design experiments within that system, and how to determine and use the correct set of controls. Separate chapters are devoted to negative controls, positive controls, and other categories of controls that are perhaps less recognized, such as “assumption controls†and “experimentalist controls†. Furthermore, there are sections on establishing the experimental system, which include performing critical “system controls†. Should all experimental plans be hypothesis-driven? Is a question/answer approach more appropriate? What was the hypothesis behind the Human Genome Project? What color is the sky? How does one get to Carnegie Hall? The answers to these kinds of questions can be found in Experimental Design for Biologists. Written in an engaging manner, the book provides compelling lessons in framing an experimental question, establishing a validated system to answer the question, and deriving verifiable models from experimental data. Experimental Design for Biologistsis an essential source of theory and practical guidance in designing a research plan.

Black & white print. Concepts of Biology is designed for the typical introductory biology course for nonmajors, covering standard scope and sequence requirements. The text includes interesting applications and conveys the major themes of biology, with content that is meaningful and easy to understand. The book is designed to demonstrate biology concepts and to promote scientific literacy.

Building on a range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – this book draws on the expertise of leading names in the study of organic, mental and cultural codes brought together by the emerging discipline of biosemiotics. The volume represents the first multi-authored attempt to deal with the range of codes relevant to life, and to reveal the ubiquitous role of coding mechanisms in both organic and mental evolution.