The Dragons of Eden

Sample

William F. Allman

Why do we desire one person rather than another as a mate? How are we able to live together in large groups? Why do we react in anger to infidelity? Why do we love music and art? All of these human characteristics are rooted in the distant past, as William F. Allman informs us in The Stone Age Present. Reporting on cutting-edge ideas from the frontiers of research in such disciplines as anthropology, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and artificial intelligence - Allman shows how our minds evolved in response to challenges faced by our prehistoric ancestors. And he reveals how our brains continue to harbor that long-ago legacy in the present day. Scientists speculate that countless problems of contemporary life, from individuals being overweight to nations waging war, result because our "Stone Age minds" haven't caught up with our overcrowded, technologically sophisticated world. Our emotional responses, sexual preferences, and all other aspects of modern-day behavior are still playing out the evolutionary legacy of our ancient ancestors. But at a time when society is increasingly concerned about values, this book also shows how morality is not the result of arbitrary convention but stems from our need to cooperate, which has been essential to our successful evolution as a species. By a leading proponent of science for the general reader, this illuminating book moves beyond the "nature vs. nurture" debate to provide a challenging and indispensable guide to understanding the ancient origins of our modern psyche.

Sample

Robert Ludlum

Imprisoned and drugged in a retricted island psychiatric facility for intelligence employees whose mental state poses a security risk to the government, former Consular Operations agent Hal Ambler manages a daring escape and sets out to discover who he is, and why he was placed here.

Sample

Michael C. Finke

"Michael C. Finke explodes a century of critical truisms concerning Chekhov's objective eye and what being a physician gave him as a writer in a book that foregrounds the deeply subjective and self-reflexive aspects of his fiction and drama. In exploring previously unrecognized seams between the author's life and his verbal art, Finke profoundly alters and deepens our understanding of Chekhov's personality and behaviors, provides new interpretations of a broad array of Chekhov's texts, and fleshes out Chekhov's simultaneous pride in his identity as a physician and devastating critique of turn-of-the-century medical practices and ideologies." "Seeing Chekhov is essential reading for students of Russian literature, devotees of the short story and modern drama, and anyone interested in the intersection of literature, psychology, and medicine."--Jacket.

Sample

Yukio Ohsawa, Peter McBurney

Chance discovery means discovering chances -- the breaking points in systems, the marketing windows in business, etc. It involves determining the significance of some piece of information about an event and then using this new knowledge in decision making. The techniques developed combine data mining methods for finding rare but important events with knowledge management, groupware, and social psychology. The reader will find many applications, such as finding information on the Internet, recognizing changes in customer behavior, detecting the first signs of an imminent earthquake, etc. This first book dedicated to chance discovery covers the state of the art in the theory and methods and examines typical scenarios, and it thus appeals to researchers working on new techniques and algorithms and also to professionals dealing with real-world applications.