Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life is a 1995 book by Daniel Dennett, in which the author looks at some of the repercussions of Darwinian theory. The crux of the argument is that, whether or not Darwin's theories are overturned, there is no going back from the dangerous idea that design might not need a designer. Dennett makes this case on the basis that natural selection is a blind process, which is nevertheless sufficiently powerful to explain the evolution of life. Darwin's discovery was that the generation of life worked algorithmically, that processes behind it work in such a way that given these processes the results that they tend toward must be so.
Persuasion is an umbrella term of influence. Persuasion can attempt to influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviors. In business, persuasion is a process aimed at changing a person's attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s), by using written, spoken words or visual tools to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination thereof. Persuasion is also an often used tool in the pursuit of personal gain, such as election campaigning, giving a sales pitch, or in trial advocacy. Persuasion can also be interpreted as using one's personal or positional resources to change people's behaviors or attitudes. Systematic persuasion is the process through which attitudes or beliefs are leveraged by appeals to logic and reason. Heuristic persuasion on the other hand is the process through which attitudes or beliefs are leveraged by appeals to habit or emotion.
An iconoclast is one who professes iconoclasm ; one who objects to the use of sacred images in religion, or who opposes orthodoxy and religion.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a business and self-help book written by Stephen Covey. Covey presents an approach to being effective in attaining goals by aligning oneself to what he calls "true north" principles based on a character ethic that he presents as universal and timeless.
The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive, conative or affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the object that is known.
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why sentient organisms have qualia or phenomenal experiences—how and why it is that some internal states are felt states, such as heat or pain, rather than unfelt states, as in a thermostat or a toaster. The philosopher David Chalmers, who introduced the term "hard problem" of consciousness, contrasts this with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify a mechanism that can perform the function. That is, their proposed solutions, regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomena. Chalmers claims that the problem of experience is distinct from this set and that the problem of experience will "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained".
The Art of Happiness is a book by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, a psychiatrist who posed questions to the Dalai Lama. Cutler quotes the Dalai Lama at length, providing context and describing some details of the settings in which the interviews took place, as well as adding his own reflections on issues raised.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is a 2005 book by academic and popular science author Jared Diamond, in which Diamond first defines collapse: "a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time." He then reviews the causes of historical and pre-historical instances of societal collapse—particularly those involving significant influences from environmental changes, the effects of climate change, hostile neighbors, trade partners, and the society's response to the foregoing four challenges—and considers the success or failure different societies have had in coping with such threats.
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974) is collection of 29 essays written by Lewis Thomas for the New England Journal of Medicine between 1971 and 1973. Throughout his essays, Thomas touches on subjects as various as biology, anthropology, medicine, music, etymology, mass communication, and computers. The pieces resonate with the underlying theme of the interconnected nature of Earth and all living things.
The adaptive unconscious, first coined by Daniel Wagner in 2002, is described as a series of mental processes that is able to affect judgement and decision making, but is out of reach of the conscious mind. Architecturally, the adaptive unconscious is said to be unreachable because it is buried in an unknown part of the brain. This type of thinking evolved earlier than the conscious mind, enabling the mind to transform information and think in ways that enhance an organism's survival. It can be described as a quick sizing up of the world which interprets information and decides how to act very quickly and outside the conscious view. The adaptive unconscious is active in everyday activities such as learning new material, detecting patterns, and filtering information. It is also characterized by being unconscious, unintentional, uncontrollable, and efficient without requiring cognitive tools. Lacking the need for cognitive tools does not make the adaptive unconscious any less useful than the conscious mind as the adaptive unconscious allows for processes like memory formation, physical balancing, language, learning, and some emotional and personalities processes that includes judgement, decision making, impression formation, evaluations, and goal pursuing. Despite being useful, the series of processes of the adaptive unconscious will not always result in accurate or correct decisions by the organism. The adaptive unconscious is affected by things like emotional reaction, estimations, and experience and is thus inclined to stereotyping and schema which can lead to inaccuracy in decision making. The adaptive conscious does however help decision making to eliminate cognitive biases such as prejudice because of its lack of cognitive tools.
The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard has been a major influence in the development of 20th-century philosophy, especially existentialism and postmodernism. Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher who has been labeled by many as the "Father of Existentialism", although there are some in the field who express doubt in labeling him an existentialist to begin with. His philosophy also influenced the development of existential psychology.
Andrew Keen is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view that the current Internet culture and the Web 2.0 trend may be debasing culture, an opinion he shares with Jaron Lanier and Nicholas G. Carr among others. Keen is especially concerned about the way that the current Internet culture undermines the authority of learned experts and the work of professionals.
The Big Picture series provides teachers and post-16 students with up-to-date information on research findings in biology and medicine, and the social and ethical implications of this research. Published by the Wellcome Trust as a free educational resource, each issue is available for free electronically. The website provides free resources for teachers and online activities for students, including lesson ideas, animations, image galleries and short videos. As of 2016, the print subscription has been discontinued and replaced with online only.
Martin Lindstrom (Lindstrøm) is a Danish author and Time magazine Influential 100 Honoree. Lindstrom's books include Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends, Buyology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and Brandwashed - Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, his first title written for consumers, for which Lindstrom conducted a $3 million word-of-mouth marketing experiment – inspired by the 2009 film, The Joneses – to study the effects of social influence on purchasing decisions.
Rose is the 2010 book by Inga Muscio which looks into the passive and physical violence in our daily lives and describes how we might find love within this violence. It is her third book, following Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (1998) and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society (2005). Rose is divided into three main sections: an Introduction, Part I—Violence, and Part II—Love.
Move UP is a nonfiction book written by Dr. Clotaire Rapaille and Dr. Andrés Roemer in 2013 that explains upward social mobility from a biological and cultural perspective, and how societies and nations create adequate environments for maintaining the bio-logical requirements of the human species. The book is based on the latest research in biology, evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience and anthropology.
Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn is a book by CUNY Graduate Center professor Cathy Davidson published by Viking Press on August 19, 2011.
Erin Meyer is an American author and professor based in Paris. She is most known for writing the 2014 book, The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business a study that analyzes how national cultural differences impact business.
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief is a 1999 book by Canadian clinical psychologist and psychology professor Jordan Peterson. The book describes a comprehensive theory for how people construct meaning, in a way that is compatible with the modern scientific understanding of how the brain functions. It examines the "structure of systems of belief and the role those systems play in the regulation of emotion", using "multiple academic fields to show that connecting myths and beliefs with science is essential to fully understand how people make meaning".
