We live in an evolving and increasingly complex global community and with this complexity comes a broad range of ethical issues. The Ethics: Contemporary Perspectives brings together scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including disciplines as diverse as philosophy, law, medicine and the study of world religions, to discuss these broad ethical issues in contemporary society. Its aim is explore our complex world, addressing both old and new ethical issues thr...

How would first contact—on earth, in space, on another planet—transform our understandings of technology, philosophy, and what it means to be human? What kind of cognitive dissonance would society experience, if we discovered a previously unrecognized sentience on Earth?What would life be like if it originated in a frigid ocean beneath an impenetrable shell of ice? Or on a world whose haze obscures any view of the universe beyond? Or on an unfathomable scale in the...

This collection of essays looks at Darwin, Darwinism and evolution from several faith perspectives: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Contributors come from across the globe to examine their particular religious belief and views on evolution.

'A cloth spread under an apple tree can catch only apples', wrote Antoine de Saint Exupery in Terre des hommes (Land of Men), (English title: Wind, Sand and Stars), 'and a cloth spread under stars can catch only stardust ... What was most marvellous was that, there, standing on the planet's rounded back, between this magnetic cloth and those stars, was a man's consciousness in which that star-fall could be reflected as in a mirror.' And a few pages further on he writes: 'I was but a mere m...

For a long time what we now know as space was inaccessible to humans, not because it was at a height which was unattainable without the least astronautical technology or principles, but because of the cosmic and dualistic representation of reality. Humans were relegated to the centre, to a sort of ecesspiti of imperfection, alteration, incompleteness and finally death. Around them were crystal spheres which held the planets and starsoimmutable, eternal and perfectoa domain which was comple...

We live in an evolving and increasingly complex global community and with this complexity comes a broad range of ethical issues. The Ethics: Contemporary Perspectives brings together scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including disciplines as diverse as philosophy, law, medicine and the study of world religions, to discuss these broad ethical issues in contemporary society. Its aim is explore our complex world, addressing both old and new ethical issues thr...

Stephen Jay Gould examines the phenomenon of the millennium. He looks at the origins of the term in the Biblical prophecies of the Book of Revelation - if the six ages of man date from 4000BC, will 2000AD signify the end of time? Gould describes how the meaning of the word has evolved to its present day usage and tackles the debate over whether the millennium ends in 1999 or at the end of 2000AD. He also questions the human compulsion to impose our time-schemes on the universe and wonders ...

Who wouldn't want to know the answer to the question:"WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?"For hundreds of years, philosophers, scientists, and mystics have studied the enigmatic writings of the great prognosticator Nostradamus for clues as to what our future holds. Drawing upon recent investigations undertaken by government agencies, major corporations, and noted works by world-renowned researchers, this book contains never-before revealed predictions for the years 2003-2...

One of the most ambitious works of paranormal investigation of our time, here is an unprecedented compendium of pre-twentieth-century UFO accounts, written with rigor and color by two of today's leading investigators of unexplained phenomena.In the past century, individuals, newspapers, and military agencies have recorded thousands of UFO incidents, giving rise to much speculation about flying saucers, visitors from other planets, and alien abductions. Yet the extr...

**“Ann Druyan has unearthed a treasure. It is a treasure of reason, compassion, and scientific awe. It should be the next book you read.*” —*Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith“A stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being. I miss him so.*” —*Kurt VonnegutCarl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality**The late great astrono...

The emergence of modern sciences in the seventeenth century profoundly renewed our understanding of nature. For the last three centuries new ideas of nature have been continually developed by theology, politics, economics, and science, especially the sciences of the material world.The situation is even more unstable today, now that we have entered an ecological mutation of unprecedented scale. Some call it the Anthropocene, but it is best described as a new climatic regime. And a n...

Why do we measure time in the way that we do? Why is a week seven days long? At what point did minutes and seconds come into being? Why are some calendars lunar and some solar? The organisation of time into hours, days, months and years seems immutable and universal, but is actually far more artificial than most people realise. The French Revolution resulted in a restructuring of the French calendar, and the Soviet Union experimented with five and then six-day weeks. Leofranc Holford-Strev...