Darwinian Agriculture
Title | Darwinian Agriculture PDF eBook |
Author | R. Ford Denison |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | 269 |
Release | 2016-08-16 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0691173761 |
As human populations grow and resources are depleted, agriculture will need to use land, water, and other resources more efficiently and without sacrificing long-term sustainability. Darwinian Agriculture presents an entirely new approach to these challenges, one that draws on the principles of evolution and natural selection. R. Ford Denison shows how both biotechnology and traditional plant breeding can use Darwinian insights to identify promising routes for crop genetic improvement and avoid costly dead ends. Denison explains why plant traits that have been genetically optimized by individual selection--such as photosynthesis and drought tolerance--are bad candidates for genetic improvement. Traits like plant height and leaf angle, which determine the collective performance of plant communities, offer more room for improvement. Agriculturalists can also benefit from more sophisticated comparisons among natural communities and from the study of wild species in the landscapes where they evolved. Darwinian Agriculture reveals why it is sometimes better to slow or even reverse evolutionary trends when they are inconsistent with our present goals, and how we can glean new ideas from natural selection's marvelous innovations in wild species.
From Darwin to Hitler
Title | From Darwin to Hitler PDF eBook |
Author | R. Weikart |
Publisher | Springer |
Total Pages | 312 |
Release | 2016-09-27 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1137109866 |
In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.
Phytologia
Title | Phytologia PDF eBook |
Author | Erasmus Darwin |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 620 |
Release | 1800 |
Genre | Agriculture |
ISBN |
The Origins of Agriculture
Title | The Origins of Agriculture PDF eBook |
Author | David Rindos |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 360 |
Release | 1984 |
Genre | Technology & Engineering |
ISBN |
Domestikation - Kulturpflanzenphylogenie allg. - Sippenbildung und Evolution - Neolithikum - Naher Osten.
The Origins of Agriculture
Title | The Origins of Agriculture PDF eBook |
Author | David Rindos |
Publisher | Academic Press |
Total Pages | 344 |
Release | 2013-10-22 |
Genre | Technology & Engineering |
ISBN | 148326954X |
The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective presents an alternative approach to understanding cultural variation and change. It aims to demonstrate that domestication and the origin of agricultural systems are best understood by attempting to explicate the evolutionary forces that affected that development of domesticates and agricultural systems. The book begins by discussing cultural change, the domestication of plants, and the origin of agricultural systems in the most general of terms. It considers Darwinism in some depth, concentrating on the relationship between natural selection and cultural change. Subsequent chapters examine the world of domestication and agriculture and present a series of concepts that may permit a more natural explanation for these processes. These include concepts such as incidental domestication, specialized domestication, and agricultural domestication. The final two chapters present models for the origin and spread of agricultural systems based upon Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers
Title | Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers PDF eBook |
Author | Colin Tudge |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Total Pages | 74 |
Release | 1999-01-01 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 9780300080247 |
The revolution was not the beginning of agriculture but the beginning of agriculture on a large scale, in one place, with refined tools. Tudge offers a persuasive hypothesis about a puzzling epoch, along the way providing new insights into the Pleistocene overkill, the demise of the Neanderthals, the location of the biblical Eden, and much more."--BOOK JACKET.
History and Science of Cultivated Plants
Title | History and Science of Cultivated Plants PDF eBook |
Author | Sushma Naithani |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | |
Release | 2021 |
Genre | Biology |
ISBN |