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Originally published in 1917.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Hear the first-hand account of the life and career of the man with more wins than any other coach in college basketball and the story of the Raiders who took him there. Skillfully researched and beautifully illlustrated, this amazing never-before-told story gives insight into Bess's extraordinary success, revealing his simple but steadfast methods and coaching philosophies. ... Read more

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Never HIGHLIGHT a Book Again!Virtually all testable terms, concepts, persons, places, and events are included. Cram101 Textbook Outlines gives all of the outlines, highlights, notes for your textbook with optional online practice tests. Only Cram101 Out ... Read more

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Human beings, like other organisms, are the products of evolution. Like other organisms, we exhibit traits that are the product of natural selection. Our psychological capacities are evolved traits as much as are our gait and posture. This much few would dispute. Evolutionary psychology goes further than this, claiming that our psychological traits—including a wide variety of traits, from mate preference and jealousy to language and reason—can be understood as specific adaptations to ancestral Pleistocene conditions. In Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology, Robert Richardson takes a critical look at evolutionary psychology by subjecting its ambitious and controversial claims to the same sorts of methodological and evidential constraints that are broadly accepted within evolutionary biology.

The claims of evolutionary psychology may pass muster as psychology; but what are their evolutionary credentials? Richardson considers three ways adaptive hypotheses can be evaluated, using examples from the biological literature to illustrate what sorts of evidence and methodology would be necessary to establish specific evolutionary and adaptive explanations of human psychological traits. He shows that existing explanations within evolutionary psychology fall woefully short of accepted biological standards. The theories offered by evolutionary psychologists may identify traits that are, or were, beneficial to humans. But gauged by biological standards, there is inadequate evidence: evolutionary psychologists are largely silent on the evolutionary evidence relevant to assessing their claims, including such matters as variation in ancestral populations, heritability, and the advantage offered to our ancestors. As evolutionary claims they are unsubstantiated. Evolutionary psychology, Richardson concludes, may offer a program of research, but it lacks the kind of evidence that is generally expected within evolutionary biology. It is speculation rather than sound science—and we should treat its claims with skepticism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Accurate description of the discipline
Evolutionary psychology is a discipline that brings evolution into disrepute with non-scientists.

The author clearly lays out the case for evo psych not reaching the standards of research that evolutionary biology must reach. In this, the author should be applauded.

To be sure - and the author makes this clear also - there is likely to be some truth in evo psych. Some aspects of our psychology are possibly adaptations to past need. Yet the discipline routinely fails to examine how or why such adaptations might come about, nor the heritable bases for them, nor ways to distinguish sufficiently between alternative hypotheses or the null hypothesis.

Evolutionary psychology has the seductive appeal of storytelling, but broadly lacks scientific rigour. The discipline needs to grow up or move on.

Boring Read
This is one of those books where an author expresses his wondering thoughts without making a clear point or really suggesting or proving anything. His arguments are weak and his writing is unfocused.

A black gown treatment of adaptation
William Blake once registered his opposition to religious orthodoxy as follows: "I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen; A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door; So I turned to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tombstones where flowers should be; And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires."

I often think of this poem, which laments the predilection of priests to legislate sensuality from our lives, when I come upon a philosopher who criticizes a school of scientific thought. The critique is almost always of the form "Here are the rules of science. You are violating some of these rules. Bad, bad, bad!" Such critiques are usually not worth much, because either what the school of thought asserts is correct or it is not. Every scientist knows the rules of scientific protocol and rarely makes an error. I don't need a philosopher to tell me about violating rules.

Richardson is such a philosopher. One strike against him. He gets strike two for a really stupid title to his book. Evolutionary psychology is not maladapted, in fact, so the title is just a snide slur.

Richardson wears the black gown of"adaptationism," which is a set of doctrines specifying what is an what is not a biological adaptation, and what is and what is not an adequate proof that a human characteristic is an adaptation. For instance, Richardson claims that we cannot call either language or cognition adaptations, because "a discussion of what we actual know about the evolution of either human language or cognition would be very brief." (p. 89) Really? I am not a expert in either language or cognition, but I know lots about their evolution, having read game theoretic treatments, comparative brain studies, paleontological studies, behavioral ecological studies of brain size and social group dynamics, etc. Very brief? What Richardson means is that we have little direct evidence, because the fossil record does not include much about soft tissues.

Only a wearer of the black gown could get away with this flamboyant degree of skepticism: "I do not doubt that human language and human rationality are evolved capacities, or even that they provided substantive advantages to our forbears. Perhaps they are adaptations; I do not claim to know. Indeed, I claim not to know." (p. 95). So, what then must something be to count as an adaptation, if not that it is an evolved capacity that provides substantive advantages? Richardson's answer is that an adaptation must be an adaptation FOR something. "The problem is, after all,'' he notes on p. 125, "not merely to show that language is an adaptation, but to explain it as an adaptation. Without a suitable explanation, we will not know what specifically it ia an adaptationFOR." The problem with language and cognition is that they provide so many benefits that we cannot single out what they were adaptations FOR. Richardson in fact vacillates in the book, sometimes denying they are adaptations at all, other times admitting that they are adaptations, but only bargain-store basement adaptations until we know what they are FOR.

Adaptations do not have to be adaptations FOR anything. It is true that Cosmides and Tooby think of adaptations as solutions to recurrent problems, but it is reasonable to call anything an adaptation if (a) it enhances the fitness of its bearers; (b) it is costly to maintain; and (c) it is an evolved trait. It is true that evolutionary psychologists tend to treat human characteristics as adaptations even if they appear not to satisfy (a), on grounds that they may have at one time in our evolutionary past,or appearances are misleading. For instance, since a significant fraction of males rape, this is likely an adaptation; since there are many sociopaths, sociopathy is likely an adaptation; since humans are subject to depression, depression is likely an adaptation. I do not share with evolutionary psychologists this predilection for seeing adaptations everywhere,but there are enough human adaptations to make Richardson's argument incorrect.

This book is really not about evolutionary psychology at all, but rather about the philosophy of adaptation. Evolutionary psychology is just a convenient hook onto which Richardson's treatment of adaption can hang. Moreover, I do not find much merit in this treatment.

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A great aid to the hands-on low temperature experimentalist
With contributions by faculty, graduate students, and postdocs at Cornell, this book is a collection of very practical recipes written in a language easily accessible to a senior undergraduate or a beginning graduate student. If you are planning a novel experiment, building a new setup, or troubleshooting or adapting an existing piece of equipment, this book is an invaluable tool. It covers most of the little details which nobody mentions in respectable PRL articles but without the understanding of which nothing will work and your boss will not be happy. The book also has most of the important material property tables which you'd be scrambling to collect from all over. This book should be a reference to any low-temperature experimentalist, ahead of all other texts. ... Read more

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"Physics, 1st Edition" is the best solution for today's college physics market. With a unique, new, approach to physics that builds a conceptual framework as motivation for the physical principles, consistent problem solving coverage strategies, stunning art, extensive end-of-chapter material, and superior media support, Giambattista, Richardson, and Richardson delivers a product that addresses today's market needs with the best tools available. "Physics 1st Edition" is a spin-off of the market leading "College Physics 2nd Edition" text by Giambattista/Richardson/Richardson. The key difference in "College Physics": there is an integrated approach of forces and kinematics, leading with forces, while in this new 1st edition, "Physics" covers forces in the traditional manner by leading with Kinematics and not integrating forces. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

bad seller!
the book was new until you opened it, the binding within the book was torn. :(

Books
The content of this book is pretty crappy, blah, who likes physics, but if it's what you need for class then so be it. It's very hard to read, but a great book once you get your copy. Not too helpful with anything, but, its a book

2nd Edition Physics
Good reference text in addition to being a classroom Physics book.Something you'll keep even after you return all your other books for the money at the end of the semester.

1/4 the bookstore price
The book is the softcover international edition but is identical in content to the version sold in the bookstore at 4 times the price.Item arrived by express mail. ... Read more

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In Discovering Complexity, William Bechtel and Robert Richardson examine two heuristics that guided the development of mechanistic models in the life sciences: decomposition and localization. Drawing on historical cases from disciplines including cell biology, cognitive neuroscience, and genetics, they identify a number of "choice points" that life scientists confront in developing mechanistic explanations and show how different choices result in divergent explanatory models. Describing decomposition as the attempt to differentiate functional and structural components of a system and localization as the assignment of responsibility for specific functions to specific structures, Bechtel and Richardson examine the usefulness of these heuristics as well as their fallibility—the sometimes false assumption underlying them that nature is significantly decomposable and hierarchically organized.

When Discovering Complexity was originally published in 1993, few philosophers of science perceived the centrality of seeking mechanisms to explain phenomena in biology, relying instead on the model of nomological explanation advanced by the logical positivists (a model Bechtel and Richardson found to be utterly inapplicable to the examples from the life sciences in their study). Since then, mechanism and mechanistic explanation have become widely discussed. In a substantive new introduction to this MIT Press edition of their book, Bechtel and Richardson examine both philosophical and scientific developments in research on mechanistic models since 1993. ... Read more

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Decomposition and Localization
This book is a great read for anyone interested in another perspective on how to approach the analysis of complex systems using a new scientific method.The authors have done a masterful job in explaining a powerful scientific method.The book is expertly referenced and is very thorough.It is not for beginners, but provides the dedicated scientist with thought provoking ideas. ... Read more

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Devoted To The Interests Of The Cavalry, To The Professional Improvement Of Its Officers And Men, And To The Advancement Of The Mounted Service Generally. ... Read more

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McGraw-Hill’s ARIS – Assessment, Review, and Instruction System is a complete, online tutorial, electronic homework, and course management system, designed for greater ease of use than any other system available. For students, ARIS contains self-study tools such as animations, interactive quizzes, and more. This program enables students to complete their homework online, as assigned by their instructors. ARIS provides all instructor resources online, as well provides the ability to create or edit questions from the question bank, import your own content, and automatically grade and report easy-to-assign homework, quizzing, and testing. Go to www.aris.mhhe.com to learn more. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Charlwood Richardson, Jr., born in Charleston, South Carolina on October 27, 1882, and was admitted as a cadet at the United States Military Academy, from that state, on 19 June 1900. His military career spanned the first half of the 20th Century. He was a veteran of the 1904 Philippine insurrection, World War I, and an outstanding field commander of World War II. He commanded the U.S. Army, Pacific (Hawaiian Department) during the height of World War II in 1943 until his retirement in 1946. ... Read more