Yellowstone Vegetation: Consequences of Environment and History in a Natural Setting

Book Description

In Organisms and Artifacts, Tim Lewens investigates the analogical use of the language of design in evolutionary biology. Uniquely among the natural sciences, biology uses descriptive and explanatory terms more suited to artifacts than organisms. When biologists discuss, for example, the purpose of the panda's thumb and look for functional explanations for organic traits, they borrow from a vocabulary of intelligent design that Darwin's findings could have made irrelevant over a hundred years ago. Lewens argues that examining the analogy between the processes of evolution and the processes by which artifacts are created -- looking at organisms as analogical artifacts -- sheds light on explanations of the form of both organic and inorganic objects. He argues further that understanding the analogy is important for what it can tell us not only about biology but about technology and philosophy.

In the course of his argument, Lewens discusses issues of interest to philosophers of biology, biologists, philosophers of mind, and students of technology. These issues include the pitfalls of the design-based thinking of adaptationism, the possible conflict between selection explanations and developmental explanations, a proposed explanation of biological function, and prospects for an informative evolutionary model of technological change. Emerging from these discussions is an explanation of the use of the vocabulary of intelligence and intention in biology that does not itself draw on the ideas of intelligent design, which will be of interest in the ongoing debate over intelligent design creationism.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting premise, dense writing.......2004-09-23

If you listen to biologists talk for just a few minutes, you're likely to hear how some organ has function X, how well a protein is designed for purpose Y, or how some piece of DNA has meaning Z. These aren't creationists, but hard-headed scientists discussing the blind operation of nature. Nothing in nature "means" anything in the sense that a human word has meaning, nothing has "purpose" in the sense that some intelligence has assigned a goal to the object. They why do serious people use such anthropomorphic terms?

Most of all, why does this language lead to such stunning successes in understanding the mechanisms of life?

That is Lewens' goal, to figure out just what the thought processes are behind those words. His search isn't just intellectual word-play, it's a search for the basis of human understanding in biology. As in any experimental science, biological tests are phrased as questions: do real-world facts contradict the statement in question, yes or no? The scientific outcome of the experiment is just a physical phenomenon, but the answer to the question is semantic. That is the point that Lewens addresses: how the meaning of the question maps into physical phenomena, and how results map from phenomena to meaningful answers. The meaning of the question is the most fundamental factor in the scientific process.

Lewens does a very good job in this analysis. He avoids the dogmatic absolutism that seems to characterize other philosophers' answers. Biologists, after all, are usually happy to look at any one problem in two or three ways that contradict each other. Lewens seems to place more importance on what the practicing scientists believe than in philosophical theory - a habit that lends relevance to his work, or avoids immediate irrelevance. Despite his generally sound foundation in scientific fact, Lewens still shies from answers in statistical form; future work should address that weakness, but it did not detract from the general thrust of his discussion.

Lewens has chosen an important field of study, and has addressed it with respect for the people who work in that field. He succeeds in showing that philosophy can be a constructive force in modern life and thought. I have to admit, however, that many of his distinctions were drawn so finely that the details blur together for me even a little while later. There are times when the words matter, but scientists tend to putter along quite happily without approaching this level of fussiness. This book is interesting, but not easy to apply within the field that it addresses.

//wiredweird

Organisms and Artifacts: Design in Nature and Elsewhere

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Organisms and Artifacts: Design in Nature and Elsewhere
Tim Lewens
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OR3EDO

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In response to an increasing demand for novel computing methods, Neural Networks for Applied Sciences and Engineering provides a simple but systematic introduction to neural networks applications. This book features case studies that use real data to demonstrate practical applications. It contains in-depth discussions of data and model validation issues along with uncertainty and sensitivity assessment of models as well as data dimensionality and methods to reduce dimensionality. It provides detailed coverage of neural network types for extracting nonlinear patterns in multi-dimensional scientific data in prediction, classification, clustering and forecasting with an extensive coverage on linear networks, multi-layer perceptron, self organization maps, and recurrent networks.

Customer Reviews:

Great book!.......2007-08-07

I found Dr. Samarasinghe's very easy to understand yet very comprehensive in its coverage of neural networks. The hand calculations really helped me see how the algorithms are applied to real-world problems. This is one of the best books on the subject that I own, and I own a bunch of them. I highly recommend it!

Advanced Man-Machine Interaction: Fundamentals and Implementation (Signals and Communication Technology)

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Advanced Man-Machine Interaction: Fundamentals and Implementation (Signals and Communication Technology)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540306188

Book Description

Man-machine interaction is the gateway providing access to functions and services, which, due to the ever increasing complexity of smart systems, threatens to become a bottleneck. This book therefore introduces not only advanced interfacing concepts, but also gives insight into the related theoretical background.This refers mainly to the realization of video-based multimodal interaction via gesture, mimics, and speech, but also to interacting with virtual object in virtual environments, cooperating with local or remote robots, and user assistance. While most publications in the field of human factors engineering focus on interface design, this book puts special emphasis on implementation aspects. To this end it is accompanied by software development environments for image processing, classification, and virtual environment implementation. In addition a test data base is included for gestures, head pose, facial expressions, full-body person recognition, and people tracking. These data are used for the examples throughout the book, but are also meant to encourage the reader to start experimentation on his own. Thus the book may serve as a self-contained introduction both for researchers and developers of man-machine interfaces. It may also be used for graduate-level university courses.

Fundamentals in Handwriting Recognition (Nato a S I Series Series III, Computer and Systems Sciences)

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Fundamentals in Handwriting Recognition (Nato a S I Series Series III, Computer and Systems Sciences)

Manufacturer: Springer-Verlag Telos
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387574506

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This book focuses on the fundamental tools and ideas that are generally used in the handwriting recognition field. Though one of the oldest fields of computer pattern recognition, this topic is now attracting growing numbers of researchers in universities and development engineers in industry. The volume is based on a NATO Advanced Study Institute that took place in France in 1993. The most important algorithms for data acquisition, preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification, and the commonest database and devices for on-line and off-line recognition are presented. The role of parallel machines and special networks in solving problems in the field are also discussed.

Fundamentals of Pattern Recognition (Prentice-Hall information and system science series)

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Fundamentals of Pattern Recognition (Prentice-Hall information and system science series)
Edward A. Patrick
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0133420140

Fundamentals of Pattern Recognition (Pure and Applied Mathematics)

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Fundamentals of Pattern Recognition (Pure and Applied Mathematics)
Monique L. Pavel
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0824788834

Book Description

Revised, updated, and expanded throughout, this edition of Fundamentals of Pattern Recognition addresses the field of PR from a basic mathematical view-point - treating algebraic, topological, and categorical approaches of PR using concepts from homotopy, shape, and fibre spaces theories as well as computational topology.;Maintaining the features of the first edition, this resource: provides a new section on fibrewise topology that formalizes, for the first time, multicoloured, different gray level pictures and other complex signals consisting of base and value spaces and their interconnections; explores new artificial intelligence problems on the possible interplay between recursion theory and fibrewise image topology in connection with effectiveness and decidability problems; develops original techniques and results, such as the study of extremely irregular shapes by means of the mathematical theory of shape, finite topological spaces, and category theory's applications to PR; exhibits new figures of panoramic hierarchical classifications of all mathematical approaches to PR discussed; and presents five appendices that give quick overviews of dominant concepts in PR and related fields.;Containing open research and development problems to reinforce important methodologies, this second edition of Fundamentals of Pattern Recognition is a guide for applied mathematicians; electrical and electronics, systems, and computer engineers; computer scientists; and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in applied mathematics and computer science courses in pattern recognition theory and artificial intelligence.

Matrix Methods in Data Mining and Pattern Recognition (Fundamentals of Algorithms)

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Matrix Methods in Data Mining and Pattern Recognition (Fundamentals of Algorithms)
Lars Eldén
Manufacturer: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0898716268

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Several very powerful numerical linear algebra techniques are available for solving problems in data mining and pattern recognition. This application-oriented book describes how modern matrix methods can be used to solve these problems, gives an introduction to matrix theory and decompositions, and provides students with a set of tools that can be modified for a particular application. Matrix Methods in Data Mining and Pattern Recognition is divided into three parts. Part I gives a short introduction to a few application areas before presenting linear algebra concepts and matrix decompositions that students can use in problem-solving environments such as MATLAB®. Some mathematical proofs that emphasize the existence and properties of the matrix decompositions are included. In Part II, linear algebra techniques are applied to data mining problems. Part III is a brief introduction to eigenvalue and singular value algorithms. The applications discussed by the author are: classification of handwritten digits, text mining, text summarization, pagerank computations related to the GoogleÔ search engine, and face recognition. Exercises and computer assignments are available on a Web page that supplements the book. Audience The book is intended for undergraduate students who have previously taken an introductory scientific computing/numerical analysis course. Graduate students in various data mining and pattern recognition areas who need an introduction to linear algebra techniques will also find the book useful. Contents Preface; Part I: Linear Algebra Concepts and Matrix Decompositions. Chapter 1: Vectors and Matrices in Data Mining and Pattern Recognition; Chapter 2: Vectors and Matrices; Chapter 3: Linear Systems and Least Squares; Chapter 4: Orthogonality; Chapter 5: QR Decomposition; Chapter 6: Singular Value Decomposition; Chapter 7: Reduced-Rank Least Squares Models; Chapter 8: Tensor Decomposition; Chapter 9: Clustering and Nonnegative Matrix Factorization; P

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