Le malattie croniche hanno rapidamente raggiunto il ruolo di principali cause globali di patologie e decessi, eppure siamo ancora ben lontani da una piena comprensione di questo fenomeno e delle ragioni per cui siano certi particolari gruppi etnici o sociali a esserne più duramente colpiti. In questo fondamentale studio, Jonathan Wells adotta un approccio multidisciplinare per studiare la nutrizione umana, preoccupandosi in modo particolare di vedere come i rapporti di potere possano agire sui corpi e sulla loro salute. Passando in rassegna le basi fisiologiche delle malattie croniche, Wells integra le varie prospettive, fisiologica, evoluzionistica e politico-economica, in un quadro d'insieme coerente, per una più profonda comprensione delle radici sociali delle alterazioni metaboliche attuali. 'Il mio scopo' scrive l'autore presentando la ricerca 'è quello di offrire un resoconto multidisciplinare sul modo in cui i rapporti di potere incidono sulla salute tramite la nutrizione. A questo fine ho messo insieme prospettive diverse: fisiologica, evoluzionistica, antropologica, storica, politica ed economica. Questo mi consente di elaborare una lettura in chiave di analisi sociale del processo che ha portato le malattie croniche non infettive a essere tra le prime cause mondiali d'infermità e morte prematura'.

The Civil War is one of the most defining eras of American history, and much has been written on every aspect of the war. The volume of material available is daunting, especially when a student is trying to grasp the overall themes of the period.

Jonathan Wells has distilled the war down into understandable, easy-to-read sections, with plenty of maps and illustrations, to help make sense of the battles and social, political, and cultural changes of the era. Presented here is information on:

• the home front
• the battles, both in the East and the West
• the status of slaves
• women’s role in the war and its aftermath
• literature and public life
• international aspects of the war
• and much more!

Students will also find helpful study aids on the companion website for the book. A House Divided provides a short, readable survey of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period afterward, focusing not only on the battles, but on how Americans lived during a time of great upheaval in the country’s history, and what that legacy has meant to the country today.

'This comprehensive synthesis of current medical and evolutionary literature addresses key questions about the role body fat plays in human biology. It explores how body energy stores are regulated, how they develop over the life-course, what biological functions they serve, and how they may have evolved. There is now substantial evidence that human adiposity is not merely a buffer against the threat of starvation, but is also a resource for meeting the energy costs of growth, reproduction and immune function. As such it may be considered as important in our species evolution as other traits such as bipedalism, large brains, and long life spans and developmental periods. Indeed, adiposity is integrally linked with these other traits, and with our capacity to colonise and inhabit diverse ecosystems. It is because human metabolism is so sensitive to environmental cues that manipulative economic forces are now generating the current obesity epidemic'--Provided by publisher.

Stanchi dei soliti libri su Darwin? Ecco il primo libro contro Darwin! Un libro che vi racconterà quello che il vostro insegnante di scienze probabilmente non vi ha mai detto. Lo sapevate che molte prove che sono state finora addotte a supporto della teoria darwiniana sono state accettate acriticamente da tutti gli scienziati evoluzionisti senza verificarne l'attendibilità? Lo sapevate che i fossili non ci consentono di trarre alcuna conclusione certa sull'evoluzione delle specie? Perché l'evoluzionismo non ha trovato finora applicazione nel campo della medicina? E se il darwinismo fosse diventato una mera ideologia e strenuamente difeso proprio in quanto ideologia indiscutibile e da accettare quasi come verità di fede? E se il disegno intelligente fosse molto di più che un'ipotesi utile agli uomini di fede? E se fosse una teoria che riesce a spiegare le complessità del mondo vivente, anche a livello molecolare, meglio delle 'mutazioni casuali' postulate dall'evoluzionismo?

From the founding of Jamestown to the American Civil War, slavery and abolition shaped American national, regional and racial identities. This four-volume reset edition draws together rare sources relating to American slavery systems.

“When future intellectual historians list the books that toppled Darwin's theory, The Design of Life will be at the top.” So writes Lehigh biochemist Michael Behe, a leading critic of Darwinism and proponent of intelligent design.The scientific community continues to wrestle with deep and fundamental questions: Where did the universe come from? How did life originate? How did a coded language like our DNA come to form the basis of life? How could multicellular life form so suddenly from unicellular life? What is the origin of the complex molecular machines, essential to life, which are inside every cell of our bodies? The Design of Life gives all interested parties in the debate over biological origins the hard scientific evidence they need to assess the true state of Darwin's theory and of the theory of intelligent design. But it does much more: it carefully fosters the attitude of open inquiry that science needs not only to thrive but also to avoid becoming subservient to special interests. In this book, authors William Dembski and Jonathan Wells empower readers to navigate the captivating and controversial waters of biological origins.The Design of Life has nine chapters, each of which is accompanied by Endnotes and Discussion Questions. The ninth, an Epilogue, is followed by a 12-page Glossary and a 14-page Index. The General Notes on an accompanying CD supply each chapter with additional analysis and discussion at a more advanced level. A Foreword by University of South Dakota biologist William S. Harris introduces the book. Chapter 1 – Human Origins. This chapter addresses key topics in human origins - the 98% gene identity (base sequences) between chimpanzees and humans, the significance of brain size to intelligence, the uniqueness of human language, and the challenge that altruism poses to evolutionary ethics. Chapter 2 – Genetics and Macroevolution. This chapter examines Darwin's theory of evolution, Mendelian inheritance, the adaptational package, the molecular basis for genes and evolution, and evolutionary developmental biology (“Evo-Devo”).Chapter 3 – The Fossil Record. This chapter examines major patterns in the fossil record, the failure of Darwin's theory to match up with these patterns (a failure Darwin himself regarded as the “gravest objection” to his theory), and why fossils alone cannot establish evolutionary lines of descent. Chapter 4 – The Origin of Species. This chapter describes theories about how new species originate. It explains the critical distinction between evidence for small changes and claims about vast transformations (micro- vs. macroevolution), It also explains why the current examples of alleged new species (observed speciation) provide no evidence for macroevolution.Chapter 5 – Similar Features. This chapter discusses analogy and homology – do things look alike because they do the same job, like scissors, or because they are related, like siblings? The puzzling story of the pandas provides a useful illustration. It also looks at molecular phylogeny, vestigial structures, and the discredited story of recapitulation.Chapter 6 – Irreducible Complexity. This chapter discusses biochemist Michael Behe's concept of irreducible complexity and then applies it to molecular machines inside the cell, such as the bacterial flagellum. Conventional evolutionary explanations (coevolution and co-option) are contrasted with intelligent design explanations, which are seen as more powerful and scientifically fruitful. Chapter 7 – Specified Complexity. This chapter characterizes specified complexity as an information-theoretic property of structures that places them beyond the reach of chance-based explanations (such as natural selection and random variation). It then applies the theory of specified complexity to biological systems, demonstrating their actual design.Chapter 8 – The Origin of Life. This chapter describes why the origin of life is such a difficult problem and examines the main materialistic proposals (Oparin's Hypothesis, the Miller-Urey experiment, the RNA world, self-organization, molecular Darwinism). It summarizes the failure to find a non-intelligent origin.Chapter 9 – Epilogue: The “Inherit the Wind” Stereotype. The Epilogue examines key social interpretations of the issues: The movie “Inherit the Wind” (Hollywood's stereotype of the Scopes “Monkey Trial”), the actual Scopes Trial, the importance of keeping science honest, and the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial.

A non-technical analysis of the controversial culture war over Darwin versus intelligent design states that there is no irrefutable evidence supporting Darwinism, argues that Darwin-based theories that are taught in school are not fact-based, and reveals how scientists at major universities believe in intelligent design. Original.

With a fresh take on social dynamics in the antebellum South, Jonathan Daniel Wells contests the popular idea that the Old South was a region of essentially two classes (planters and slaves) until after the Civil War. He argues that, in fact, the region had a burgeoning white middle class--including merchants, doctors, and teachers--that had a profound impact on southern culture, the debate over slavery, and the coming of the Civil War.

Wells shows that the growth of the periodical press after 1820 helped build a cultural bridge between the North and the South, and the emerging southern middle class seized upon northern middle-class ideas about gender roles and reform, politics, and the virtues of modernization. Even as it sought to emulate northern progress, however, the southern middle class never abandoned its attachment to slavery. By the 1850s, Wells argues, the prospect of industrial slavery in the South threatened northern capital and labor, causing sectional relations to shift from cooperative to competitive. Rather than simply pitting a backward, slave-labor, agrarian South against a progressive, free-labor, industrial North, Wells argues that the Civil War reflected a more complex interplay of economic and cultural values.

Compares the icons of evolution with scientific evidence that questions the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution and the accuracy of textbook discussions of biological origins.

The author retraces the reasoning of proponents of evolution from Darwin to the present to show what he sees as their empirically false, and frequently faked conclusions. He contends that these conclusions are presented to the public so many times and in so many ways that they become irrefutable 'icons.' The information conveyed by these icons is never questioned and is in fact promoted with tax dollars in many contexts. Wells is a postdoctoral biologist (with Ph.D.s from both Yale and the U. of California at Berkeley) who is currently affiliated with the Discovery Institute, Seattle, Washington). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)