[PDF] Gone To Rock And Ruin eBook

Author : Adrian Currie
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 15,88 MB
Release : 2018-02-16
Category : Science
ISBN : 0262037262

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An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of strategies and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress. Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation.

Author : Sarah J. Maas
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 739 pages
File Size : 13,70 MB
Release : 2018-05
Category : Young Adult Fiction
ISBN : 1619635208

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Sarah J. Maas hit the New York Times SERIES list at #1 with A Court of Wings and Ruin!

Author : Hugo Jackson
Publisher : Inspired Quill
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 48,12 MB
Release : 2020-04-25
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1913117995

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“I want to hear everything, Osiris. All that you can tell me.” In the desert town of Mahrae, a young fox is about to discover his power. A single bolt of crystal energy begins Aidan’s journey, one that will test him to his furthest limits and deepest loyalties. The gryphon Osiris takes Aidan under his wing and together they battle shadows and suspicion to bring warring nations to the pinnacle of invention and prosperity – the new city Nazreal. But not every creature strives for a bright and industrious future. Conflict is an unsteady foundation for the burgeoning metropolis. The launch of a thousand incredible dreams plants the seed for an immeasurable disaster that even Aidan and his friends do not have the power to prevent. This is the story of Nazreal’s ascension... and the end of the world. ----- Ruin's Dawn is part of The Resonance Tetralogy, but can be read and enjoyed independently. For lovers of anthropomorphic or furry fiction, this novel combines the best parts of a fantastical setting, compelling characters, and the bravery and necessity of remaining hopeful in an increasingly fractured world.

Author : Bjørnar Olsen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 607 pages
File Size : 21,58 MB
Release : 2014-04-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1317695798

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Since the nineteenth century, mass-production, consumerism and cycles of material replacement have accelerated; increasingly larger amounts of things are increasingly victimized rapidly and made redundant. At the same time, processes of destruction have immensely intensified, although largely overlooked when compared to the research and social significance devoted to consumption and production. The outcome is a ruin landscape of derelict factories, closed shopping malls, overgrown bunkers and redundant mining towns; a ghostly world of decaying modern debris normally omitted from academic concerns and conventional histories. The archaeology of the recent or contemporary past has grown fast during the last decade. This development has been concurrent with a broader popular, artistic and scholarly interest in modern ruins in general. Ruin Memories explores how the ruins of modernity are conceived and assigned cultural value in contemporary academic and public discourses, reassesses the cultural and historical value of modern ruins and suggests possible means for reaffirming their cultural and historic significance. Crucial for this reassessment is a concern with decay and ruination, and with the role things play in expressing the neglected, unsuccessful and ineffable. Abandonment and ruination is usually understood negatively through the tropes of loss and deprivation; things are degraded and humiliated while the information, knowledge and memory embedded in them become lost along the way. Without even ignoring its many negative and traumatizing aspects, a main question addressed in this book is whether ruination also can be seen as an act of disclosure. If ruination disturbs the routinized and ready-to-hand, to what extent can it also be seen as a recovery of memory as exposing meanings and presences that perhaps are only possible to grasp at second hand when no longer immersed in their withdrawn and useful reality? Anybody interested in the archaeology of the contemporary past will find Ruin Memories an essential guide to the very latest theoretical research in this emerging field of archaeological thought.