Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry and Its Applications (AVS Classics in Vacuum Science and Technology)

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Market: Those involved in laboratory chemical analysis, atmospheric chemistry, and atomic and molecular physics. Long regarded as the standard introduction to the field, Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry and Its Applications provides today's engineers and scientists with an authoritative, wide-ranging overview of the development and uses of quadrupoles. Beginning with the basic operating principles of quadrupole devices, the book moves from general explanations of the actions of radio-frequency fields to descriptions of their utilization in quadrupole mass filters, monopoles, three-dimensional quadrupole ion traps, and various time-of -flight spectrometers. A concluding series of chapters examines fundamental applications of quadrupoles in atomic and subatomic physics, gas chromatography, upper atmospheric research, medicine, and environmental studies.

Book Description

Much of the evolutionary biology that has grabbed headlines in recent years has sprung from the efforts of sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists to explain sexual features and behavior--even differences between how men and women think--as evolutionary adaptations. They have looked to the forces of natural selection to explain everything from the mimicry of male mockingbirds to female orgasms among humans. In this controversial book, Richard Francis argues that the utility of this approach is greatly exaggerated. He proposes instead a powerful alternative rooted in the latest findings in evolutionary biology as well as research on the workings of our brains, genes, and hormones.

Exploring various sexual phenomena, Francis exposes fundamental defects in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, which he traces to their misguided emphasis on "why" questions at the expense of "how" questions. Francis contends that this preoccupation with "why" questions (such as, "Why won't men ask for directions"?) results in a paranoiac mindset and distorted evolutionary explanations. His alternative framework entails a broader conception of what constitutes an evolutionary explanation, one in which both evolutionary history, as embodied in the tree of life, and developmental processes are brought to the foreground. This alternative framework is also better grounded in basic biology.

Deeply learned, consistently persuasive, and always engaging, this book is a welcome antidote to simplistic sociobiological exegeses of animal and human behavior.

Customer Reviews:

Some good deconstruction of Evolutionary Psychology; some strawman takedowns of evolutionary psychology; a thought-provoker.......2006-09-05

Francis takes an in-depth look at the difference between what he calls (riffing on John Maynard Smith) the difference between why-biology (or teleological explanations) and how-biology (or non goal-oriented changes). Riffing on Aristotle, this can be seen as the difference between final cause and proximate cause explanations. Or adaptationism, especially in a hard-core form, and neutralist stances.

The book is overall a mixed bag, almost infuriatingly so at times.

The last chapter, "Darwin's Temptress," is far and away the best. He goes after Evolutionary Psychology quite well, notably exposing weaknesses in the thinking of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.

By the end of this chapter, I was almost ready to give the book a four-star rating. BUT, before the start of this chapter, I was quite ready to give it a two-star rank instead.

As noted in my review of David Buller's "Adapting Minds," I distinguish between Ev Psych the quasi-metaphysical theory of biosocial development and ev psych the more legitimate study of evolutionary origins and causes of human mental attributes and differences in their development.

Francis, in a challenging book with plenty of high points and low points alike, does not. Hence the three-star rating.

Let me look at the high points of the final chapter before pointing out what I see as the more notable errors of reasoning earlier on.

In discussing Dennett, Francis points out how he has shifted his embrace of "stancing" from seeing it as a viable bridge between folk psychology and more materialist approaches to study of the mind in his earlier books, to being more disingenuous about it later. By "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," Francis says "his stance stance had become disingenuous ... let[ting] him claim allegiance to the materialist natural scientists, without actually having to act like one." I think there's a fair amount of insight there.

Francis also notes that the algorithmic view of the mind (whether fully modular or not) championed by Dennett (and Tooby/Cosmides, et al) is clearly a top-down, design-driven version. I had always disagreed with this algorithmic idea; I now understand why.

He faults both Dennett and Dawkins for being such hard-core adaptationists that their support for design as the explain-all almost goes full circle back to Bishop Paley and his untenable watchmaker analogies.

Dawkins gets faulted in other ways. Most notable of these is defending Paley's emphasis on design to the point of dismissing Hume's CRUSHING destruction of the argument from design in general. Dawkins goes so far as to overlook Hume's contribution to antimetaphysical thought in general; Francis points out his claim that not until Darwin was it intellectually reasonable to be an atheist.

Having read much of Hume, I'd have to call Dawkins' claim pure rubbish.

But, somewhat unfortunately, 10 chapters in the book come before this one.

Here's a few problems.

First, on page 49, Francis clearly only allows teleological explanations in evolutionary biology to operate at one, overarching level. He doesn't say why teleology, or even quasi-teleology, couldn't operate at, say, the individual genus level.

Second, on page 50, he says how-biology can be seen as both a competing counterexplanation to why-biology and a complementary explanation, specifically re sex change among certain fish. But, especially as we get closer to his take on evolutionary psychology and its dealing with the human mind, his emphasis seems to be ENTIRELY on the competing rather than complementary half of that sentence.

While decrying that many evolutionary psychologists seem to have social or political axes to grind, he neglects that people as strongly opposed not just to Ev Psych, but a fair degree to ev psych as well, including perhaps people like himself, have their own axes to grind.

Along with this (and this book is three years old, but not THAT old) he seems dismissive of people such as feminist psychologist, philosophers, etc., who report sex-based human mental differences of a nature, both depth and breadth, along with the number of them, that they can't all be dismissed as socially conditioned.

A few more specific critiques.

Page 140ff, he claims that, in songbirds at least, ev psychers all seem to claim that the hippocampus' function is primarily about spatial memory. Well, I don't know about songbirds, but I've NEVER seen that claimed about the hippocampus in mammals.

Page 161. A sexually dimorphic trait need not be *antagonistic* against the sex that doesn't have it. Rather, it just needs *enough additional evolutionary pressure* in the sex that does have it. Since the body naturally switches off one copy of each chromosome pair in the non-sex chromosomes, it's easy to postulate that functioning control genes for the actual coding gene(s) for a sexual dimorphism, say antlers in males, could cause the male copy of the particular chromosome to always turn on in males and the female copy to always turn on in females. I'm not a geneticist, so I don't know HOW likely that is; but, from the point of logic, there's nothing to contraindicate it.

Page 168. It's a straw man to call Dennett a "reformed behavioralist ... a behavioralist with a computationalist veneer." Given that his academic study is in philosophy, not psychology, referring to him as ANY sort of behavioralist in trying to trace out the intellectual history of both Ev Psych and ev psych is less than enlightening. Given that this philosophy study, at the graduate level, took place in England with the analytic philosophy muse Gilbert Ryle, the computationalist label is certainly understandable, but it should be further seen as removing himself from the behavioralist fallout as it played out.

Page 168 footnote: Calling Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" a "regrettable book" is ridiculous. Thought-provoking? Yes. Often wrong? Yes. Sometimes right? Also yes. Regrettable? Not a chance.

Page 169: Saying that Ev Psych (I'll do Francis the favor of assuming he's talking about my capitalized version) makes Jerry Fodor look like a "shrinking violet," and that he in turn did the same to Noam Chomsky is one of the more ax-grinding strawmen of the book.

Interesting biology spoiled by arrogance and short-sightedness.......2006-01-19

This book is very interesting in parts but is spoiled by the author's attitude towards adaptationists, especially evolutionary psychologists, whom he descibes as paranoid. His own attempts to put down those who look for adaptations and to replace their theories with conclusive proof that the 'how' (developmental) biology is all we need as an explanation sometimes goes too far. Of course the evolutionary history and contemporary physiology of a species constrains its subsequent evolution but his tone is at times arrogant and even catty.

The biological information he provides about animals, brains, hormones etc is very interesting and certainly a very important part of our growing understanding but in at least one context - the female orgasm - he has made some of the very same mistakes he criticizes in evolutionary psychologists ie only looking at humans and not considering the social aspects of human behavior.

The second chapter on the female orgasm is very reminiscent of the attitude of the Victorians, including Darwin himself, who could see the reason for the evolution of the brain and intelligence in the human male but not in the female. Their conclusion was that female intelligence and brain size had therefore evolved only by being dragged along on the 'coat-tails' of the male. Hence its inferiority and faulty working.

Francis states that the need for the male to experience orgasm is obvious but this is clearly untrue as the males of most species have been reproducing perfectly well without such a reward mechanism. There is evidence of orgasm in males and females of at least other mammals so the origin probably goes back tens of millions of years and there is no reason to presume it was purely a male adaptation. An argument could be made that it was an adaptation in females.

The size of the human clitoris has only been discovered in recent years and has been found to be largely internal, enveloping the urethra and vagina, and the whole female sexual response is only starting to be properly investigated so it is far too early to conclude that the clitoris is a mere equivalent of the male nipple. And according to Natalie Angier in 'Woman, an Intimate Geogaraphy' the glans of the clitoris has twice as many nerve fibres as that of the penis. That, along with the response in parts of the female anatomy that males do not possess such as the sensitivity and swelling of the vulva and the uterine contractions, should make us consider the female sexual response and orgasm in its own right and not only see the external clitoris as a vestigial penis, period.

Just as men saw, and see, female intelligence as inferior or faulty so we now are expected to accept the same reasoning for the female sexual response. If we look at human societies and human civilization we have a very powerful reason for the 'faulty reward mechanism' that is the female orgasm. The simple fact is that females are regularly punished for their sexuality, from female genital mutilation to purdah, claustration, 'honor' killings, arranged marriages etc to the general ostracism of females who show overt sexual behavor, including in the modern Western world, and we can only conclude that males prefer their wives - ie the women who achieve reproductive success - to be relatively sexually naive. Reproductive success of human females has therefore been largely dependent on human females not being too sexual - just as they had to not be too intellectual. Rather than sexual response and orgasm being a reward that brings reproduction, for human female sexuality the opposite has been the case and it should not surprise us in the least if social and psychological factors constrain human female sexual experience. How on earth could it be otherwise?

So this book is a mixture of some very interesting biology but is spoiled by the author's tone at times and a fault that runs through much that is written on any subject, including sociobiology, evolutionary psychology or developmental biology, and that fault is male bias - taking the male as the model. This clearly is an illogical and unscientific stance to take.

an important, early book... needs better editing... read it anyway!.......2005-07-17

I read this book because I am interested in explanations of differences and similarities in females and males that can be SUBSTANTIATED (repeatable experimental results and accurate predictions). This book talks about experimental results, observations, and explanations of sexual behavior and sexual change in fish, frogs, hyenas, baboons, and (somewhat) humans.

I gave this book 4 stars because I think it could have been further edited for clarity. Its strengths are that it cites lots of fascinating experimental results and shows where popular explanations for sex differences ARE and ARE NOT substantiated.

Its weakness is that it could have been better edited before release to a popular audience. My pet peeves were: straightening out the missequenced footnotes in Chapter 2 ("Orgasm"), and summarizing the author's key points in each chapter in ONE PLACE, versus repeating them in the middle of long discussions that are tortuous to follow.

The discussions include both EVIDENCE and DIFFERING INTERPRETATIONS and it's easy to get a bit lost on what the author is arguing FOR, factually, vs. FOR, explanation wise. It reminds me of listening to (or reading the book by) a brilliant professor who's going just a LEETLE fast for (me) the student.

NEVERTHELESS... It's GOOD STUFF. I think this is a critically important, early book in the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology and I recommend reading it ANYWAY. It cites EVIDENCE and demonstrates critical thinking to counter/filter/evaluate sex difference evidence and interpretations now and in the future.

NOTE: An easier to follow book regarding how organisms evolve is "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" (reviewed separately), but this book doesn't address the sex evolution issues.

NOTE: An example of a book clearly explaining and summarizing competing scientific explanations vs. evidence is "Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe" (reviewed separately), but this book is about physics not biology.

The Problem with Teleological Thinking .......2004-11-16

When I was a graduate student I cut my teeth on books by George C. Williams and Ernst Mayr, as well as having several important aspects of scientific methodology drummed into my head. I learned that the individual phenotype was the target of selection, because it was the visible manifestation of the organism in the real world. I was also taught, emphatically, that you had to follow the evidence, not let your hypotheses run wild. You just did not extrapolate beyond your data! J. Henri Fabre (the 19th Century French entomologist) took that last idea to an extreme and denied the utility of even solid theory, thus refusing to accept Darwin's ideas on the basis that they were too speculative. In that Fabre was wrong (as he was in his insistence that insects were totally automatons.) Still one can easily go too far in the other direction and (unfortunately) some biologists, especially sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, have done so.

Richard C. Francis in his new book "Why Men Won't Ask for Directions" has made several pointed criticisms of teleological answers to why question (as opposed to how questions) in biology. In some ways I think that he has been a little too hard on the sociobiologists, who have certainly added to our knowledge- particularly in regard to how social insect societies work- and have brought up some important aspects of human behavior, but the points he makes are well taken. A few more strident evolutionary psychologists have indeed gone off on a teleological binge! Some of their "just so" stories are no more convincing to me than the creation story involving a god or gods making species. Evolution is not purposeful. It is in essence a tinkerer (more like a farmer using bailing wire to fix a tractor), not a designer (an engineer drawing up plans for a new bridge), and evolutionary events are not planned by gods or nature substituting for gods, but are driven by contingency.

Also, organisms are more plastic in their behavior than we generally give them credit for and we have to be very careful in using anthropomorphic (unfortunately rampant in some sociobiological writings) or teleological language to describe their behaviors, and the origins of behaviors, or we tend to bias our interpretation. One of Fabre's flaws in his studies of hunting wasps was that he insisted on the absolute rigidity of the behavior of his subjects (Sphecidae, Scoliidae and Pompilidae), while ignoring any evidence to the contrary. This was eloquently pointed out by George and Elizabeth Peckham in their later studies of wasp behavior. Like Fabre, sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists tend to be absolute in their view of all organisms being totally the result of an adaptation (driven by genes) to a given environment. I think in order to make a case for such an interpretation you must, like Fabre, throw out any data that does not agree with your hypothesis.

Teleology is fine, as long as you don't get caught up in the idea (too easy to do) that it actually explains things. Mayr says that it is a powerful heuristic methodology, and he is probably correct because humans like to have just so stories because they understand them. But are these stories a true reflection of reality? Maybe so (as Mark Twain might say), but any hypothesis that results in extraordinary claims must be backed up with extraordinary evidence. And unfounded ideas about human nature may actually be dangerous, as they may influence policy makers in the areas of economics, education, social structure, and even warfare. I would feel much better if the sociobiologists explored alternative explainations more and gave the adaptationist model a rigorous testing. Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin may be wrong in postulating the Spandrels of San Marco (non-adaptive traits as a side effect of selection), but I have yet to see a better idea come up. Instead we have an explosion of often far-fetched "evolutionary" explainations for the adaptiveness of this or that, such as homosexuality being an adaptive trait to produce helpers to raise close kin! Will we "find" a gene or part of the brain that exists solely to write Beethoven's 9th Symphony next? Such weak foundations lay evolution open to attacks by creationists and others who will use the faults in teleological thinking to push their own very teleological program.

To me both genetic determinism-adaptationism (sociobiology and evolutionary psychology) at its worst and behavioral determinism (blank slateism) at its worst are poor substitutes for sound theory based on evidence that is (as Karl Popper put it) FALSIFIABLE (i.e. testable in such a way that it can be proven false.) Teleological thinking, as pointed out by Francis, just cannot meet this test.

This book is a generally well-stated critique of the current regrettable trends in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology and should be read by every evolutionary biologist and anyone else who is interested in evolution.

Isn't Life Strange?.......2004-06-23

(...)

The appeal of Richard Francis' book is simple - the author offers a much-needed corrective to today's popular writings about biology. Let me elaborate. Though evolutionary biology is but one of several vibrant sub-fields in the life sciences - the others include molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, immunology, microbiology, and developmental biology - it is far and away the most written about. Blessed with a group of fine scientists who can write for general readers, equally gifted journalists who are authoritative, and subject matter that lends itself to engrossing stories, evolutionary biology has become part of the intellectual landscape of the 21st century. Even the most casual reader/viewer of newspapers, magazines, and TV has heard about the power of evolution to explain all sorts of intriguing physical forms and behaviors in the animal kingdom, which includes us, human beings. By comparison, the latest discoveries and advances in, for instance, biochemistry and cell biology are almost certainly not known by anyone outside of those fields.

And no one can deny to amazing power of the forces of evolution. However, as often happens with ideas and theories that galvanize individuals across a broad spectrum (past examples include artificial intelligence, chaos theory, and now the genome), many get carried away and the idea is pushed to extreme limits where its application becomes misplaced and its results misleading. This has certainly happened with evolutionary biology, where in some circles adaptation by natural selection has been called upon to explain EVERY physical form, behavior, instinct, etc. Here is where Francis's book is important and provides needed balance. The overall theme of WHY MEN WON'T ASK FOR DIRECTIONS is that evolution explains a lot, but not everything. The second underlying theme is that the latest advances in Developmental Biology (the science that studies how fertilized eggs "develop" into mature organisms) can sometimes better explain behaviors, forms, and features that have either stymied evolutionists, or caused them to promote particularly strained theories.

What makes the book such an enjoyable read is Richard Francis's ability to pick irresistible animals as the focus of his discussions (my personal favorite is the "cleaner wrasse", which is a small fish that spends most of its time "cleaning" the gills of larger fish for food, with the permission of the larger fish, as it were). Each chapter begins with a dilemma that a behavior or form poses for scientists, it continues with ideas that evolutionists have proposed to explain the phenomenon in question, and then concludes with what Developmental Biology has to say about the puzzle. Francis has a bit of an attitude to him (plus he is funny in print, which is a rare talent), but I think that adds to the book -- many of the scientists, social scientists, and writers who embrace the vision of strict adaptationism are so strident in their own writings that Francis is merely giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Francis shows, in one colorful and imaginative chapter after another, that evolution is at work, but it is only able to work with what it is given, and what it is given is the result of developmental biology, the union of egg and sperm and the development of the embryo. For example, Francis addresses the interesting phenomenon of sex change in a chapter entitled, Transgendered.. Incredibly, sex change is widespread among fishes, and it turns out that it should be among certain birds and mammals, too - at least according to evolutionary theory. Given their behavior, Gorillas, elephant seals and peacocks, for example, should be female-to-male sex changers. Francis demonstrates that the reason sex change is so common in fishes, but absent in mammals such as elephant seals, is due to fundamental differences in sexual development in these two groups. In another chapter entitled Alternative Lifestyles, Francis shows how these same differences in sexual development explain why alternative male reproductive tactics are so much more common in fishes than in mammals.

In the chapter entitled, A Textbook Case of Penis Envy, Francis brings developmental considerations to the fore to explain the celebrated male-like phallus of female spotted hyenas. He carefully examines the multiple competing adaptationist explanations for the "masculinized" genitalia. He then introduces some developmental considerations, such as the fact that all hyena fetuses are exposed to high levels of androgens in the womb, to show that some of these hypotheses should be discarded outright, while others deserve further consideration. He concludes this chapter by demonstrating how developmental factors might have interacted with ecological factors in the evolution of this extraordinary trait.

By raising the specter of Developmental Biology, Richard Francis does not weaken the power of Evolutionary Biology. Rather, he enriches it. WHY MEN WON'T ASK FOR DIRECTIONS is a powerful, fact-filled narrative that should be read by everyone who enjoys nature and the life sciences.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Review of Metaphysics, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2007. The length of the article is 877 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Phronesis: Vol. 51, No. 4, December 2006.(PHILOSOPHICAL ABSTRACTS)(Aristotle's theory of generated substance and metaphysics)(Aristotle's thesis in Physics)(Socrates and Axiochus)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: The Review of Metaphysics (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 60 Issue: 3 Page: 707(2)

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Nicolaus Oresmes Kommentar zur Physik des Aristoteles: Kommentar mit Edition der Quaestionen zu Buch 3 und 4 der aristotelischen Physik sowie von vier Quaestionen zu Buch 5 (Sudhoffs Archiv)

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Nicolaus Oresmes Kommentar zur Physik des Aristoteles: Kommentar mit Edition der Quaestionen zu Buch 3 und 4 der aristotelischen Physik sowie von vier Quaestionen zu Buch 5 (Sudhoffs Archiv)
Nicole Oresme
Manufacturer: F. Steiner
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On Aristotle Physics 4 1 5 10 14
Simplicius
Manufacturer: Duckworth/Bristol Classical Press
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ASIN: B000N67N2O

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On Aristotle's Physics 4.1-5, 10-14
of Cilicia Simplicius
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
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On Aristotle's Physics 4.1-5, 10-14
J. O. ; Simplicius Urmson
Manufacturer: Cornell U. Press
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Bizarre exploits of a soon-to-be-divorced con artist from Friday till Monday and his girl friends, sex, money and interplay.

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