Environmental Biodynamics
A New Science of How the Environment Interacts with Human Health
Christine Austin author Manish Arora author Alessandro Giuliani author Paul Curtin author Austen Curtin author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:24th Mar '22
Should be back in stock very soon
Is there a central scientific theory governing how human physiology interacts with the environment? Our environment exerts a profound effect on our health and well-being. Yet, the rules guiding such interaction between individual human physiology and the environment remain elusive. While various disciplines have emerged studying components and base interactions of each system, no method has successfully predicted the dynamic behavior between these complex systems in real time. Environmental Biodynamics offers a daring new inquiry into our environment and its impact on human health. Moving beyond a reductionist view of human physiology and the environment, this volume proposes a fundamental shift in environmental health science from quantifying structural relationships, such as static measures of environmental factors or momentary health indicators, to studying functional interdependencies in time. Across six chapters, the authors weave together the latest research from biology, environmental science, theoretical physics, mathematics, and philosophy to explore their Biodynamic Interface Theory, which states that complex systems connect primarily through a dynamic, operationally independent interface that regulates the bidirectional interactions between systems over time. Later chapters compare the proposed theory against current practice and provide suggestions for further methods of data collection and computational analysis. Supported by vivid full-color diagrams and a wealth of original data, Environmental Biodynamics is an accessible theoretical guide to this promising new field of environmental health
This good treatise calls attention to limitations of current approaches and extolls a more comprehensive approach to collecting and analyzing data. * M. Gochfeld, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, CHOICE *
Drawing upon concepts from diverse fields such as physics and systems theory, Environmental Biodynamics offers an ambitious proposal to shift the paradigm of environmental health research, arguing that incorporating a biodynamic approach will allow researchers to develop better, and more useful, explanations of the complex relationships that hold between environmental chemical exposures and human health. This approach has the potential to rescue researchers from the 'ocean of correlations' that such studies usually generate and the constraints that current reductionistic methods place on scientific inference. * David Bellinger, Harvard Medical School *
This is a book full of fearless ideas that hopes to bring about an advance in the way we understand our relationship with our environment and how it impacts human health. * Linda S. Birnbaum, Scientist Emeritus and Former Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program *
Which came first: the chicken or the egg? This book finally answers that ancient paradox by sharing a better understanding of the dynamic interaction between the environment and human health. * Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatrician and author of What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City *
ISBN: 9780197582947
Dimensions: 188mm x 267mm x 20mm
Weight: 522g
160 pages