Out of the diverse traditions of medical humanism, classical philology, and natural philosophy, Renaissance naturalists created a new science devoted to discovering and describing plants and animals. Drawing on published natural histories, manuscript correspondence, garden plans, travelogues, watercolors, and drawings, The Science of Describing reconstructs the evolution of this discipline of description through four generations of naturalists. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, naturalists focused on understanding ancient and medieval descriptions of the natural world, but by the mid-sixteenth century naturalists turned toward distinguishing and cataloguing new plant and animal species. To do so, they developed new techniques of observing and recording, created botanical gardens and herbaria, and exchanged correspondence and specimens within an international community. By the early seventeenth century, naturalists began the daunting task of sorting through the wealth of information they had accumulated, putting a new emphasis on taxonomy and classification. Illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, and photographs, The Science of Describing is the first broad interpretation of Renaissance natural history in more than a generation and will appeal widely to an interdisciplinary audience.

A basic practical manual for the process of describing new species, this desperately needed desk reference and guide to nomenclatural procedure and taxonomic writing serves as a Strunk & White of species description, covering both botanical and zoological codes of nomenclature.

"The object of this little work is to enable a non-professional or non-scientific person readily to accomplish two things - to find the technical terms used in the arts and sciences by merely knowing the popular words relating thereto, and to translate into popular language technical terms which he may meet with but not understand."--Page 3

The issue which the new ideas of these new books really raise with our culture, is not about whether they are true, since these new ideas identify a valid context for physical description, and whereas the current context for math and physics (2014) cannot do that, ie they cannot describe the stable properties of a general many-(but-few)-body system. Whereas the new ideas about math and physics can be used to solve the most fundamental problems about the physical world, in regard to understanding physical stability, a problem which the current descriptive context of math and physics (2014) cannot solve. That is, "what now, in 2014, passes for math and physics knowledge are delusions."* Yet these delusions are the ideas expressed in our propaganda-education system about math and physics. Rather The real issue, which these new ideas present to our culture, is about our cultural relation to "what is beyond the material world." That is, it is about our cultural representation of religion, or the spirit. In particular, in relation to the "previous knowledge humans needed to possess" in order to make Gobekli-tepe, Puma Punku, Stonehenge, etc, ie simply to be able to lift and position such large stones, as well as the understanding which is needed to go beyond the context of the material world, and into the context of all the ancient mythologies in regard to the ancient religious stories, etc etc *The current paradigm (in 2014) describes a general state of indefi nable randomness in which there is always "a chaotic transitioning process" which exists as random elementary-particle collisions, and which, supposedly, is perpetually occurring. Thus, their description of the wide range of the generally stable states of the many-(but-few)-body systems..., into which this "forever chaotically transitioning" process supposedly settles but explicit descriptions of this process do not exist. Instead their answer is that "such stable, many-(but-few)-body systems are too complicated to describe."

The question of divine agency in the world remains one important unresolved underlying obstacle in the dialogue between theology and science. Modern notions of divine agency are shown to have developed out of the interaction of three factors in early modernity. Two are well known: late medieval perfect-being theology and the early modern application of the notion of the two books of God's revelation to the understanding of the natural order. It is argued the third is the early modern appropriation of theAugustinian doctrine of inspiration. This assumes the soul's existence and a particular description of divine agency in humans, which became more generally applied to divine agency in nature. Whereas Newton explicitly draws the parallel between divine agency in humans and that in nature, Darwin rejects its supposed perfection and Huxley raises serious questions regarding the traditional understanding of the soul. This book offers an alternative incarnational description of divine agency, freeing consideration of divine agency from being dependent on resolving the complex issues of perfect-being theology and the existence of the soul. In conversation with Barth's pneumatology, this proposal is shown to remain theologically coherent and plausible while resolving or avoiding a range of known difficulties in the science-theology dialogue.

New species are discovered every day—and cataloguing all of them has grown into a nearly insurmountable task worldwide. Now, this definitive reference manual acts as a style guide for writing and filing species descriptions. New collecting techniques and new technology have led to a dramatic increase in the number of species that are discovered. Explorations of unstudied regions and new habitats for almost any group of organisms can result in a large number of new species discoveries—and hence the need to be described. Yet there is no one source a student or researcher can readily consult to learn the basic practical aspects of taxonomic procedures. Species description can present a variety of difficulties: Problems arise when new species are not given names because their discoverers do not know how to write a formal species description or when these species are poorly described. Biologists may also have to deal with nomenclatural problems created by previous workers or resulting from new information generated by their own research. This practical resource for scientists and students contains instructions and examples showing how to describe newly discovered species in both the animal and plant kingdoms. With special chapters on publishing taxonomic papers and on ecology in species description, as well as sections covering subspecies, genus-level, and higher taxa descriptions, Describing Species enhances any writer's taxonomic projects, reports, checklists, floras, faunal surveys, revisions, monographs, or guides. The volume is based on current versions of the International Codes of Zoological and Botanical Nomenclature and recognizes that systematics is a global and multicultural exercise. Though Describing Species has been written for an English-speaking audience, it is useful anywhere Taxonomy is spoken and will be a valuable tool for professionals and students in zoology, botany, ecology, paleontology, and other fields of biology.

As climate change becomes an increasingly important part of public discourse, the relationship between time in nature and history is changing. Nature can no longer be considered a slow and immobile background to human history, and the future can no longer be viewed as open and detached from the past. Times of History, Times of Nature engages with this historical shift in temporal sensibilities through a combination of detailed case studies and synthesizing efforts. Focusing on the history of knowledge, media theory, and environmental humanities, this volume explores the rich and nuanced notions of time and temporality that have emerged in response to climate change.