James Jones, a professor of religion and a practicing psychotherapist, shows that the crises we face in life, love, and work demand whole-life spiritual answers--"psychology is not enough."

In the Middle of This Road We Call Our Life: The Courage to Search for Something More

Self-Help

Jones, James W.

Personal Transformation

Harpercollins

In the Middle of This Road We Call Our

Harpercollins Publisher

Working with Dynamic Crop Models: Methods, Tools and Examples for Agriculture and Environment

This second edition of Working with Dynamic Crop Models is meant for self-learning by researchers or for use in graduate level courses devoted to methods for working with dynamic models in crop, agricultural, and related sciences. Each chapter focuses on a particular topic and includes an introduction, a detailed explanation of the available methods, applications of the methods to one or two simple models that are followed throughout the book, real-life examples of the methods from literature, and finally a section detailing implementation of the methods using the R programming language. The consistent use of R makes this book immediately and directly applicable to scientists seeking to develop models quickly and effectively, and the selected examples ensure broad appeal to scientists in various disciplines.

Business & Money

Wallach, Daniel

Makowski, David

Brun, François

Economics

Academic Press

Working with Dynamic Crop Models: Methods, Tools and Examples for Agriculture and Environment, 3e, is a complete guide to working with dynamic system models, with emphasis on models in agronomy and environmental science. The introductory section presents the foundational information for the book including the basics of system models, simulation, the R programming language, and the statistical notions necessary for working with system models. The most important methods of working with dynamic system models, namely uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, model calibration (frequentist and Bayesian), model evaluation, and data assimilation are all treated in detail, in individual chapters. New chapters cover the use of multi-model ensembles, the creation of metamodels that emulate the more complex dynamic system models, the combination of genetic and environmental information in gene-based crop models, and the use of dynamic system models to aid in sampling. The book emphasizes both understanding and practical implementation of the methods that are covered. Each chapter simply and clearly explains the underlying principles and assumptions of each method that is presented, with numerous examples and illustrations. R code for applying the methods is given throughout. This code is designed so that it can be adapted relatively easily to new problems.

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

The "New Atheist" movement of recent years has put the science-versus-religion controversy back on the popular cultural agenda. Anti-religious polemicists are convinced that the application of the new sciences of the mind to religious belief gives them the final weapons in their battle against irrationality and superstition. What used to be a trickle of research papers scattered in specialized scientific journals has now become a torrent of books, articles, and commentary in the popular media pressing the case that the cognitive science of religion can finally fulfill the enlightenment dream of shrinking religion into insignificance, if not eliminating it altogether. James W. Jones argues that these claims are demonstrably false. He notes that cognitive science research is religiously neutral; it can be deployed in many different ways in relation to the actual belief in and practice of religion: to undermine it, to simply study it, and to support it. These different approaches, Jones suggests, reflect the background assumptions and viewpoints brought to the interpretation of the data. The goal of this book is not to defend either a general religious outlook or a particular religious tradition, but to make the case that while there is much to learn from the cognitive scientific study of religion, attempts to use it to "explain" religion are exaggerated and misguided. Drawing on scientific research and logical argument Can Science Explain Religion? directly confronts the claims of these debunkers of religion, providing an accessibly written, persuasive account of why they are not convincing.

Can Science Explain Religion?: The Cognitive Science Debate

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

Oxford University Press

Is it reasonable to live a religiously oriented life, or is such a life the height of irrationality? Has neuroscience shown that religious experiences are akin to delusions, or might neuroscience actually support the validity of such experiences? In Living Religion James W. Jones offers a new approach to understanding religion after the Decade of the Brain. The modern tendency to separate theory from practice gives rise to a number of dilemmas for those who think seriously about religion. Claims about God, the world, and the nature and destiny of the human spirit have been ripped from their context in religious practice and treated as doctrinal abstractions to be justified or refuted in isolation from the living religious life that is their natural home. Jones argues that trends in contemporary psychology, especially an emphasis on embodiment and relationality, can help the thoughtful religious person return theory to practice, thereby opening up new avenues of religious knowing and new ways of supporting the commitment to a religiously lived life. This embodied-relational model offers new ways of understanding our capacity to transform and transcend our ordinary awareness and shows that it can be meaningful and reasonable to speak of a "spiritual sense." The brain's complexity, integration, and openness, and the many ways embodiment influences our understanding of ourselves and the world, all significantly impact our thinking about religious understanding. When linked to contemporary neuroscientific theories, the long-standing tradition of a spiritual sense is brought up to date and deployed in support of the argument of this book that reason is on the side of those who choose a religiously lived life.

Living Religion: Embodiment, Theology, and the Possibility of a Spiritual Sense

Christian Books & Bibles

The Ethics of Surgical Practice: Cases, Dilemmas, and Resolutions

Surgical ethics is the application of ethics to issues specific to surgery. This volume provides a collection of clinical case studies representing a wide range of the ethical issues surgeons confront today. It is an excellent text for teaching surgical ethics to surgical residents and medical students and a fascinating read for practicing surgeons. It is intended to engage the reader into participating in evidence-based ethical conflicts. The authors escort us through 71 brief, realistic, and ethically complex problems, offering a series of five possible resolutions to each and guiding us through the relative benefits and weaknesses of the options until a best ethical choice is defended. The volume includes sections on Consent and Disclosure, Self-Regulation, Research and Innovation, Conflicts of Interest, Business Dealings, and End of Life Issues, each with a brief introduction by the authors.

Reference

McCullough, Laurence B.

Richman, Bruce W.

Words, Language & Grammar

Surgical ethics is the application of ethics to issues specific to surgery. This volume provides a collection of clinical case studies representing a wide range of the ethical issues surgeons confront today. It is an excellent text for teaching surgical ethics to surgical residents and medical students and a fascinating read for practicing surgeons. It is intended to engage the reader into participating in evidence-based ethical conflicts. The authors escort us through 71 brief, realistic, and ethically complex problems, offering a series of five possible resolutions to each and guiding us through the relative benefits and weaknesses of the options until a best ethical choice is defended. The volume includes sections on Consent and Disclosure, Self-Regulation, Research and Innovation, Conflicts of Interest, Business Dealings, and End of Life Issues, each with a brief introduction by the authors.

Medical Books

Medicine

This penetrating book sheds light on the psychology of fundamentalism, with a particular focus on those who become extremists and fanatics. What accounts for the violence that emerges among some fundamentalist groups? The contributors to this book identify several factors: a radical dualism, in which all aspects of life are bluntly categorized as either good or evil; a destructive inclination to interpret authoritative texts, laws, and teachings in the most literal of terms; an extreme and totalized conversion experience; paranoid thinking; and an apocalyptic world view. After examining each of these concepts in detail, and showing the ways in which they lead to violence among widely disparate groups, these engrossing essays explore such areas as fundamentalism in the American experience and among jihadists, and they illuminate aspects of the same psychology that contributed to such historical crises as the French Revolution, the Nazi movement, and post-Partition Hindu religious practice.

The Fundamentalist Mindset: Psychological Perspectives on Religion, Violence, and History

Politics & Social Sciences

Strozier, Charles B.

Terman, David M.

Boyd, Katherine A.

Social Sciences

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jones, James W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jones, James W.