The manner in which our ancestors and ancestor species negotiated their physical and social environments has had consequences for how we engage with artefacts today. Like language, the ability to attribute significance and meaning to artefacts is evolved and consists of a suite of interconnected adaptations. A model is articulated which, it is claimed, accommodates all the possible ways in which humans attribute significance and meaning to artefacts. It consists of two halves. Each element is considered in turn and accounts of their evolutionary origins are constructed. This sequence moves from the oldest to the most recently evolved: thus the first half - the sensory-kinetic-affective mode - includes ancient, reflexive, sensory (including the physical and kinetic) and perceptual responses originating in our ancestor species’ negotiation of their organic and inorganic environment; and the affective responses such as technical and aesthetic pleasures arising from such responses. The second half – the symbolic-narrative mode - embraces the attribution of symbolic or narrative meanings to artefacts which, I propose, prefigured, or co-evolved with the emergence of language and, like language, is an expression of symbolic thought. I argue that where symbolic meaning is intentionally ascribed to an artefact, some account will be taken of the data delivered by the sensory-kinetic-affective mode, such that those intending the meaning will often seek consonance between that data and the meaning intended, in order to strengthen the power of the artefact to act as an agent of social mediation. A central role is ascribed to a sensibility towards style, as the mechanism by which the two halves are united. This sensibility is highly attuned to physical characteristics, with the objective of intuiting something of the character, make-up and therefore, likely future behaviour of the maker, owner, or other with whom the artefact is associated. I call this resultant data tacit social intelligence. It is argued that practices which evolved during the 100,000 years or so in which Homo sapiens created artefacts by hand, using simple tools, despite the changed circumstances of manufacture, economics, technology and social and political organisation, have persisted into historical times and remain active today. In particular, artefacts continue physically to represent accumulations of behaviour. Thus, in creating or choosing to be associated with an artefact, we are conscious that others will interrogate it for signs of the behavioural values we are seen to esteem.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-109).

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There is a strong connection between a product’s architecture and the ease with which it can be evolved into future generations of products. The main goal of this dissertation is to create a measurement tool that can assess the extent to which a design exhibits different characteristics of being flexible for future evolution. The High Definition Design Structure Matrix (HDDSM) is presented as a product representation model that captures the specific types of interactions between components of a product. An interaction basis is defined that extends the detailed flows of signal, material, and energy used in functional modeling to include detailed spatial interactions. By including an external element to represent all interactions that cross outside of the product boundary, the HDDSM is shown to be a modular product model. A process for reverse engineering products and creating a HDDSM is presented and shown to significantly reduce the effort required to create a HDDSM model. The repeatability of the HDDSM model is evaluated by calculating the interrater agreement between models created by independent examiners. Four analysis processes are presented to analyze the HDDSM model for characteristics of evolvable design. These characteristics are taken from design guidelines for product flexibility for future evolution. The analyses produce quantitative metrics that allow an examiner to measure and compare how well a particular characteristic of evolvable design has been incorporated based only on the component interactions recorded in the HDDSM. Three of the metrics, the Space Potential Ratio, the Framework metric, and the Energy-Flow Module metric are shown to be consistent with a product’s flexibility for future evolution as measured by a Change Modes and Effects Analysis. / text

In this thesis I dealt with on the relationship between religious belief and acceptance or rejection the theories about origin of life and evolution-it means evolution by natural selection and theories such as creationism and Intelligent design. Respondents of the survey were students of universities and high-schools focused on natural sciences. The review of literature consists of chapters dedicated to evolution, creationism, ID, religion and surveys on this topic. In the research part of the thesis there is own analysis on the sample of students. The research was realized in the form of survey on students of universities, mostly and the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague and on the high schools, which are the teaching schools of this faculty. The benefit of this thesis is finding the relationship between their religious belief and their opinion about theories origin of life, evolution by natural selection, creationism and ID. Keywords: Evolution by natural selection, Intelligent design, Creationism, Religion, Belief

In this thesis I dealt with on the relationship between religious belief and acceptance or rejection the theories about origin of life and evolution-it means evolution by natural selection and theories such as creationism and Intelligent design. Respondents of the survey were students of universities and high-schools focused on natural sciences. The review of literature consists of chapters dedicated to evolution, creationism, Intelligent design, religion and surveys on this topic. In the research part of the thesis there is own analysis on the sample of students. The research was realized in the form of survey on students of universities, mostly and the Faculty of Science of Charles University and on the high schools, which are the teaching schools of this faculty. The benefit of this thesis is finding the relationship between their religious belief and their opinion about theories origin of life, evolution by natural selection, creationism and Intelligent design. Keywords: Evolution by natural selection, Intelligent design, Creationism, Religion, Belief