Part I Limits -- Chapter 1. The Limits of Life -- Limits to Growth -- The Collapse of Complex Societies -- Collapse -- Dawn to Dusk on Easter Island -- Limits of a Finite Earth -- Fossil Fuel Limits -- Oil Sands, Oil Shale, and Coal Conversion -- Alternate Energy Sources -- Atomic Fusion -- Global Warming -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Chapter 2. Living within Limits -- The Limits of Population -- The Winemakers -- The Limits of Economics -- Human Inventiveness -- Limits of Capitalistic Economics -- Limits of Science -- Societies That Survived -- The Diffusion of Science -- Bibliography -- Chapter 3. Life is Optimism Triumphant -- The Natural -- Our Companions -- The Methods of Science -- Evolution and Natural Selection -- The Gifts of Natural Selection -- Bisexuality and Ethics -- A Rational Life -- Life Is Optimism Triumphant -- Stand in Awe -- Bibliography -- Part II. Aspects of Physical Reality -- Chapter 4. The Search for Truth -- The Limits of Human Truth -- Human Sensory Limits -- The Search for Truth -- The Deductive Method, The Syllogism -- The Nature and Limits of Inference -- The Axiomatic Method -- The Inductive Method, Mendel’s Peas -- The Scientific Method, The Source of Knowledge -- The Expanding Universe -- The Probable Truth -- The Trial and Error Method -- The Truer Truth -- Authoritarian and Absolute Truth -- Bibliography -- Chapter 5. Believe or Know -- On Uncovering Truth -- The Nature of Knowing -- The Scientific Method -- The Dangers of Scientific Fraud -- The Nature of Believing -- Motives for Belief -- Separating Belief and Knowledge -- Bibliography -- Chapter 6. Time and Events -- Some Views of Time -- Events and Existence -- Present Events â€" Action and Change -- The Ascent of Man -- The Ascent of Homo sapiens Homo sapiens -- Matter, Mass and Energy -- The Nature of the Past -- Revents, Remembered Events â€" DNA.

Duration, Past and Future Events -- Dates in Time -- Bibliography -- Chapter 7. Things Change -- Change in Motion -- The Neutrino -- The Expanding Universe -- Change in Quantity -- Change in Quality -- Coming to Be and Passing Away -- Change and Duration -- The Source of Change â€" Thermodynamics -- First Law of Thermodynamics -- Second Law of Thermodynamics -- Entropy -- Summary -- Bibliography -- Chapter 8. Scientific Reality -- Dual Reality and Reductionism -- Science and Numbers -- Scientific Models -- The Atomic Model -- The Quantum Paradox -- The Photoelectric Effect -- Quantum Waves -- The Flowering of the Two-Slit Experiment -- The Copenhagen Interpretation and EPR Objection -- Bell’s Theorem -- Aspect’s Experiment -- Bibliography -- Part III. Aspects of Biological Reality -- Chapter 9. Darwin and Mendel -- The Problem with Time -- Natural Selection and Evolution -- Bacteria and the Prokaryotes -- The Eukaryotes and Symbiosis -- The Evidence for Evolution and Natural Selection -- Embryology, Morphology, and Physiology -- Domestication as Selection -- Bacterial Resistance to Drugs -- Paleontology and the Fossil Record -- Fossils -- Genetics â€" Mendel’s Peas -- Bibliography -- Chapter 10. Individualism and Evolution -- The Fossil Evidence -- Natural Selection -- The Gifts of Natural Selection -- Species -- Individuals -- The Individual and Reproduction -- Advantages of Bisexuality -- The Emergence of Choice -- Purpose -- Complex Purposes -- Humans in Space -- Alone in the Throes of Change -- The Natural Selector -- Bibliography -- Chapter 11. The Double Helix -- X-Rays Crystal Structures â€" Von Laue and Bragg -- The Watson and Crick Model of DNA, 1953 -- On Deoxyribonucleic Acid, DNA -- DNA Replication -- DNA Transcription -- DNA Translation -- Lord Kelvin and the Problem with Time -- Tautology and Falsifiability -- Darwin’s Problems.

Bibliography -- Chapter 12. The Micro Evolution of Life -- The Emergence of Purpose -- The Facts of Evolution -- Timely Design, Result, or Outcome -- The Measurement of Time -- Major Physical Events -- The Accumulating and Micro Nature of Evolution -- The Meaning of Death and Extinction -- The Meaning of Life -- Conflict between Individuals and Organizations -- The Natural Selector -- Bibliography -- Glossary (Some Facts of Science).