Evolving Thoughs, The evolution of morality: “Morality is an “acquired dialect”, which is a very useful metaphor. Like a dialect, it is conventional, and varies by geography. It is not inborn (although the capacity to acquire it, like that of language, is), and it doesn’t correlate with biology (a Sicilian raised in Japan would speak [...]
Entries Tagged as 'evolution'
After Near Extinction, Humans Split Into Isolated Bands
April 27th, 2008
‘Bushmen, or San, wearing skins and carrying bows and arrows cross a salt pan in Namibia’s Nyae Nyae Conservancy.’ National Geography News, After Near Extinction, Humans Split Into Isolated Bands: “After nearly going extinct 150,000 years ago, humankind split into small groups – living in isolation for nearly a hundred thousand years before “reuniting” and [...]
Tags: africa · evolution · genographic project · mankind
Edge @ DLD: Life: A gene-centric View
February 6th, 2008
Link: sevenload.com Edge 235, Life a Gene-Centric View. Craig Venter & Richard Dawkins: A Conversation in Munich: “It’s not everyday you have Richard Dawkins and Craig Venter on a stage talking for an hour about “Life: A Gene-Centric View”. That it occured in Germany, where the culture has been resistant to open discussion of genetics, [...]
Tags: biology · craig venter · dna · edge · evolution · richard dawkins
Watching David Attenborough
January 21st, 2008
Eurozine, Watching David Attenborough: “We are looking at something that probably not one of us has ever seen before. We are staring in perfect colour close-up at the slow, rhythmic uncoiling of a slimy proboscis. But what are we to make of the strange and oddly beautiful sight before our eyes? The camera pulls back [...]
Tags: biology · david attenborough · evolution · tv
What Cooking Did For Human Evolution
January 2nd, 2008
TIR, What Cooking Did For Human Evolution: “Could primates have evolved into humans without knowing how to cook? For 10 years, Harvard University primatologist Richard Wrangham has gathered data that he says show that the discovery of cooking allowed humans to evolve. The only snag, according to Scientific American: He has yet to prove that [...]
Tags: anthropology · biology · cooking · evolution
Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution
December 11th, 2007
Scientific American, Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution: “Homo sapiens sapiens has spread across the globe and increased vastly in numbers over the past 50,000 years or so—from an estimated five million in 9000 B.C. to roughly 6.5 billion today. More people means more opportunity for mutations to creep into the basic human genome and new [...]
Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms. A Brief Economic History of the World.
December 10th, 2007
Benjamin N. Friedman, Industrial Evolution: “(…) Why do some countries have an economically helpful culture while others don’t? And, since no society got very far in economic terms before the Industrial Revolution, what caused the culture of the recently successful ones to change? In “A Farewell to Alms,” Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the [...]
Tags: economics · evolution · gregory clark · history · industrial revolution
Sir David Attenborough on God
November 10th, 2007
Sir David Attenborough on God
Tags: atheism · david attenborough · evolution · religion · video