Does success spell doom for Homo sapiens?
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7146
jordelver / collective / tags / humanity
Tagged with “humanity”
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State of the Species | Charles C. Mann | Orion Magazine
Tagged with orion technology science species humanity extinction
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Edward O. Wilson “The Social Conquest of Earth”
Edward O. Wilson has revolutionized science and inspired the public more often than any other living biologist. Now he is blending his pioneer work on ants with a new perspective on human development to propose a radical reframing of how evolution works.
First the social insects ruled, from 60 million years ago. Then a species of social mammals took over, from 10 thousand years ago. Both sets of “eusocial” animals mastered the supremely delicate art of encouraging altruism, so that individuals in the groups would act as if they value the goal of the group over their own goals. They would specialize for the group and die for the group. In recent decades the idea of “kin selection” seemed to explain how such an astonishing phenomenon could evolve. Wilson replaces kin selection with “multi-level selection,” which incorporates both individual selection (long well understood) and group selection (long considered taboo). Every human and every human society has to learn how to manage adroitly the perpetual ambiguity and conflict between individual needs and group needs. What I need is never the same as what we need.
E. O. Wilson’s current book is The Social Conquest of Earth. His previous works include The Superorganism; The Future of Life; Consilience; Biophilia; Sociobiology; and The Insect Societies.
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David Deutsch And The Beginning of Infinity
Quantum computing genius and Oxford don David Deutsch is a thinker of such scale and audaciousness he can take your breath away. His bottom line is simple and breathtaking all at once.
It’s this: human beings are the most important entities in the universe. Or as Deutsch might have it, in the “multiverse.” For eons, little changed on this planet, he says. Progress was a joke. But once we got the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution, our powers of inquiry and discovery became infinite. Without limit.
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Spark Special – Marshall McLuhan: Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address
Spark presents a special hour of Marshall McLuhan-inspired programming called, Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address, named after one of McLuhan’s own witty turns of phrase. Today marks the centenary of McLuhan’s birth, and what better way to celebrate than exploring the theories of a man who has been credited with predicting the future of technology.
Includes - Why The Medium is Still The Message - The Networked City - From Rare to Everywhere (and back again!) - The Googlization of Everything
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When Cinnamon moved markets — Planet Money #148
Economist editor Tom Standage says if you want to get a good picture of world history, you should look at spices.
In his book, An Edible History of Humanity, Standage writes about how tall tales of carnivorous birds and flying snakes let Arab middleman charge Europeans inflated prices for cinnamon and pepper for years. Standage says it wasn’t until an Indian ship went adrift in the Red Sea that the Europeans realized there was an easier route to get all those spices they had been craving.
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Tom Standage — An Edible History of Humanity
Tom Standage is the business editor of The Economist. He started his career as the Science and Technology Editor at the Guardian, and has written several books which merge popular science and history including Victorian Internet, The Neptune File and The Mechanical Turk and A History of the World in 6 Glasses.
His latest book is An Edible History of Humanity, an account of the key role food has played in our history.
http://skeptic.org.uk/podcasts/little-atoms/564-tom-standage-an-edible-history-of-humanity
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‘Into Eternity’ Examines Nuclear Waste Dilemma
Nevada’s Yucca Mountain is no longer an option for long-term storage of nuclear waste. But construction of a similar project is under way in Finland. In his film Into Eternity, director Michael Madsen questions the feasibility of safely storing waste for hundreds of thousands of years.
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Richard Dawkins | The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
Richard Dawkins - known for his ”brilliance and wit” (New Yorker) - is one of the most influential scientists of our time and holds a chair at Oxford University. His highly acclaimed books include The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene and A Devil’s Chaplain; the New York Times has called him ”one of the most incisive science writers alive.” The Ancestor’s Tale, loosely based in form on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, offers a comprehensive look at 4 billion years of evolution.