With our economy a shambles and our environment threatened, is there any reason to be optimistic about the future? Matt Ridley says there’s scientific proof to say we should be.
Tagged with “biology”
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How Prosperity Evolves
Tagged with science biology evolution book:author=matt ridley
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Professor Christopher Dye: Are Humans Still Evolving?
Homo sapiens have been around for 250,000 years - surely long enough to have become fully evolved?
It was thought that the dramatic extension of life spans during the 20th century eliminated natural selection, but new evidence shows that to be false.
Will selection always be natural, or could postmodern also mean posthuman?
http://fora.tv/2009/03/26/Professor_Christopher_Dye_Are_Humans_Still_Evolving
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The Evolution of Evolution
Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie discusses the special January issue of the magazine, which focuses on evolution—2009 being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Subjects in the issue include the importance of natural selection, the sources of genetic variability, human evolution’s past and future, pop evolutionary psychology, everyday applications of evolutionary theory, the science of the game Spore, and the ongoing threat to science education posed by creationist activists. Plus, we’ll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news.
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-evolution-of-evolution-09-01-07
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E.O. Wilson & Bert Hölldobler | The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance and Strangeness of Insect Societies
Recorded 12/2/2008 - Eighteen years after the publication of their exhaustive and Pulitzer Prize-winning study The Ants, co-authors E.O. Wilson and Bert Holldobler present a new study of social insects: ants, bees, wasps, and termites, among others, that collectively form ”superorganisms,” i.e. tightly knit colonies of individuals, formed by altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and division of labor. A basic stage of biological organization midway between organism and species, the ”superorganism” is helping us understand evolution and how biological life progresses from simple to complex forms. E.O. Wilson, a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, where he taught for nearly five decades, is the author of more than 20 books and the recipient of two Pulitzer prizes and the National Medal of Science. Bert Hölldobler is Foundation Professor of Biology at Arizona State University and the recipient of the U.S. Senior Scientist Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Germany’s Leibniz Prize. Dr. Arthur Caplan, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Director, Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, will interview Wilson and Hölldobler.