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Now that humanity has, as it were, removed nature’s boot from its neck, there are bound to be repercussions. If nature must suffer in order for humans to luxuriate in a blissful era of shameful overindulgence, then so be it. Tough nuts, Mother Nature.

Sapient Apes Ascendant: The Costs and Benefits of Human Agency

If the messages that are embedded in folklore mean anything, then until very recently humans were terrified of the natural environment (Grimm, et. al., 1915). In many cases, the scariest part of folk tales involves foolish individuals–often kids, in order to emphasize the cautionary nature of the tales–who fall prey to one of the many [...]

Humans are the first super-adaptable organism to evolve on earth. Rather than being deterministically restricted by the constraints of Darwinian biology, humans are the only terrestrial species that is graced with the capacity to “redefine reality.”

Evolution at the Speed of Thought

Scholars have referred to Homo sapiens’ game-changing capacity to transform the biological evolutionary process into an intellectual exercise–or what I refer to as super-adaptability–in a variety of ways. Karl Popper distinguishes between biological and cognitive problem solving. In so doing, Popper emphasizes that for most organisms the one and only means of resolving survival problems [...]

Determinists explain everything that occurs in the universe as an outcome of an infallible master narrative: if an apple falls from a tree, or a star explodes in the Andromeda Galaxy, then determinists will insist that those events transpired precisely how and when they did because an insuperable chain of causality preordained each outcome. The magic of this type of deductive thinking--which, once again, is predicated on a dogmatic allegiance to an "infallible" master narrative--is that it can be used to explain anything and everything. However, as Karl Popper articulated so convincingly, deductive theories that purport to explain everything in fact succeed in explaining nothing scientifically.

Elementary My Dear Watson! The Beauty (and Baloney) of Being Right about Everything

Fate is the most potent weapon in a the arsenal of determinists like Stephen Hawking. To contend, as determinists plainly do, that the outcomes of events are pre-determined is essentially the same as saying that the ebbs and flows of history are all dictated by fate. Actors, whether animate or inanimate, have no control over [...]

Survival of the Nice Guys

Survival of the Nice Guys

As a sociologist I often get heartburn listening to others talk about evolution. As every sociology student knows, from the time Herbert Spencer first coined his “survival of the fittest,” Darwin’s thoughts have been used, misused, and exploited in service of the status quo. You beat somebody down? You dominate another in business? You accumulate obscene wealth? You create a thousand losers for every winner? That’s the natural order of things. Like Darwin NEVER said, survival of the fittest. But times they are a changin. From over due behavioral corrections, fresh air research onthe stupidity of competition (ya I said it), to this provocative article that suggests that having “big winners” is bad for our general survivability, we scientists are starting to reclaim our truths from the social classes that have exploited it. Yay team!

Competition is as competition does

Competition is as competition does

Through the medium of kinship, early humans developed cooperative arrangements that, according to Marshal Sahlins, were apparently mandated by virtue of the conditions of life. In his words, “The emerging human primate, in a life-and-death-struggle economic struggle with nature, could not afford the luxury of a social struggle. Co-operation, not competition, was essential…. Hobbe’s famous [...]