This was from several months ago, but I wanted to bring it back again.
“We know that we are apes, but we cannot be classified simplistically as ‘naked apes’ or ‘killer apes’ or ‘moral apes.’…Our past is complicated; so is our present, and so will be our future.” – Paul Ehrlich (2000: 331)
“When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know. ” –Frans de Waal
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The Eagles headed back to their cabin feeling dejected after losing a tug-of-war contest to their rivals, the Rattlers. Along the way, one of the boys noticed the Rattlers had forgotten their flag on the baseball field, leaving it unprotected. Craig and Mason soon seized it, but struggled to tear it to pieces. McGraw then presented some matches and suggested they burn it instead. The group then hung the flag’s charred remains from the…
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A (more humorous) follow-up from Part 1.
Of course, the wisdom of admitting a mistake is compromised if one keeps making them over and over again.
We just finished a symposium on “the human biology of poverty,” held at ISCTE-IUL in Lisbon, and sponsored by the The Society for the Study of Human Biology. It really was a great meeting, full of important research on the effects of various forms of deprivation on biology and health in different populations. The complete program can be found here.
From last summer, this quickly became one of the most-read posts on this site.
“Development is the missing link between genotype and phenotype, a place too often occupied by metaphors in the past … But a strong emphasis on the genome means that environmental influence is systematically ignored. If you begin with DNA and view development as “hard-wired,” you overlook the flexible phenotype and the causes of its variation that are the mainsprings of adaptive evolution.” (Mary Jane West-Eberhard, 2003: 89-90)
“Genes, unlike gods, are conditional. They are exquisitely good at simple if-then logic: if in a certain environment, then develop in a certain way… So here is the first moral of the tale: Don’t be frightened of genes. They are not gods; they are cogs. (Matt Ridley, 2003: 250)
Plasticity: actor Christian Bale at two points in time. Same genes, different phenotypes.
In his book The Triple Helix, Richard Lewontin told the story of the molecular biologist and Nobel laureate Sydney…
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On his visit to Ethiopia, U.S. President Barack Obama viewed the fossil remains of three famous human ancestors. These included two belonging to the 3 to 3.8 million-year old hominin species Australopithecus afarensis, “Lucy” and “Selam”), as well as “Ardi” from an older species Ardipithecus ramidus. (Click here for a nice overview of our hominin family tree). Later, he said this:
“When you see our ancestor, 3.5 million years old, we are reminded that Ethiopians, Americans, all the people of the world are part of the same human family, the same chain… And as one of the professors (Zeresenay Alemseged) who was describing the artifacts correctly pointed out, so much of the hardship and conflict and sadness and violence that occurs around the world is because we forget that fact. We look at superficial differences as opposed to seeing the fundamental connection that we all share.”
I think Obama got it right, which isn’t surprising, since his mother was an anthropologist. Humans everywhere belong to the same species and share common ancestry. We have our differences — some trivial, some significant to us — but our bedrock should be that shared connection. That may be an ideological approach, but the nice thing is that it’s also scientifically accurate.
President Obama touches the fossilized vertebra of Lucy, an early human ancestor in Ethiopia on Monday. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Darwin, circa 1859 or 1860. (Wiki Commons.)
“But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.”
— Charles Darwin, letter to Charles Lyell, Oct 1, 1861
Everyone has their bad days.
CNN had a story on Kim Phuc today, and she had this to say:
“I still have the pain. I still have the scars. I still have the memory, but my heart is healed.”
This reminded me of this post I wrote from 2011, which remains one of the most meaningful things I’ve written here.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/world/kim-phuc-where-is-she-now/ …
Of all the things I’ve written on this site, this remains one of the most meaningful to me. (June 25, 2015)
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” …………………………………………………………………………– Mohandas K. Gandhi
On my desk sits a spoon I bought in a restaurant in northern Laos. It’s lightweight, bigger than a tablespoon, and full of tiny dents that some unknown metalsmith hammered into it. The owner was bemused that in addition to the bowl of pho noodle soup, I also wanted to buy one of her utensils. But I had my reasons.
Earlier on my trip, my guide1 informed me that people in the town of Phonsavanh half-jokingly called these ‘B-52 spoons,’ as they were made of metal recovered from bombs dropped decades ago by U.S. planes during ‘the Secret War.’ To me, the spoon was more than a…
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Nothing is permanent. That doesn’t mean beauty does not exist.
Tibetan sand painting (mandala). Source: wikicommons.
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Reasons to be hopeful.
Patrick F. Clarkin, Ph.D. 