evolution A couple of weeks ago I posted some musings about “the self” in anticipation of being on a panel with Steven Pinker (author of The Blank Slate and The Stuff of Thought) and Noga Arikha (author of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours) at Tufts University. The panel, convened by Jonathan Wilson, was titled “The New Biology and the Self,” and what follows was my contribution. The graduate student referred to is Monica Chau of Emory University.
I told a very smart neurobiology graduate student named Monica yesterday that I’d been asked to speak on “The New Biology and the Self.” She said, “What’s the new biology?” I said, “I don’t know, but that’s the least of my problems. What’s the self?” (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘evolution’
The “New Biology” and “The Self”
Sunday, November 15th, 2009 by Mel KonnerDarwinian News, Hot Off the Press
Sunday, June 7th, 2009 by Mel KonnerIn the Darwin bicentennial, new insights into fossils, genes, birdsong, and cancer.
The latest issue of Nature to land in my mailbox-the May 28th one-was not a tribute to Darwin in honor of his 200th birthday and the 150th of The Origin of Species; Nature has been there, done that. But it might as well have been another celebration for him, (more…)
Obesity 2
Sunday, May 31st, 2009 by Mel KonnerObesity is an evolutionary legacy, which is why it’s so hard to control.
I said a few weeks ago (before I was rudely interrupted by the swine flu epidemic) that I would try to explain why the battle against overweight is such a hard and so far losing one, for the species if not for the individual.
Swine, Flu and Us
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 by Mel KonnerIt’s always wrong to panic, but it’s never wrong to be prepared.
There is an ancient relationship between humanity on the one side, and parasites, microbes, and viruses on the other. It has been rightly called an evolutionary arms race—or more exactly, a series of them—and I will return to that idea in a moment.
But the writer in me prefers another metaphor, used by the virologist Richard Krause as the title of a book: The Restless Tide. As the subtitle explains,
Life Elsewhere
Monday, March 16th, 2009 by Mel KonnerOther planets surely harbor life. It’s only a question of time before we find it.
Last week the Kepler Mission blasted off into space—or as NASA nicely put it, “vaulted into the heavens on a column of thunder”—and within a few days passed the orbit of the moon. On March 12 its photometer was powered on, and as soon as it can be calibrated it will begin fulfilling the mission’s purpose: the search for other worlds.
Future Evolution
Sunday, March 1st, 2009 by Mel KonnerCan we say anything about human beings to come? In a word, yes.
Recently after lecturing about human evolution, I had a student come up to me and ask—she apologized first, as some do, despite my mantra that there are no bad questions—if I had any thoughts about future evolution. I did, although I hesitated to offer them; the political correctness monitors are everywhere in universities today. But, casting caution to the winds,
(more…)
Lincoln and Darwin at 200
Sunday, February 15th, 2009 by Mel Konner
At the end of their second century, two strange, brilliant men shape our lives
February 12, 1809 was a great day in the history of the human species, since two of its best specimens took their first breaths that day on two sides of the Atlantic. Both those infants grew into odd boys.
A Philosophy of Violence and Sacrifice
Sunday, December 14th, 2008 by Mel KonnerA wise man with a provocative theory of violence may help us understand and save ourselves.
I just returned from a meeting in Paris (alright, a meeting followed by a marvelous three-day vacation) at which, along with some very pleasant wining and dining, I spent several days talking about imitation and violence. What do these two seemingly separate things have in common? According to René Girard, everything.
Evolution Revolution
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 by Mel KonnerGeorgia: a fundamentalist backwater or a hotbed of evolutionary rebellion? Both.
In the past three days I somehow managed to give a lecture to medical students on medicine and anthropology, moderate a panel on evolutionary medicine, and conduct a seminar at a retreat for Emory Scholars–some of our most outstanding undergraduates–called "Religion, Science, Literature and Life."
