Category Archives: Evolution

Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”

Posted on November 19, 2024 by

Preface. This book conveys a sense of wonderment and awe about our brains work and how we become who we are.  I think if you read the excerpts below you will understand why Artificial Intelligence will probably never come close … Continue reading →

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Why some people are conservative and others liberal

Posted on October 10, 2024 by

Preface. A book review of: Garcia, H. 2019. Sex, Power, and Partisanship. How evolutionary science makes sense of our political divide. Although Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican Brain” was brilliant, it didn’t address that politics must surely go back to … Continue reading →

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Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe

Posted on March 15, 2024 by

Preface. These are updates to Ward & Brownlee’s book “Rare Earth: Why Complex life is Uncommon in the Universe”. If we are one of the few planets with intelligent life, what a shame it would be if we destroyed ourselves … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Wood | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Prime movers of human evolution

Posted on April 10, 2023 by

Preface. The human brain and culture evolved at an astonishing rate, making scientists wonder what conditions and ecological pressures drove it, why we became homo sapiens so quickly. This is a post that will grow over time as I find … Continue reading →

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The myriad ways females play a role in evolution

Posted on January 30, 2023 by

Preface. This is a review of Cooke’s book “Bitch: On the female of the species”. I’ve been reading about evolution for a long time, but there was a great deal of new research on the role females play in evolution … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Feminism | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Review of Wrangham’s The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue & Violence in Human Evolution

Posted on March 18, 2022 by

Preface. This is a fantastic, must read book if you’re at all interested in how we evolved to be who we are today, how we domesticated ourselves, gossip, conformity, violence and more.  It reminds me of why I don’t read … Continue reading →

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Where do we come from, who are we, and where are we going?

Posted on December 2, 2020 by

Preface.  This is a book of review of The Social Conquest of Earth, in which E. O. Wilson answers these questions.  Although tribes have invented thousands of creation myths since paleolithic times, Wilson finally has written a book explaining our … Continue reading →

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Rare Earth: Why complex life is uncommon in the universe

Posted on June 2, 2019 by

Preface. So much research on why complex life is rare in the universe has come out since this book I’ve created another post: Rare Earth updates: recent research on why intelligent life is probably rare in the Universe. And intelligent … Continue reading →

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Biodiversity Loss, Evolution, Human Nature, Life Before Oil | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

How burning biomass made us human

Posted on November 15, 2016 by

[ This is a book review of Wrangham’s “Catching Fire: How cooking made us human”. Fire enabled us to have larger brains from the increased calories in cooked food, held carnivores at bay, killed bacteria, and gave us many other … Continue reading →

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Republicans Brains are wired to deny science & reality

Posted on November 6, 2016 by

Preface. This is my book review of Chris Mooney’s 2012 “The Republican Brain. The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality”. This is a mishmash of a review of this book, way below other articles about this topic as well … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Human Nature | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments