This View of Life
Magazine

Is is possible that human sacrifice might have served some social function, and actually benefited at least some members of a society?

Citizen science is about regular people contributing to scientific discovery. Today’s burgeoning citizen science movement is aided and abetted by smartphone apps that precisely geolocate species observations. This “big data” citizen science is at the forefront of scientific methodologies today, but the roots of citizen science, and its basic purpose, hail back to Enlightenment impulses to understand God’s creation.

If we combine evolution with embodiment and complexity, a coherent School of Social Sciences feels very much within reach.

From the advent of the industrial revolution to the present, the business class paid scant attention to human nature. The social and physical design of organizations focused on efficiency and cost-savings. This resulted in a mismatch between our work environments and human nature.

Join Child Development expert Dr. Peter Gray, Research Professor at Boston College and a regular contributor to "Psychology Today", as he discusses evolutionary perspectives on childhood development and education.

The concept of niche construction stresses a dialectical relationship between organisms and their environments, rather than one being passively shaped by the other. It has deep roots in evolutionary thought but only now is resulting in a systematic research program. Join Gordon Burghardt and Kevin Laland as they take a deep dive into the subject.

Evolution is not a “fact”. It is an explanation, a narrative – even a “story” – and it evolves as new evidence arises.

Human behaviors, the physical objects we create and use, as well as their associated intellectual traditions are part of our collective toolkit for adapting to the larger social/cultural and physical environments we live within.

Let’s hope future DNA studies don’t show a lot of Trump genes in the population.

It was on this very edge of live and death that I myself evolved the most.

Are you more likely to be generous toward people of your own religion? Your answer may depend on where you live.