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As a molecular anthropologist, my research involves using genetic data to address questions of anthropological interest about the origins, history, migration, structure, and relationships of human populations. I frequently am asked to give lectures to nonspecialist audiences on insights from genetics into human evolution, and invariably during the ensuing discussion period the viewpoint will be Continue reading Does Culture Prevent or Drive Human Evolution? “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Tennessee Williams To understand portions of one’s own culture demands a lifetime; to become familiar with another’s depends upon a host of enthusiastic interpreters, attentive listening, experiencing a multitude of unfamiliar activities, a receptive heart, and good fortune. Throughout my life, a major Continue reading Wild Animals and a Different Human Face The use of hounds in hunting excites great passions. Hunting deer is particularly hated by those who are opposed to it and ardently loved by those who support it. If you wept as a child at the death of Bambi’s mother, you know what it is like to be hunted. On the other side, the Continue reading Hunting and Science This is a précis of an argument that naturalism forces upon us a very disillusioned “take” on reality. It is one that most naturalists have sought to avoid, or at least qualify, reinterpret, or recast to avoid its harshest conclusions about the meaning of life, the nature of morality, the significance of our consciousness self-awareness, Continue reading The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality Abstracted from ‘Qualitative experience in machines,’ The Digital Phoenix: How computers are changing philosophy. 1. Many people, perhaps most people, have the idea that, however problematic qualitative experience is for the case of human beings, it is a lot more so for that of machines constructed by human beings. Few philosophers doubt that human beings’ Continue reading Qualitative Experience in Machines We humans spend a remarkable amount of time, money, and energy to benefit others, including family, friends, and strangers. Why do we do it? Do we ever care about others for their sakes and not simply for our own? Is our ultimate goal always and exclusively self-benefit, or are we capable of caring about another Continue reading Empathic Concern and Altruism in Humans Does evolution explain our behaviour? The short answer is: No. And you may well concur with that answer but ‘out there’ there is an increasing constituency of thinkers claiming quite otherwise. Along with the claims that the brain explains the mind and activity in one bit of brain or another corresponds to love, joy, conscience, Continue reading Does Evolution Explain Our Behaviour? I am an anthropologist and primate sociobiologist who seeks to understand, step by Darwinian step, how apes could have evolved to imagine and care about what the lives of others might be like. I believe that such questing for inter-subjective engagement laid the foundations for significant later developments such as language and cumulative culture. My Continue reading How Humans Became Such Other-Regarding Apes Biologically, we resemble other animals, but mentally, we leave them in the dust. The scope of human thought is vast. Why are we so different? Animals—including us—live, think, and feel in the here and now. Living, thinking, and feeling are biological events, existing only in the present. When we think about the past or the Continue reading The Scope of Human Thought Most researchers agree that there is no reason in principle why we will not eventually develop conscious machines that rival or surpass human intelligence. If we are crossing to a new era of the posthuman, how have we gotten here? And how should we understand the process? Cultural theorists have addressed the topic of the Continue reading Contemplating Singularity |
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