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That qualifies as meta-meta-cognition. Maybe they didn't want to beat a dead dodo. Maybe they need to apply some more human sociology which would affect the outcome. They're always risking that their hypotheses may be proven wrong. Humans are different in having "intense consciousness." This "emergent property" is just beginning to be explored, and it may outrun DNA in complexity, say the authors. The rating of three stars is not by comparison with other books, but is compared to what needs to be explained in our current situation.
For example, I'm glad they didn't just sink into the wallpaper after Paul lost the bet with Julian Simon about predicting commodity prices for a five-year period. One of the most interesting is that the national fragmentation of Europe provided a series of small, flexible, competitive economies, which was more conducive to the rapid evolution of technologies. If they wish to comment intelligently about this topic area, it's necessary to read some current works of these veteran career biologists, or else how could someone be "in the game" at all. Ehrlich is an entomologist and his doctoral subject, the butterflies, are less regimented than some kinds of social insects.
They argue with some success against the twin studies which were used to prove that genes are more than 50 percent of the game. 109)Later, they write that China's policy of one-child-per family is "a triumph in terms of its effect on population size. Fact is distinguished from hypothesis. The accomplishments of individuals (or groups) who made supreme efforts (or were savants), such as Isaac Newton, melt here into general suggestions that humans behave according to a mechanized system of pressures which academic writers are gradually discovering. Ehrlich's predictions have failed." (Mike Toth, Stanford Review, March 10, 1998)Yes, the world did not entirely end in recent decades. It's pretty well-written, whether one agrees with them or not. Then they went worldwide. Reading it was like the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Seems the Ehrlichs are "justifying their love" and not criticizing China. The book will also reassure academic persons who worried whether they, collectively, might not have caused the world's current mega-crises by academic ideologies of the 20th Century, which formed public policy and even provided the opposing ideological camps with so much useful feedback. Interesting idea. Still, it's important in culture. That had to await the monk Gregor Mendel's experiments." (p.
People who have children have special privileges to support those children, and look down in judgment at those who do not. As long as that happens, that creates incentive to increase population. At its best, culture allows us to break free of the imitations given us by how our genes have evolved. And because academic history is written by tenured scholars inside the ivy-covered walls, sometimes they do not quite anticipate how squirrelly humans really are when putting new knowledge into practice. The Drs. And then there was this sentiment which many critics believe: "The Third World has grown healthier, richer, and more populous as Mr. Maybe studying another group's cultural evolution is like one bird watching the flapping of another bird's wings.
Humans in groups have a whole jungle of abstract, unpredicted responses that are not observed in insects, or even apes. major research is cited; it's something to ponder. Maybe their search for the Northwest Passage is like the Ehrlichs' search for the mechanisms of cultural evolution. Darwin was able to produce a mechanistic explanation of the origin of organic diversity without uncovering the genetic mechanism itself. In this book, a good attempt is made to lay the biological foundations for seeing the world in ecological and cultural contexts.
Ehrlich, in THE DOMINANT ANIMAL Human Evolution and the EnvironmentThis book doesn't have to please everyone and it won't. Dr. Maybe there's a baseline that's important, having to do with kindness and survival, beauty truth and justice. Well that's reasonable, I guess. If those blurbs have not yet been arranged into the highest level order, that leaves us with a puzzle to work out.This book reminds me of a summary of journals written by researchers who were struggling across difficult terrain. Along the way, we learn that chimps, baboons and bonobos have culture. Something similar for this book might be good.".the choice of fates largely to be determined by how we treat one another and our planetary home." (p.8)THE DOMINANT ANIMAL Human Evolution and the Environment, 368 pages in 16 chapters plus 12 pages of notes, 20 page index, 22 page bibliography; plus a few dozen charts, photos & number tables. Are they imprisoning more people for creating adult porn than they did for having so many babies.
Not really "together." Do they perish together. Whether biological or not, this is pretty logical and a good debating maneuver too. If they cared about the world in general, critics of this book would counter it with knowledge rather than debating tactics. We can see how steam engines already in use influenced Watt, but we don't know how or why his brain developed the idea of his new device. Is this because they want people to create a stronger China under the control of managers. Why they wrote the book is stated early: "By knowing our evolutionary past and understanding the forces that have shaped our present, we will be better positioned to fashion a more sustainable future." (p. So we don't have to be distracted by every flap of the other bird's wings, just know these cultural wing-beats helped each bird and group to rise above their genetic destiny.
That fits with Hardin's idea that all problems are to be considered first as being local problems. 260)That's a license for me to make a critter metaphor about cultural evolution. It seems Dr. Ah, maybe having control of cultural evolution would require a chokehold being placed on society. Just because they ran far behind in some things for a while, does not mean they will always run behind. So if we are to be consistent - if a group's cultural traits are due to something that's not genetically inheritable -- then maybe we should admit that we don't have to memorize another group's culture even if it has helped that group in a different environment than our own. The book takes a few snapshots of our own western culture and of the USA.
It's lovely we can permit them to and I support their right. The journey is sure to yield much discovery. They observe with rigor that our prehistoric genes are not proven to be governing our critical decisions in modern life. The author's political suggestions for public policy are part of their duty even if they are not strictly scientific, because they are citizens.
And although I may not like it, I have to agree when the Drs. The details of their personal fates vary greatly with birds, and even more so with whole cultures. The book deserves five stars for effort and is worth reading carefully."One person knows that another is a thinking being." & ".All human beings have a theory of mind." - - Paul R. I suspect they could improve some of their ideas with more depth in human sociology. For example, the following bold observation almost makes one catch one's breath. Some issues are not treated -- maybe so we are spared controversy for which there might not seem to be time.
At the same time we're flying, we realize they're flying too. Maybe what happened was that members of the East who were more adventuresome, assertive or aggressive, came West. As Basalla put it, technological evolution has its Darwins but lacks its Mendels. This long-train idea they are building in The Dominant Animal points to an exciting new vista in the human experience.
It would be figured into equations for "good government." In one sense there's a danger of Lysenko-ism: do we create a politically-approved version of science because "we" wanted that conclusion. before its growth ends and is reversed around 2025." (pp.153-154) This book is less urgent about population growth than The Population Explosion and Paul's _The Population Bomb. Lewis and Clark never found their greatest goal, the Northwest Passage, but that is secondary to what they did accomplish. Fine quotations begin each chapter. Please forgive me if necessary, and remember, they did it first. Like Colin Wilson, who often explores boundaries with science fiction, the Ehrlichs promote a feeling that we must keep an open mind.
In this book they ask you questions. Ehrlich already know that culture is not one single big culture but many, formed from diverse responses to diverse environmental challenges. At least the Drs. Even the previously-named "native Americans" came from the East. China, in contrast, was a single bureaucracy-bound entity in which education focused heavily on classics."But the way in which new ideas are formed in the brain, ideation, is still pretty much a mystery.
The rest may be details, not scientific principles.artistic principles maybe.The writing and examples in The Dominant Animal are so interesting that it does not matter if we agree with their later suggestions. If it's true, it would change everything. Humans tend to go their own way without following the intent of the most honorable scholar. The present Chinese population of about 1.32 billion would have been an estimated 350 million more today and would have added several hundred million more in decades ahead, had the program not been put in place." Still (China) "may add another 150 million people. Often morality is a statement of worldly ambition, not right versus wrong.Maybe they would like tribal members to forego consumption, forego self-indulgence, and become units of an army. Later chapters have very good stuff on public policy which citizens can influence via elections and correspondence. Later, the Drs.
Ehrlich is also inspiring, in light of some of the abstract pratfalls their critics claim for them. essentially, be more like social insects, for worldly reasons, for the tribe's private reasons but not for the good of all society or the betterment of all concerned. 8)The authors say culture, more than genes, is driving human affairs. Will the world's future cultures be based mainly on procreation, or not.Tribal ambition, based on population numbers, could be at work here, and winked at-- ironically by the same people who used to make a case against overpopulation. We should really contemplate this territory the old-fashioned way, as if we are the Corps of Discovery, led by Lewis and Clark - whose travelers pondered for a day about every 10 miles they travelled. With each flap, they devised tools, customs, celebrations & interpretations which served them well enough.They, and we, were able to devise ways & means to fit our own situations. Their peer, the late Garrett Hardin, strongly suggested all problems be considered first as local problems.
If the terrain is heritability, then folks who insist on the importance of that are locked onto this topography; the folks who believe in the importance of environment are saying the people develop cultures and rise above the terrain. On the other hand, when describing the events of history, functionally there's no west; the question is not west or east; it's whether they're doing it right or not; are they being honest or not; are they kind or not; are they rigorous in their thinking or not. Every paragraph contains implied questions because our own efforts will be needed for designing this world's future. The Drs. There is so much to see and ponder. Does a whole flock breed together. Author Colin Wilson was not a university professor while writing his first several books.
Not usually. Heh heh. We are global citizens whether we like it or not." (The Dominant Animal)"Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War. The mystery of how some people find the will power to "try for greatness" is treated intuitively by Wilson, with many tangents which are fascinating.
Even though I argue with some of what they write, I think, "Yes."Sometimes the Ehrlichs write outside their field (they're welcome, being citizens). It's what Americans are supposed to do - participate. Like good science fiction writers, maybe they're just a little ahead of their time though. Ehrlich write, "Like most people everywhere, we have yet to realize that our small-group world has faded away as globalization proceeds along unregulated economic pathways. The perseverance of the Drs.
Time and chance will happen to different birds separately. But according to the Ehrlichs' thesis of cultural evolution, (although they did not state it this way) there's no actual "western culture," See, there is only our response to our pressures, and the mechanisms of cultural evolution. Finding these two "holy grails" would have given someone a temporary supreme power in this mortal world. 166)The Ehrlichs report that "heritability" is overrated and that cultures take their shape in response to environmental pressures. Sometimes the pressures on two groups are greatly different. A human culture's "morality" may merely impose a tighter order to help a tribe or nation in its quest for security and prosperity in comparison to other tribes.
Ehrlichs proceed with care in this scientific construction project, mostly building their case with the fairness of early American patriotic philosophers. China, for example, has just arrested 5,000+ people in a push to get all the adult porn off their part of the world wide web. Not every reader should fly or speed rapidly through this account. But we each operate our own wings. They invite further illumination by those who come after. Nations will unite, not to destroy, but to build, and the future will belong to those who will have done the most for suffering humanity." -- Louis Pasteur ( my friend made me find this quote 14 years ago)Everyone brings something different. Ehrlich and Anne H.
The Ehrlichs write very well and it's slow going. It seems from the book that our greatest historical human mistakes proceed from pressures and mechanisms, not so much because of miscalculation or over-confident ideologies (or theologies).There is not a strong theory structure in the book although much recently-acquired understanding is explained well. On the other hand, the Ehrlichs never had the privilege of sleeping outside to avoid having to work to pay bills, as Colin Wilson did, thereby being able to spend their days in the British Museum library, delighting in sampling the whole universe of ideas. Did this mobility and questing cultural spirit have a genetic component. They provided a two page section called "Take Home Messages" in their book _The Population Explosion. Can cultures be improved by educational books like this one. Their colleagues, or even a one-sheet notebook summary in sociology, could help here. "There is a cautionary tale about technology here; when we pull technological rabbits out of the hat to `solve our problems, we must be very careful that they don't produce nasty droppings." (p.
It can easily support hours of fun & argument for book groups. Although the Ehrlichs have some biases, this book is not a hard sell on something that will fall apart up the road. The Ehrlichs tend to look for over-all system solutions and descriptions, when maybe there is an endless variation of problem sources. I love this quote from a biography of Lavoisier:""It is time to lead chemistry back to a stricter way of thinking, to strip the facts, with which this science is daily enriched, of the additions of rationality and prejudice, to distinguish what is fact and observation from what is system and hypothesis, and, in short, to mark out, as it were, the limit that chemical knowledge has reached, so that those who come after us may set out from that point and confidently go forward to the advancement of the science." --Antoine LavoisierI think the authors are doing that, and the topic still needs lots of work. Beyond that, as Solomon wrote, maybe, "All is vanity and a striving after wind." The cultural things we have may be not so great in an eternal sense. The book opens with a foundation in updated natural history & key news on "theories of mind" in the context of natural history and ecology; the second half weaves in public policy, current crises and opportunities. The world's problems did not stem only from knowledge being non-existent in each age, but also because cultures gave leadership to persons who were often quite innocent of existing knowledge, being instead charismatic or "connected." Morality is culture too. Colin Wilson's book _The Occult_ made a few inspired thesis statements about the individual experience of human consciousness.
Briefly and clearly, the Ehrlichs share interesting reports from many researchers. Unfortunately, some academic folks seem to go into an odd falsetto voice and sing that tune about the Western beast. The wilderness is a laboratory for showing this. The burden of proof is on those who would use the idea as a basis for public policy directions.
abstract adventures which may help us repair our future. Ehrlich write, "West African chimpanzees are less prone to intergroup violence than are East African chimpanzees, possibly because of a more bonobo-like social structure that some think is related to the fact that these chimps, like bonobos, don't occur together with gorillas and thus don't suffer competition with them." How does this apply to human cultures. Are butterflies as judgmental as humans are. Or have they proven with real science and religion why it is _more immoral to create adult porn than to greatly populate the earth and probably greatly pollute it in coming decades. Ehrlich onto unfamiliar territory that time.
Ehrlich write, "Many factors have been put forth to explain why the Chinese lagged behind the West technologically in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This book's focus does not risk offending tribes and countries which chose to continue having "population explosions" since the Ehrlichs' book of that name was published a generation ago. Will someone take offense. Simon, an economist, lured Dr. No, the mega-crises were created by our natural mechanisms, especially "cultural" -- not our university-driven ideologies.
And if we know the genetic differences between cultures, will that be helpful to designers of our brave new sustainable world. "In 1956 the Communist Party government made a major attempt to institute monogamous marriage as the standard structural feature of the family for all of China.The certitude of the Chinese communist cadres was very much like the certitude of religious fundamentalists in the United States determined to deny marriage to gay couples and to condemn extramarital coupling." (p. That book relates our psychic ability to ancestral jungle sensitivity.I like _The Dominant Animal_ better than a lot of other recent books about science in history or public policy. Our wings (our minds) and our ability to use them were genetically provided.
In 1974 a little book authored by Dr. Both books describe the principles of ecology, the progression and current state of mankind's impact upon the environment, relationships between human institutions and the importance of others as instruments of change, and provide options for a sustainable way forward. Mossman was published bearing the simple title, Conservation. Paul and Anne Ehrlich's are mostly matters of degree and emphasis.
I don't exactly agree with the quote about history because few events are ever exactly the same. And both project a feeling of cautious optimism.I agree with others who assert The Dominant Animal should be a must read. Mossman's book should also be a must read. But I do believe that if we do not correct our mistakes, our history will catch up with us. Perhaps having read both, the reader will come away with a better understanding of the underlying obstacles to fundamental human change. Archie S.
I would also add that, if one can find a copy, Dr. A reading of both these books clearly tells us we humans have a lot of correcting yet to do. The few differences between it and Drs. But given 35 years between them, substantive issues remain discouragingly similar.
Delivery could have been faster, but the book arrived in a reasonable time in good condition.
The truth is there is just not enough time and data to say whether these toxins will be absorbed or degraded or cause significant change. But mainly, Plato is old school where knowledge finds its value only in comparison to the ideal. citizens. His conclusions beg the argument that his life stands for a well meaning biologist who is fighting to save merely the butterflies and coral fish he studies at the expensive of the lives of 2 billion people. In fact, populations will not be contained as PE recommends. So, if you read this book even part of it -- here are some counter arguments. Yes, the hillside parks are restricted to the very rich who can afford to buy a home there, and where the average home costs $1,000,000 plus.
Aristotle freed himself from Athens and founded his own new school in a new city where he was given a free hand to think independently. The real moral disaster here is that PE is a Godless Platonist. But these facts are not the most egregious subterfuge here by PE in this book on evolution. Actually, if you see the dark side of the earth from space it is a terrifyingly volatile sight. Stanford, Oh, Stanford which regularly steals Berkeley professors with higher salaries and turns them into republicans. The toxins PE refers to are laboratory combinations of natural products processed to unnatural densities or purities.
Let's just hope his special brand of doom and gloom goes the way of Rehnquist and finally just fades away. But if you look up from Stanford campus on the hills above, just remember that you do not have the right to visit those hills, you do not have the right to walk in that city park -- unless you are a resident of Palo Alto and can prove it by sufficient papers. The free radicals chemicals from natural fires are thousands of times more toxic in their immediate intensity than man-made bio-toxins. But, when PE predicts wholesale destruction of such systems at the hands of man-made toxins; well, that is unfounded, and lacks the clarity of perspective of a scholar who studies the resilient chemistry of life. And why should this ivory tower elitist even care.
Every night there are several volcanoes erupting somewhere, and huge thunder storms lighting up the dark clouds in other places, and ground fires sweeping other spots. Constitution to give the presidency to Bush in 2000. It also produced William Rehnquist who erased (overruled) 170 human or civil rights of U.S. Is it any wonder that Paul Ehrlich wants to deny life to 2 billion people in population potential. Well, he talks on the radio about it, and with his Standford fellows -- but you just have to ask why doesn't he do science himself on these doom and gloom topics. This Stanford Prof, starting with his first book, the Population Bomb, has been seriously discredited.
And it is that this book on evolution is just a big bucket full of speculations like the ones that got him labeled an alarmist, a chicken little. He admittedly spends his time on coral reefs studying beautiful fish because they are beautiful -- that's his serious scientific work. I hate to think how immoral such choices would be. Whereas, a caring and enlightened scholar would argue for the earth to support as many humans as reasonably possible. The future of mankind will not fit into the neat predictions of an ivory towered alarmist.
Plato championed a coward, his teacher Socrates who drank hemlock instead of thinking his way out of a dire social conundrum. and who is denied the right to live here. Such is the state of Paul Ehrlich's part of America. Toxins will settle and change ecosystems, but such systems (billions of years old) thrive on change and exist because of mutation. The violent nature of earth's weather is now and will be in the future much more the author of biological change than the much slower processes of a few parts per billion toxins or of a few degrees of temperature change. That is, is the earth getting colder or warmer due to that cycle.
What is he doing about the future doom in his professorial studies. The bio-chemical changes from these natural events produce much more toxins which have a far greater immediate effect on the diversity of life. 100s of millions did not die as that book predicted. PE's admitted dependence on Plato's ideals shows the foundation of his every flaw. Oh, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. PE claims there are 100,000 toxins ranging from pole to pole which will damage the ecosystem beyond repair. Whereas, Aristotle -- the true father of science -- taught to value diversity for its own sake above any ideal, and where Plato's philosophy of the ideal could be negated in itself.
In his radio address, Ehrlich decries the U.S. But the alarmist issues he recites in the instant book he does not include in his serious scientific work. population of 300 million and argues that maintaining the 1945 number of 135 million would have been best. Aristotle argued to examine every leaf, not just in reference to the one perfect heavenly leaf. Remember, Stanford produced Sandra Day O'Connor who rewrote the U.S. The truth is -- we can do very little to change this cycle and, in fact, scientists debate just were we are in the current ice age cycle. The works of Socrates, Plato, Homer and the alike may well have been authored, not by single individuals, but by generations of teachers each one adding and subtracting ideas both before and after The Academy.
Socrates (the oral traditionalist) and Plato (the founder of a culturally constrained school) were never free to think without regard for the good of Athens. Something is rotten here. Such a scholar would want to celebrate the diversity of human culture and the complex individuals who issue therefrom.
One has to wonder who would be the one choosing who lives in the U.S. Why does he instead study butterflies and rainbow fish. Lastly, PE does not disclose the full importance of the ice age cycle, which by its very nature destroys and rebuilds 90 percent of the life on earth every thousand millennium.
Plato wrote about the efficacy of owning slaves, so he was badly flawed. But he doesn't remind you that there are 6 billion types of insects which became diverse because of mutation, much of which came from forest fires which produced millions of toxins. How so.
The book packs quite an overwhelming wallop. Like a beached whale, it risks being crushed by its own weight in places. In the end, if we want to remain earth's dominant animal we need to find balance. Though this, again paradoxically, has also led us to our predicament. Ehrlich sees possible salvation in uncovering the workings of culture. The recent housing crash provides a textbook case. But that doesn't detract from its overall intriguing readability and its main argument that we may be on a collision course with our own laudable attributes. He claims that we need a Darwin of cultural evolution to uncover the mechanisms that move cultural evolution.
For years people said "it won't happen" and dismissed pessimism with the wave of a mortgage statement. In fact, "The Self-Destructive Animal" may have served as a more accurate title. Many of these prophesies never materialized - a fact that did not go unnoticed. Compared to genetics, culture can move quickly. We're still here even though many claim that we should have done ourselves in by now. Three main problems sprout from this paradox: overpopulation, economic inequality, and environmental erosion.
But wrong predictions, even fantastically wrong ones, shouldn't necessarily invalidate the frameworks within which they're made. Let's hope we're not in for a repeat experience with the global environment.Along those lines, the tone of the Ehrlichs' latest book (Paul's wife, Anne, co-authored) may cause, for some critics, more eye-rolling skepticism. But just because we haven't doesn't preclude the possibility. Ehrlich's (and Ehrlich's) book provides a framework with which anyone can enter this vital, and often melancholy, topic. After all, who wants to believe we're destroying our own world.
But bad predictions alone shouldn't invalidate warnings or precautions. Lepidopterist Paul Ehrlich has fulfilled the role of doomsayer since at least 1968. Though the book contains voluminous fascinating facts and ideas around humanity's rise, our genetic makeup, our history, and our pending problems, the cultural evolution threads that ooze between them seem undeveloped. Let's hope he's wrong (again). A nagging question also lingers as to cultural evolution's effectiveness for solving society's problems.
Though some of the early crash predictions were premature, the catastrophe nonetheless occurred. In that year his famous (to some infamous) book "The Population Bomb" predicted catastrophic famines, death, and misery for the late twentieth century. And the fact that such methods, if discoverable, could also wreak unparalleled havoc isn't mentioned. Most of our predictions turn up wrong, even those supported by persuasive evidence. Timing plays a fundamental role. This argument implies that some means of influencing culture possibly exists, and can be used for positive ends. Doubtless much work needs to be done on this front."The Dominant Animal" fares better when adumbrating the human predicament. As such, some critics have referred to Ehrlich as a "reverse Cassandra," namely, he's often wrong but many people keep believing him.
The idea that we're not running out of energy, but we are running out of environment will surprise many readers. In any case, a main theme, and paradox, bundles the threads: Humanity possesses genetic and cultural endowments that have risen us to earthy dominance, but those same elements may ultimately destroy us. What Ehrlich wants to accomplish by unearthing the engines of culture remains nebulous. If anything it suffers from overambition.
We are living paradoxes. Though the title suggests a narrative of humanity's glorious rise to prominence, the book really focuses on our self-destructive side. Humans are bad prophets. Ehrlich's "The Dominant Animal" delineates the mounting evidence that something nasty may be on the horizon if we don't act. In addition, most of the big, and now familiar, hot button issues also appear: water supply, weather, climate change, global heating, biodiversity, corrupt governments, ecosystem complexity (manifest in the disastrous "Biosphere 2" project), pollution, alternative energy, resource wars, the toxification of the environment, the dilemma of economic growth, and countless others.
After all, many have wrongly predicted, often embarrassingly so, the return of Jesus Christ, but this hasn't caused the downfall of Christianity (though it may possibly inspire increased skepticism). Many would argue that the tools of mass communication already influence culture, but also in negative ways. Or, better yet, let's hope we act.The book weaves a few topical threads together in a slight hodge-podge manner. Some predictions have longer gestation periods than others. Remember the housing crash.
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