Money and Finance
- Robert Sapolsky Interview With Nautilus
Link to interview: Ingenious: Robert Sapolsky What I’ve been thinking might actually be going on is that adolescence is something unavoidable that emerges not because it’s so cool and adaptive, but because the adaptive thing is wait a long, long...
- Across 1,000 Genomes, Rarities Abound
Every person’s genetic instruction book is a trove of never-before-seen genetic variants, according to an ongoing effort to map human genetic diversity. In recent years, scientists have discovered that humans carry far more rare genetic variants than...
- Publication Of The Gorilla Genome Opens Window Onto Human Evolution
Found via the RDFRS. The sequence of the gorilla genome is published today, completing the set for the living great apes. The findings provide a unique perspective on our own origins and are an important resource for research into human evolution and...
- What’s A Man?
Studies of brain genetics are starting to reveal what makes humans human THE problem with understanding human uniqueness is precisely that it is unique. Though the proper study of mankind may be man, that study will yield little if there is no reference...
- Skeletons Open Window To New Species
CRADLE OF HUMANKIND, South Africa – Nine-year-old Matthew Berger dashed after his dog Tau into the high grass one sunny morning, tripped over a log and stumbled onto a major archaeological discovery. Scientists said Thursday that he had found the bones...
Money and Finance
Metaphors Are Us – By Robert Sapolsky
Thanks to Kjetil for passing this along.
Humans used to be unique in lots of ways. We were the only species who made tools, murdered each other, passed on culture. And each of those supposed defining features has now been demonstrated in other species. We’re not so special after all. But there are still ways that humans appear to stand alone. One of those is hugely important: the human capacity to think symbolically. Metaphors, similes, parables, figures of speech—they exert enormous power over us. We kill for symbols, die for them. Yet symbols generate one of the most magnificent human inventions: art.
In recent years scientists from leading universities, including UCLA, University College London, and Yale, have made remarkable insights into the neurobiology of symbols. A major finding from their work is that the brain is not very good at distinguishing between the metaphorical and literal. In fact, as scientists have shown us, symbols and metaphors, and the morality they engender, are the product of clunky processes in our brains.
- Robert Sapolsky Interview With Nautilus
Link to interview: Ingenious: Robert Sapolsky What I’ve been thinking might actually be going on is that adolescence is something unavoidable that emerges not because it’s so cool and adaptive, but because the adaptive thing is wait a long, long...
- Across 1,000 Genomes, Rarities Abound
Every person’s genetic instruction book is a trove of never-before-seen genetic variants, according to an ongoing effort to map human genetic diversity. In recent years, scientists have discovered that humans carry far more rare genetic variants than...
- Publication Of The Gorilla Genome Opens Window Onto Human Evolution
Found via the RDFRS. The sequence of the gorilla genome is published today, completing the set for the living great apes. The findings provide a unique perspective on our own origins and are an important resource for research into human evolution and...
- What’s A Man?
Studies of brain genetics are starting to reveal what makes humans human THE problem with understanding human uniqueness is precisely that it is unique. Though the proper study of mankind may be man, that study will yield little if there is no reference...
- Skeletons Open Window To New Species
CRADLE OF HUMANKIND, South Africa – Nine-year-old Matthew Berger dashed after his dog Tau into the high grass one sunny morning, tripped over a log and stumbled onto a major archaeological discovery. Scientists said Thursday that he had found the bones...