Integral Options Cafe

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Don Beck on Emergent Stages

Don Beck makes another cogent defense of the Spiral theory, and in this case, a point that I think gets repeatedly lost when AQAL proponents dismiss SDi as nothing more than a values line in the integral model.

As far as I am concerned, the identification of the eight stages is of secondary usefulness, at best. The important element in the Spiral model is how it addresses and understands change -- how new stages emerge or don't emerge, based on a variety of factors.

This is from the SDi listserve.

With regard to the current conversation regarding 4Q/8L -- our version is 4Q/8L and AQAL is Wilber's version, the concept of "allometry" might be of use. The danger is to reduce the quadrants to separated boxes as if they are self contained entities. They are not. In a recent posting I made on Third Tier, I described the role of the Spiral in the vortex among the four, as the "verb" that drives the "rise" and meshes the various concentrations and combinations. It is quite OK to separate them for an educational purpose but quite reductionistic and artificial to attempt to decide which one comes first etc. etc. This is the reason we use the term "Integral."

The real contribution of Graves and Spiral Dynamics is not in the array of levels that he identified in his research; rather, the key is in the Dynamics of the Spiral itself.

I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how other theories explain how/why/when the emergence occurs. To my knowledge Graves offers the very best explanation within the "Double Helix" - the interaction between/among Life Conditions, human Capacities, and specific Contexts. As early as 1971 at a presentation in Washington DC (National Institute of Mental Health) he "climbed out on a fragile limb" to declare how Life Conditions shape what we know as the interiors, and why these patterns have correlates within the brain's structure, neuronets, chemical flows, and energy swirls ... nobody else was saying it so well, especially then.

When I speak or write of Spiral Dynamics, I'm referring to the "emergent, cyclical, double helix model of bio-psycho-social systems" -- the Master Code -- not the specific "systems" that many have identified. I didn't find any of this in Loevinger's initial research, for example, and have difficulty tracking the process that creates new world views or value systems in other models. This is one of the reasons I decided, after studying 42 systemic models, that I should cast my lot with Clare. I have never had second thoughts.

( We just completed an empirical study of 20,000 people in Iceland.)

I think this is a useful clarification. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Wile E Coyote - Zip Zip Hooray

In response to two young children watching his adventures, Wile E Coyote explains to his young viewers why he wants to eat the road runner.

There's a kind of erasing of boundaries in this episode that I like -- there's also a self-referential humor that is cool.

via videosift.com

Satire - Report: American Schools Trail Behind World In Aptitude Of Child Soldiers

The Onion News Network is back from vacation.

Report: American Schools Trail Behind World In Aptitude Of Child Soldiers

Monday, January 07, 2008

Tribal Religion, Transcendent Religion

Eboo Patel, author of The Faith Divide blog at the Washington Post, has posted this partially true but useful (inasmuch as it recognizes that all faith is not the same) entry:

Tribal Religion, Transcendent Religion

There is a story about a Christian minister living abroad during World War II. His congregation sends him money so that he can return home for Christmas. When he doesn’t come back, they ask him why. He says that he used the money to help a group of Jews escape Hitler’s death camps and flee to safety.

“But they’re not even Christian,” writes one member of his congregation.

“Yes, I know,” the minister responds. “But I am.”

All religions have both types of people – the tribal and the transcendent. The tribal type see in the particular narratives of their tradition a narrowing of concern, and therefore care only about the people who look like them, talk like them and pray like them.

The transcendent see in the same particularity a universalizing of care, and therefore focus their energies on all people, especially groups most in need, regardless of creed.

If tribal religion wins, it necessarily pits groups against one another based on identity, and it means that people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris are right – religion will destroy everything.

If transcendent faith wins, it opens the possibility for different identity groups to use their particular narratives to articulate a collective vision that includes everybody.

If that isn’t the future, there will be no future.

This is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my faith heroes. A German Lutheran religious scholar and pastor, he was one of the most important leaders in the resistance to Hitler in Germany, ultimately dying for his cause.

After Kristallnacht, he said to his fellow Christians on German radio, “Those who did not stand up for the Jews do not deserve to sing Gregorian Chants.”

Bonhoeffer died for the Jews of Europe because he was a Christian, one who found the transcendent instead of the tribal in the particular. Drawing on the depths of his faith, Bonhoeffer spoke of “the cost of discipleship” -- which meant a commitment to the transcendent ethic of Jesus and the universalizing word of God, not a narrow concern for a tribe that shared his particular religious rituals.

All of our faiths have a definition of discipleship that transcends the tribe. Acting on it determines the quality of our faith, and the possibility of our future.

Patel's distinction is useful, if simplified, in the current debate between the atheists and religion. Dawkins, in particular, sees ALL religion and all forms of faith as harmful. Most of the others also have issues with faith in one way or another, but transcendent faith, as Patel describes it, should be something we seek to encourage.

We might, again in an overly simplified way, see transcendent faith as the "healthy" form of religion. If we accept that premise, we should encourage those who hold a religious (as opposed to spiritual) worldview to become less tribal and more transcendent. I'm not sure how we would do this, but it seems like an issue worth considering.

Speedlinking 1/7/08

Quote of the day:

"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."
~ Oscar Levant

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Twenty of the World's Healthiest Foods -- "When it comes to eating healthy most people think of dull, boring food that's green in color. In reality, most of the world's healthiest foods not only taste great, they also come in a vast array of vibrant colors. Many require little, if any preparation, yet provide you with the energy and stamina to get through the day. They are the ultimate fast food!" The list doesn't include fish or chicken, but it's still useful.
~ Plyometrics: Getting Stronger And Faster -- "Plyometrics are a form of exercise designed to produce the greatest strength gains in as short a time as possible. Plyometrics actually use gravity to store potential energy in the muscles, then quickly turn this stored energy into kinetic energy. Here are some examples of plyometric drills that can be useful to a guy who plays football recreationally, or who is looking to just increase their strength and add variation to their workouts." I LOVE plyos.
~ The 2008 Fat Loss Roundtable, Part I -- "It's the New Year, the traditional time to think about ditching all that blubber. What's the best way to do it, low carbs, low fat, low calories, exercise, supplements, or some novel approach?"
~ Pilates: Why Every Guy Should Try It -- "Pilates is a fitness craze taking the world by storm. Classes are popping up in gyms, home fitness gurus like Denise Austin have put out video tapes, and Pilates mats are being sold everywhere from Target to health food stores. More and more men are practicing Pilates by the day."
~ How to Exercise in Cold Weather -- "It’s freezing outside, it’s freezing when you exercise. Your home gym isn’t isolated. Your gym manager doesn’t heat the gym. But that doesn’t stop you. You decided to stop making excuses not to exercise because it’s too cold."
~ Chronic Pain Relieved By Strength Training Of Neck Muscles -- "Neck pain has been steadily increasing over the past two decades and is now second to back pain, the most common musculoskeletal disorder. Women are more likely than men to suffer from persistent neck pain, in particular those who engage in repetitive tasks such as working at a computer keyboard."
~ Help your preteen get strong the safe way -- "You would expect to find pre-algebra, American history and grammar in a middle-school curriculum, but what about a lifetime lesson in fitness? As childhood obesity reaches epidemic proportions, an increasing number of schools are paying closer attention to what's being taught during physical education."
~ Scientists Explain How Alcohol Causes Hypoglycemia (Too Low Blood Sugar) -- "Scientists at the leading Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now disclosed the mystery how alcohol may cause exaggerated insulin secretion resulting in severe hypoglycemia (too low blood sugar)."

PSYCHE/SELF
~ Actually, happiness isn't within -- "There is, it turns out, little difference between You and Me. Both outlooks reflect a firmly held and particularly American belief that happiness lies deep inside the inner you, or me, or whatever.The self-help industry has it wrong."
~ Language doesn't influence our thoughts ... except when it does [Cognitive Daily] -- "The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis -- stated in its strongest form -- claims that language determines thoughts: if a language doesn't have a means of expressing a particular idea, then people speaking that language can't even conceive of that idea. This strong form has long since been rejected: There are plenty of thoughts we can have without having the words to express them."
~ Progress & Change Aren't Possible if You Keep Doing the Same Things -- "When you feel safe inside of the status quo of whatever it is you have done to this point in your life, and when you feel safe in any field of endeavour that has formed part of your life to this point, you are inside your comfort zone. It is only when you notice the tug of fear, of apprehension, perhaps merely of discomfort, that you actually are feeling the call of what may very well lead to potential growth and change."
~ Fantasies: In Your Dreams -- "Why anxious women fantasize about anonymous sex."
~ How Do We Know When We Have Enough? -- "One of the challenges we face in life is realizing when we have enough. Often there are times when we think we need more of something only to find out that we had it all along. Other times, we feel our lives are missing something – we feel an emptiness that we can’t identify. That emptiness is often a sign that we are missing or don’t have enough of a certain item in our life – be it enough family time, education, happiness or a myriad of other things."
~ The Four Laws of Simplicity, and How to Apply Them to Life -- "It’s been nearly a decade since I first started trying to simplify my life, and in those years I’ve struggled with clutter, I’ve had surges and ebbs of complications and simplicity, I’ve tried dozens of methods of simplifying from as many sources. It’s been an interesting journey, although not one that I can recommend to everyone. If you’re looking to simplify a certain aspect of your life, you don’t want to go through that kind of confusion."
~ Sol Snyder on Finding God in the Brain [Terra Sigillata] -- "The first 2008 issue of New England Journal of Medicine came yesterday in the snailmail box and I read the following story with such great interest that I nearly walked into a tree. Bear with me but the news lately has taken me on a neuroscience streak without my having specific professional expertise in the area."
~ The reading cure -- "The idea that literature can make us emotionally and physically stronger goes back to Plato. But now book groups are proving that Shakespeare can be as beneficial as self-help guides. Blake Morrison investigates the rise of bibliotherapy."

CULTURE/POLITICS
~ "There Will be Blood" wins top critics' awards -- "'There Will Be Blood' took top honors from the National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, scoring wins for best picture, best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson."
~ Will the Humanities Save Us? -- "Do the humanities ennoble? And for that matter, is it the business of the humanities, or of any other area of academic study, to save us? The answer in both cases, I think, is no."
~ Revolution -- "Change, particularly generational change, was also at the heart of Barack Obama's victory over John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. Voters under 30 supported him by better than 5 to 1 and he carried independents by more than 2 to 1, according to media entrance polls."
~ Look back in wonder -- "What is the nature of memory? And can it be captured in literature? Craig Raine considers the most successful attempts at doing so, from Wordsworth's 'spots of time' to Proust's tea-soaked madeleines."
~ Can You Count on Voting Machines? -- "But when Platten went to retrieve paper copies of each vote — generated by the Diebold machines as they worked — she discovered that so many printers had jammed that 20 percent of the machines involved in the recounted races lacked paper copies of some of the votes. They weren’t lost, technically speaking; Platten could hit “print” and a machine would generate a replacement copy. But she had no way of proving that these replacements were, indeed, what the voters had voted. She could only hope the machines had worked correctly."
~ Election 2008: What Happens When Politicians Promise Change -- "It is hard to imagine the candidates providing much change when their political strategists are the same crew who've been around for years."
~ You're a Good Man, Charlie Gibson -- "Saturday night's GOP/Democratic debate featured an unusual moment: ABC's Charlie Gibson, its moderator, took advantage of the debate's back-to-back, Republicans-then-Democrats format to ask all the candidates, from both parties, to share the stage."
~ GOP's Focus Is Fear -- "Look for an emphasis on terrorism, taxes, and immigration." That ain't news, it's GOP politics as usual.

HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Some Biofuels Are Worse Environmentally Than Fossil Fuels, Analysis Shows -- "Biofuels reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in comparison to fossil fuels. In the journal Science, researchers consider environmental costs of biofuel production. Corn, soy and sugarcane come up short. The authors urge governments to be far more selective about which biofuels they support, as not all are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels."
~ Intel Banks on Another Wireless Gadget -- "Intel Corp. is betting on a big expansion of "ultra-mobile" computing, an idea that depends on people being willing to tote around a portable device beyond their ubiquitous cell phones."
~ Sunspot is harbinger of new solar cycle, increasing risk for electrical systems -- "A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late Thursday when the cycle`s first sunspot appeared in the sun`s Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said."
~ Ceramic hybrid needles take the sting out of shots -- "New polymerization technology may one day take the pain out of injections and blood draws. A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina and Laser Zentrum Hannover have recently used two-photon polymerization to create hollow needles so fine patients wouldn`t feel them piercing their skin. Clustered together on a patch, these microneedles can deliver drugs or draw blood efficiently as standard hypodermic needles."
~ Prairie grass energy boost studied in the field -- "Using switchgrass as a biofuel yields five times more energy than is used to grow it."
~ Why Are Chickens Getting So Fat? -- "Over the years, poultry breeders have bred chickens that grow faster and produce more meat in response to a growing worldwide consumer demand. But modern broiler/breeder chickens don't adequately balance their feed consumption to match their energy requirements. When these birds are given unrestricted access to feed, they will overeat and become obese."
~ Scientists find cultural differences among chimpanzee colonies -- "Socially-learned cultural behaviour thought to be unique to humans is also found among chimpanzees colonies, scientists at the University of Liverpool have found."

INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Allowing Nirvikalpa -- "There's an interesting comment from an earlier post that I thought was worth responding to. It's from mayagaia, who has an interesting website worth checking."
~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali Tells It Like It Is -- "Ayaan Hirsi Ali reviews The Suicide of Reason by Lee Harris on the NYTimes Sunday Book Review. She sympathized with Lee Harris on his efforts to bring about awareness on radical Islam, but then she left a big gaping hole on the main argument put forth by the book."
~ Why I Don't {Heart} Huckabee -- "I'm quite sure that Mike Huckabee has policies that make perfect sense to his supporters, not to mention their attraction to his religiosity. Case in point: See this Exclusive Interview: Governor Huckabee Speaks with Catholic Online. But this article on Physorg puts it succinctly...."
~ Steve Whitmire on Integral Naked - It's Not Easy Being Teal -- "Steve Whitmire is one of the few individuals who has carried on the whole-hearted legacy of Jim Henson, and the mastery and development of puppetry through Jim’s unique Muppets. Since the passing of Jim Henson in 1990, Steve has served as the animating force and puppeteer for beloved characters such as Kermit the Frog and Sesame Street’s Ernie."
~ Overcoming gender -- "Your gender is a constraint. This is an inalienable truism, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman."
~ Meditation as Natural History -- "To say that the world is an illusion is not to say that there is nothing going on out there. This is the kind of claim that may succeed in amusing idle philosophers and would-be mystics, but that is pretty darned useless for any other earthly purposes. And earthly purposes are the purposes I care about."
~ The Universe Project Continued... -- Andrew Cohen -- "Deepak [Chopra], I’ve come to appreciate, is a deeply genuine and authentic human being. He’s thoughtful, reflective, sensitive, generous, and caring. I have to admit that I didn’t always see him this way. My original—and erroneous—impression from his public persona (and I hope he will forgive me for saying this!) was that he was kind of a lightweight salesman whose ambition superseded his spiritual depth."

Daily Dharma: Hidden Wealth

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Hidden Wealth

Imagine a very poor man living in a decrepit little shanty, the only thing he owns in the world. What he does not know is that just beneath his shanty, but hidden in the dirt, is an inexhaustible vein of gold. As long as he remains ignorant of his hidden wealth, this pauper remains in poverty; but when he attends more closely to his own dwelling, he is bound to discover his own fathomless wealth. Similarly, all we need to do is unveil our own nature, and we will find an inexhaustible source of wisdom, compassion, and power. It is nothing we need to acquire, from anywhere or anything. It has always been there. Seen in this light, the Buddha-nature requires no additions. One does not have to memorize sutras, recite prayers or accumulate virtues to create it. All one needs to do is unveil it.
~ B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

John Searle on the Human Mind and the Nature of Intelligence

An interesting, though brief, defense of mind and soul from the onslaught of rationalist, reductionist models that "computerize" the brain and discard the idea of consciousness. But Searle's concept of "intentionality" still is not sufficient for neuroscience to accept the idea of consciousness.

From Ovi:

Modern rationalists whose paradigm of reality is Descartes’ philosophy and its idea that we are nothing but so much matter extended into space and complicated biological machines are fond of pointing out that our brains are similar to a computer program and that therefore computers are conscious or will soon be. In some way artificial intelligence is superior to human intelligence: quicker, more precise, clearer and so the sooner we become “humbots,” the better. After all, doesn’t a computer beat most of us at chess most of the times? What is never mentioned, or is considered superseded in this kind of reductionism, are the ideas of mind and soul, very well know to the ancients as integral characteristics of human beings.

But we need not go all the way back to Plato, or closer to us, Vico, to find major opponents of this dehumanizing view of the nature of man. There is a contemporary philosopher of language still alive who has dedicated his life to the study of the mind and has become a pioneer in the field of cognitive science. His name is John Searle.

Searle counters what he dubs “strong AI” (Artificial Intelligence) with a famous thought experiment, which he calls the Chinese Room argument. This is how it goes: imagine you find yourself in a room containing an enormous rule book, which allows you to look up Chinese sentences and tells you how to reply to them in Chinese. Through a hole in the wall you are handed a piece of paper with a question written on it in Chinese. Using the rule book, you look up the answer to this question which you write on another piece of paper, in Chinese, and pass through another hole. To the people outside the room you appear to have thorough understanding of the Chinese language, whereas in fact you could perform the required task without understanding a word of it.

Searle argues that the Chinese room is an analogy for so-called artificial intelligence. The rule book is the equivalent of a computer program, which manipulates symbols according to a set of rules, and produces answers. By doing so it can give the appearance of being intelligent. But it is nothing of the sort. A computer model of the mind is not actually conscious, just as a computer model of the digestive system cannot actually eat pizza. A computer model of falling in love or reading a novel or getting drunk does not actually experience these things, but simply produces a simulation of these processes. The basic ingredient that distinguishes human minds from computers, according to Searle, is intentionality. Computers are defined syntactically, in terms of formal symbol manipulation, and that, he argues, is insufficient to imply consciousness.

So if consciousness is not something that can be experienced by a computer, what is it exactly and how does it emerge? In his theories about the mind and consciousness, Searle rejects Cartesian dualism—that the mind is something non-physical and separate from the body. He also rejects the reductionism of thinkers such as Daniel Dennet, who believe that consciousness can be reduced to a series of physical processes in the brain similar to a software program.

Instead Searle adopts a position which he call biological naturalism. As per this view, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of the brain. To explain what he means by this, he cites as an analogy the liquidity, or wetness, of water as being an emergent phenomenon brought about by the behavior of the molecules that it is composed of. You cannot pinpoint a particular molecule and say “this one is wet”—the wetness is a feature of the whole system of molecules. In the same way, one cannot point to a neuron and say “this one is conscious.” Consciousness emerges as a result of the whole system. Events at the micro-level—perhaps at the level of individual neurons—causes a phenonmenon, which we call consciousness, at the macro-level.

Some have seen biological naturalism as a form of dualism since micro-level properties can be objectively studied by a brain surgeon. But the brain surgeon cannot in the same way access macro-level properties such as pain, desire, joy. Searle rejects this suggestion. He stresses that consciousness is a type of physical property; it is not something separate like a kind of juice that is squirted out by the neurons, it is the state that the system is in, part of that system and inseparable from it. How it works—how micro-level behavior creates consciousness at the macro level—is a question for the neuroscientists. But as a problem for philosophers, Searle regards it as solved.

His philosophy solves it by intentionality which is the attachment of meaning to an object, such as a belief about it, possession of it or contempt towards it. In his Collective Intentions and Actions, Searle seeks to show how intentionality can operate on the collective level. He contends that collective intentional behavior exists and is not the same as the sum of individual intentional behavior. Vico called it “common sense” while Jung calls it “the collective unconscious,” but Seale insists that there is no such thing as group mind or group consciousness; society consists of individuals. In this there are clear parallels with his theories of mind and his rejection of dualism and reductionism as explanations of consciousness.

In his The Construction of Social Reality (1996), Searle applies his theory of intentionality to society, looking at the way certain aspects of our world are created as a result of the combined intentionality of those who make use of them. We assign functions to physical objects—turning matter into chairs, money, swimming pools and countries, for example—by our common intention to treat objects in that way, and by our willingness to conform to rules for the treatment of those objects.

Other essential readings for an in depth study of Searle’s theories are Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969), Minds, Brains and Programs (1980), Intentionality: an Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983).

Merlin Donald is attacking this issue from the realm of neuroscience itself, and therefore makes a stronger case. You can check out a selection of his articles online (all are PDF format).

More on this, and on Donald's viewpoint when I have more time.

Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie: The Subject of Language

I love these guys.

via videosift.com

Philip Glass - Sesame Street Animation

Strange. Maybe this explains the Gen Y fascination with trance music.

Description:

Sesame Street has featured some surprising musical guests since its debut in 1969 (has any other show ever included a singing appearance by Ralph Nader?), but we were the wrong age (too old to be children, too young to have children) during its foray into minimalist, avant-garde music videos. Written in 1979, when Philip Glass was still relatively little-known and cutting-edge, the pieces, called “Geometry of Circles,” paired gorgeously animated geometric shapes with his entrancing music. And Glass makes sense for Sesame Street: What child doesn’t like bright colors and strangely calming, repetitive music?

Now you can see “Geometry of Circles” on YouTube (of course) in an extended format that combines the four available clips into one. Glass is one of the few living “serious” composers most people in Generation X recognize — and this clip will show you why: He started courting this audience when it was in diapers.

via videosift.com

Gever Tulley: 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do

A rather interesting TED Talk.

Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about our new wave of overprotected kids -- and spells out 5 (and really, he's got 6) dangerous things you should let your kids do. Allowing kids the freedom to explore, he says, will make them stronger and smarter and actually safer.
This talk comes from TED University 2007, a pre-conference program where TEDsters share ideas.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

The Dalai Lama on Compassion

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week from Snow Lion Publications:

In the frenzy of modern life we lose sight of the real value of humanity. People become the sum total of what they produce. Human beings act like machines whose function is to make money. This is absolutely wrong. The purpose of making money is the happiness of humankind, not the other way around. Humans are not for money, money is for humans. We need enough to live, so money is necessary, but we also need to realize that if there is too much attachment to wealth, it does not help at all. As the saints of India and Tibet tell us, the wealthier one becomes, the more suffering one endures.

...Eating, working, and making money are meaningless in themselves. However, even a small act of compassion grants meaning and purpose to our lives.

~ From How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by the Dalai Lama, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins

Christopher Hitchens on Freedom of Speech

Hitchens is always entertaining.

Context:

Christopher Hitchens was invited to speak at the University of Toronto's Hart House Debating Club on the topic, "Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate."

Part One:

Part Two:

National Geographic - Journey of Man

Very long and cool documentary - contains all 13 parts.

From National Geographic:

By analyzing DNA from people in all regions of the world, geneticist Spencer Wells has concluded that all humans alive today are descended from a single man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago.
Modern humans, he contends, didn't start their spread across the globe until after that time. Most archaeologists would say the exodus began 100,000 years ago—a 40,000-year discrepancy.
Wells's take on the origins of modern humans and how they came to populate the rest of the planet is bound to be controversial.
His work adds to an already crowded field of opposing hypotheses proposed by those who seek answers in "stones and bones"—archaeologists and paleoanthropologists—and those who seek them in our blood—population geneticists and molecular biologists.

Over the last decade, major debate on whether early humans evolved in Africa or elsewhere, when they began outward migration, where they went, and whether they interbred with or replaced archaic species has moved out of scientific journals and into the public consciousness.
Wells addresses these issues in a new book, The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, and a National Geographic documentary of the same title. In a straightforward story, he explains how he traced the exodus of modern humans from Africa by analyzing genetic changes in DNA from the y-chromosome.
"As often happens in science," he said, "technology has opened up a field to new ways of answering old questions—often providing startling answers."
Of course, not everyone agrees with him.

Read the rest.

via videosift.com

Pages

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Monday, January 07, 2008

Sunday, January 06, 2008