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Placebo Buttons?

A recent article suggested that many of the buttons/toggles that we experience in our daily lives...

The Development Of Social Monogamy In Mammals

Two papers published this week have proposed explanations regarding the evolution of social monogamy...

Easy Answers To World Problems

After reading another article by Alex Berezow ["The Arrogance of a Well-Fed Society"] insisting...

The Precautionary Principle Review

There is an interesting series of articles published by the Guardian discussing various aspects...

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Gerhard AdamRSS Feed of this column.

I'm not big on writing things about myself so a friend on this site (Brian Taylor) opted to put a few sentences together: Hopefully I'll be able to live up to his claims. "I thought perhaps you... Read More »

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Self-interest versus Selfishness

Self-interest versus Selfishness

Jul 04 2009 | comment(s)

What seems to be the problem in recognizing these words as being separate concepts?  Everytime I look there's another abuse of the word "selfish" when "self-interest" is intended.  Ranging from Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness (which immediately redefines selfishness so that it really isn't), to Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene (which is redefined so that it really isn't), to the following quote from The Introduction to Economic Analysis which states that people in economic models are "entirely selfish.  (The technical term is acting in one's self-interest)"

The Power of Genetics

The Power of Genetics

Jul 02 2009 | comment(s)

I watched a television program the other night called the "Power of Genetics".  Although it was obviously a few years old, just listening to it set my spider senses to tingling.

There was the talk about cloning (animals and people), the gene therapies for comestic purposes (baldness), genetic engineering, human immortality, and, of course, the obligatory scientist-CEO with the thinly-veiled hope that they would soon be filthy rich running a bio-tech firm.
Concept of Intelligence - Part 3

Concept of Intelligence - Part 3

Jun 29 2009 | comment(s)

As we saw in the previous posts, Part 1 and Part 2,many animals have the ability to abstract concepts and to abstract solutions to various problems. So what’s left? I am going to postulate that what separates humans from all the other animals, is the ability to abstract problems.
Concept of Intelligence - Part 2

Concept of Intelligence - Part 2

Jun 27 2009 | comment(s)

In Part 1 of this series, we introduced some of the basic concepts and steps associated with the development of cognition and how more and more sophisticated responses to problems may have emerged in species.  In this part, we want to continue by exploring some of the elements that make up what we consider to be "intelligence".
Exploring the Concept of Intelligence

Exploring the Concept of Intelligence

Jun 26 2009 | comment(s)

Having been inspired by a series of articles by Becky Jungbauer, I thought it might be useful to explore the basic concept of intelligence and its possible origins.

Any creature which has sensory organs of any type is collecting information. The only reason to collect information is to use it in making choices. Whether it be to eat something or not, or to move, or to mate, these are all choices that are made based on the information available to the organism.
The Problem Of Kin Selection Theory

The Problem Of Kin Selection Theory

Jun 12 2009 | comment(s)

Kin selection is one of those special considerations derived from “selfish gene theory” that postulates that it is the degree of relatedness between organisms that will determine the likelihood that altruistic actions will occur. This also clearly implies the existence of a social group, of some type, so it isn’t expected that it would play a role between members of different species, or among asocial animals (although it could).

In general the idea of “kin selection” is that individuals are more apt to behave altruistically to “blood relatives” than to others in the interest of propagating their genes into future generations. A classic example occurs in eusocial insects where sterile females help maintain the colony for the reproductive queen.