Evidence suggests that human morality is a synthesis of many factors: the biological, the cultural, the unlearned and the invented. It all begins at birth when we come into the world with a moral foundation, a basis of morality, which helps us survive as individuals within a group. Robert Ornstein, PhD; David Sobel, MD, MPH; and …
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During most of humanity’s existence, Earth’s climate has been harsh and hostile. In the few million years since the first of our genus appeared, lands in the north were largely buried beneath layers of ice as much as two miles (three kilometers) high, while elsewhere it was dry and barren. Scientists call this time the …
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Prehistoric Aboriginal painting of Mini Spirits – Wikicommons Many cave paintings were likely created as part of a ritual that took place in underground environments, and in which our ancient ancestors re-created and re-worked their out-of-body visions. By Robert Ornstein, PhD, Sally Mallam, and Doug Keefe, PhDContributing Writers In their book Art and Human Development, Constance Milbrath and Cynthia Lightfoot cite …
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Muir Glacier, Alaska: August 13, 1941 and August 31, 2004 (NASA photos: William Field and Bruce Molnia). Like other animals, on some level humans have always understood our dependence on the weather and the changing seasons. Modern climate science, a combination of many disciplines, has given us knowledge of how the weather and the seasons …
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Featured Book The Gap The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals Thomas SuddendorfHardcover edition 2013 Our drive to understand one another and our ability to imagine different possible futures is what makes us different from other animals. These two qualities transformed communication into language and empathy into morality. They enabled us to share …
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The spillway of the dam in Oroville California collapsed after a period of unusually heavy rains in 2017 Mimicking the natural processes of the water cycle is a key component of this new “soft” direction. In the 20th century, massive dams, aqueducts, and centralized treatment plants dominated water planning. This infrastructure produced some of the …
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Featured Book Thinking Big How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind Robin Dunbar, Clive Gamble & John GowlettHardcover edition 2014 Today we all exemplify, and our contemporary culture continues to be driven by, the same social brain — including the community sizes and levels of intentionality — that appeared with the earliest …
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Featured Book Religious Evolution and the Axial Age From Shamans to Priests to Prophets Hardcover edition 2018 By Stephen K. Sanderson Reported by Sally MallamContributing Writer Why are there are so many different types of religion and how and why has religion evolved over time? The answer lies in both our biological and our sociocultural …
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For millennia it was a common practice to wipe out personal debts from time to time and begin social relations anew. But such a thing would be far more difficult today, in an economy driven by debt, rather than earnings, where even bankers and economists disagree on how money is created. By George KasabovContributing Writer …
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With no first-handwritten documents of their past, survivors turned to traditional storytellers. By Sally MallamContributing Writer Although we know little about this time, we know a great deal more than the Greeks did. But this, in a sense, left the Greek survivors free from the constraints of evidentiary history, to turn instead to the world …
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The story of the Jewish people traditionally begins about 1,800 BCE with the birth of Abraham (originally named Abram) whose insight was that the entire universe was the work of a single Creator. Then “… the one true Creator that Abram had worshipped called to him and made him an offer: if Abram would leave …
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Featured Book The Future Six Drivers of Global Change Al GorePaperback edition 2013 The global economy, a global “mind” powered by the internet, a shifting global power structure, unsustainable growth, breakthroughs in life sciences and the threats to our ecological foundations are converging to present an unprecedented challenge and opportunity. Can we muster the collective …
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