Evolution, Richard Dawkins, Genes

Progressive Evolution?

Professor Dawkins’s great intellectual conviction is that evolution is progressive, and tends to lead to more and more complexity. Species, in his view, often arrive at similar solutions to evolutionary puzzles — the need for ears, eyes, arms or an octopus’s tentacle. And, often although not invariably, bigger brains. So the saber-toothed tiger shows up as a cat in Europe and Asia, and as a marsupial in South America. Different species seized on the same carnivorous solution. (He most certainly does not, however, view evolution as progressing toward us, that is humans — were we to disappear, some other species most likely would fill our evolutionary niche.)

Governance

The new hires, who worked as project head coordinators, executive officers, technical writers, project evaluators, field inspectors, client assistance officers, field coordinators, office aides and area coordinators, were paid from P5,000 to P18,500 each. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/54813/coa-probes-3000-qc-%E2%80%98ghost%E2%80%99-workers

Francis Fukuyama, Origins of Political Order

Dr. Fukuyama, a political scientist, is concerned mostly with the cultural, not biological, aspects of human society. But he explicitly assumes that human social nature is universal and is built around certain evolved behaviors like favoring relatives, reciprocal altruism, creating and following rules, and a propensity for warfare. Because of this shared human nature, with its biological foundation, “human politics is subject to certain recurring patterns of behavior across time and across cultures,” he writes. It is these worldwide patterns he seeks to describe in an analysis that stretches from prehistoric times to the French Revolution. http://nyti.ms/pgU3ZM