The practice of interment and its associated rituals are features of human symbolism and practiced by most cultures. One unique burial ritual prevalent in ancient and medieval South Asia was the sky burial. These burial sites - termed charnel grounds - were typically found near large river banks or on mountain plateaus. At these sites,… Continue reading Charnel Grounds
Tag: Evolution
The Single Aim
Evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel’s second rule of biology states that “evolution is smarter than you are.” Evolution and its mechanisms can explain much of the seemingly boundless complexity and organization evident in biological ecosystems. As I discussed in my last essay, biological evolution with its objective function of survival and reproduction driven by the processes… Continue reading The Single Aim
Culture Clash
William Faulkner wrote, “all human behavior is unpredictable, and considering man’s frailty...and the ramshackle universe he functions in, it’s all irrational.” Despite this claim, scientists from disciplines ranging from economics and mathematics to anthropology and psychology have laboriously attempted to uncover patterns within the morass. Game theory is one such approach that starts with the… Continue reading Culture Clash
😴💤
The 20th-century evolutionary biologist, Theodosius Dobzhansky, said, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” From the perspective of evolution and its twin fitness functions of survival and reproduction, sleep is a seemingly difficult phenomenon to make sense of and explain. When we are asleep, we cannot gather food, socialize, find a… Continue reading 😴💤
Only Entropy Comes Easy
Approximately five hundred years ago, the North African polymath, Ibn-Khaldun, observed that “the goal of civilization is sedentary culture and luxury. When civilization reaches that goal, it turns towards corruption and starts being senile, as happens in the natural life of living beings.” The analogous natural history of socially constructed civilizations and the biologically constructed… Continue reading Only Entropy Comes Easy
Nature, red in tooth and claw
In Wealth of Nations first published in 1776, Adam Smith stated that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them… Continue reading Nature, red in tooth and claw
Thoughts Think Themselves
The physicist, Neils Bohr, said: “prediction is hard, especially about the future.” The statement was made in jest, but no matter what the fortune tellers, prognosticators, priests, or experts say, humans cannot perceive the future, but can only infer it. These inferences enable us to assess risk and react to opportunities presented by the environment. These inferences range… Continue reading Thoughts Think Themselves
Sugar Daddy
Sugar has played a key role in the history of humanity since it was domesticated on the island of New Guinea approximately 10,000 years ago. The New Guineans picked the cane and ate it raw. They, like billions of people afterwards, were hooked and the sugar cane was featured prominently in their myths. Thereafter, sugar… Continue reading Sugar Daddy
Solvitur Ambulando
My wife and I recently spent a magnificent three weeks in Southern Africa. We were amazed at the wildlife in Botswana’s and Namibia’s national parks, which are the closest approximation of the freedom the animals enjoyed in their past. Unlike the not too distant past, the watering holes scattered around Etosha National Park were the… Continue reading Solvitur Ambulando
S-Fxn 