Do altruistic groups always beat selfish groups? A new book claims they do.
Melvin Konner
Melvin Konner, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Emory University, is the author of The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Our Bodies, Our Choices
The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering by Michael J. Sandel (Belknap Press, 162 pages, $18.95) Most religious traditions today not only accept advances in medical science but regard them in some sense as a moral imperative. Christians say, “God helps those who help themselves,” Jews are urged to “repair the […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Fat and the Fire
Generation Extra Large: Rescuing Our Children from the Epidemic of Obesity by Lisa Tartamella, Elaine Herscher, and Chris Woolston (Basic Books, 272 pages, $25.00) Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Fatness Epidemic by Sharron Dalton (University of California Press, 292 pages, $24.95) Consuming Kids: The Hostile […]
Posted inFeatures
Books in Review
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature By Steven Pinker. Viking Press, 509 pages, $27.95 Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom By Paul H. Rubin. Rutgers University Press, 256 pages, $25.00 Among the calamities of the 20th century were vast social experiments that tried to transform humanity with disastrous consequences. The Nazi […]
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Darwin’s Truth, Jefferson’s Vision
When scientists on the left began attacking sociobiology, liberals nodded their heads. But take another look. The supposed contradiction between Darwinian reasoning and liberal political philosophy was based on a misunderstanding of both.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
One Pill Makes You Larger
The development of human growth hormone and antidepressants like Prozac has already begun to blur the line between “treating” an illness and “enhancing” an otherwise already healthy person, making it difficult for insurance companies to know how and what to pay for.
