Matt Ridley: The promiscuity of things and ideas
On the evening of Wednesday, 19 May, 2010, author Matt Ridley gave an hour-long talk on his new book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. He spoke at the New York Academy of Sciences, at its headquarters at the newly constructed 7 World Trade Center, which provides stunning views of Manhattan and, as Ridley pointed out at the start of his talk, represents the resilience and ingenuity he believes to be typical of human beings, and which informs his optimism about our future. The event was a part of the “Science in the City” series. About 100 people were in attendance, and the event was filmed for C-SPAN’s Book TV. Ridley is an engaging speaker, eminently clear, speaking at a measured pace in simple but elegant language, humor simmering just below the surface, coming up at just the right moments. He’s excited about his work, and he makes the audience excited about it too. He exhibited model form as a speaker, outlining his talk at the start, and sticking to his plan throughout. Its Book TV presentation is highly recommended; consult the Book TV or NYAS site for schedule information. Science in the City frequently makes podcasts or video footage of its events available on its site as well.
My aim here is to give readers rapid access to the central claims and arguments of the talk. Note that everything I say here is drawn from the talk rather than the book, although it’s reasonable to believe that the aim of his talk is to convey the book’s main ideas. I stay away from evaluating his claims, which I intend to do in a later post. Here I just want to give readers a clear sense of what Ridley is up to.
Blog Carnival of Evolution #23
Filed under: Blogging, Evolution: Education & Outreach news, Science writing
Greetings all! Everyone go visit
http://blogs.springer.com/evoo/?p=369
and look at this month’s Blog Carnival of Evolution.
All posts are really excellent, focusing on important topics in evolutionary biology. It makes for exciting and informative reading.
Entelechy: Online journal of ideas with an evolutionary flavor
![[Image]](http://www.entelechyjournal.com/httpdocs/ninashengoldreview1.gif "Review of Entelechy")
SUNY New Paltz Psychology department faculty member Alice Andrews is the editor and publisher of an online journal, Entelechy: Mind and Culture. Entelechy (see review at left) publishes an eclectic mix of poetry, short fiction, essays, and visual art and makes for stimulating browsing. Evolutionary biology is a central theme. The “about“ page describes it as follows.
Concerned with ideas — psychological, philosophical, spiritual, scientific, political, mathematical, semiotic, memetic, postmodern, evolutionary, and revolutionary.
Darwin-touched — Evolutionary fiction and biofiction; Darwinian literary criticism; as well as essays, art, poems, and reviews with evolutionary themes.
Visionary — e.g., work by artists and writers who want to connect with their audience; who are driven to heal or raise the consciousness of their audience (i.e., who are compelled to affect their audience emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, aesthetically, morally); who are fearless in style and content.
3rd-culture —i.e., work which attempts to bridge the arts and humanities with science. Work, then, by artistic and literary scientists; as well as scientific/science-interested writers and artists, and anything in-between and beyond.
Many contributions highlight sexuality, attraction, romance, and beauty, enlightening them as lived experiences of human relationship, expressions of desire—and as an element of human biology, and so, a product of our evolution.
Andrews has explored this area in a novel, Trine Erotic, described at Amazon.com as follows:
[P]erhaps the first novel to explore evolutionary psychology (the new ’science of the mind’). This ‘novel of ideas’ — what author Andrews calls ‘evolutionary fiction,’biofiction,’ and ‘meta-seductive fiction’– also explores why we write: to seduce (as mating strategy), to process, to heal ourselves and ultimately readers, to find meaning.
The latest issue on the web site is Fall 2009, issue #9, and a message on the home page states that the journal is not accepting new submissions. There is plenty of browsing still to be had. It would be unfortunate if the publication were closing down for good.
Andrews is helping to set up an Evolutionary Studies program at New Paltz, on the model created by David Sloane Wilson and colleagues at SUNY Binghamton. Best luck, Alice, in your efforts!
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