In the midst of fear and isolation, we are learning that profound, positive change is possible. The idea that everything is connected is an affront to conservatives who cherish a macho every-man-for-himself frontier fantasy. Climate change has been a huge insult to them – this science that says what comes out of our cars and […]
Chaos Scientist Finds Hidden Financial Risks That Regulators Miss
Oxford Professor Doyne Farmer is working with central banks to improve stress testing. Economics is harder than physics, Farmer says. People don’t obey rules as reliably as atoms do. In his stress-test model of the European financial system, for instance, he had to make assumptions about what assets bankers might dump after their firms suffered […]
Doris Lessing at 100: roving time and space
On the centenary of the Nobel laureate’s birth, Patrick French explores her science-infused series Canopus in Argos. Lessing wove space exploration, migration, climate change and social disintegration into novels that seem astonishingly prescient today. In the 1920s, growing up on a poor farm in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) Doris Lessing received impromptu outdoor lessons in […]
Biological and Cultural Evolution
Six Characters in Search of an Author An EDGE Original Essay By Freeman Dyson In the near future, we will be in possession of genetic engineering technology which allows us to move genes precisely and massively from one species to another. Careless or commercially driven use of this technology could make the concept of species meaningless, […]
Evolutionary Dead-Ends
Email exchange between Ruben Nelson and Gordon Kubanek (CACOR members): From: Gordon Kubanek Sent: March 8, 2019 5:58 PM This may seem ‘extreme’ – however based upon the latest data perhaps not…of course, if we decide to wake up and take action things change but until that happens this rant may be more accurate than we […]