Bryan Sykes is a pioneer in researching mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). That is the little extra bits of DNA that are included in mammal cells not within the nucleus. The DNA in the mitochondria is passed down only on the female line, as they are not part of the recombination in sexual reproduction, but are included as part of the egg. Like the amoeba, the mitochondrial DNA only changes due to mutation.

Professor Sykes determined that the 500 base pairs of “junk” mitochondrial DNA mutates slowly and at a pretty constant rate, so he figured that by comparing the “junk” bits of DNA he could figure out if your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother is the same as mine. Well surprisingly enough, those of us of European decent have only seven mitochondrial mothers, and from anywhere in the world only thirty three.

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Antonio Damasio has written two books in one: A tour of his field of active brain imaging science which provide new insights into the dynamic working of emotions and feelings, and a biography of Benedictus Spinoza who three hundred and fifty years ago published exquisite, but very disruptive insights into the nature of man.

The important thing is that Looking for Spinoza, in the end, brings its multiple theses together in a gratifying view of the human condition. It shows not only how much we now know about the function of feelings and emotions, and how they regulate the body. Damasio shows how exquisitely accurate Spinoza’s insights were.
At first, Looking for Spinoza seems a little disjointed – what do brain scans and symptomatic analysis of people with brain lesions have to do with seventeenth century philosophical writings? Well, it turns out, quite a bit. It seems that Spinoza, intuited the functional relationships between emotionally competitent stimuli, emotions and feelings that are only now are being rediscovered by neuroscience. (more…)

Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic Magazine and a frequent contributor to Scientific American has produced a work that explains the basis of morality and ethics on a scientific basis. The system of ethics and definition of what is good and what is evil has usually been assigned to the realm of religion. In ancient times, the likes of Aristotle and Socraties wrestled with this subject with only provisional results.

Religious folk tell us that God establishes right and wrong, and assigns punishment to those who break God’s Law. The premise is that without God establishing the rules, humanity would fall into disarray with everyone making up their own rules. Under this view, the rules are rigid and established under the authority and pronouncements of God as interpreted by the leaders of the religion.
Shermer soundly refutes this viewpoint, and makes an excellent case for his Provisional Ethics and Provisional Morality. These ideas are founded on several insights: Moral Naturalism, an Evolved Moral Society, the Nature of Moral Nature, Provisional Morality, Provisional Right and Wrong, Provisional Justice, and Ennobling Evolutionary Ethics. (more…)

Ray Kurzweil is one of the most vocal proponents of the acendency of thinking machines. His The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, written in 1999 is dated, but that is a good thing for a book predicting the future! You can see how many predictions have come true. Much of what he predicted for 2009 is on the money. The interesting thing is that these predictions, which must have seemed wild in the last century, are just part of our everyday life!
The picture of the future he paints is one where machines and humans join to form a new intelligent species. His positive view of this brave new world is infectuous, but he is careful to evaluate the position of the naysayers, and respond. (more…)

The Bible does not say much about the life of Jesus while he was growing up. What happened in the thirty years between the Nativity and the marriage feast of Cana? Well, Christopher Moore has finally told the story! Yes, it is all made up, but completely plausible. Moore has researched all that is known and woven a light hearted tale of the Messiah’s coming of age that fits the record. This story is told in the spirit of Jesus’ message. (more…)

Jimmy Carter is an example of a man , who after completing the job that would be considered the capstone of a political career, has gone on to do great things. He has done more through his Carter Center and personal efforts to bring democracy and human rights to the fore than perhaps any other individual. His support for Habitat for Humanity and other valuable grass roots – up by the bootstraps programs have done more to help struggling families than most giant government projects.

His book, Our Endangered Values : America’s Moral Crisis, investigates changes that have occured in American life that are very troubling. Some of our mainstream religions have been hijacked by “leaders” with an unholy agenda. America has become divided over issues that are morally unimportant, while issues that are critical to the moral health of our country are left without attention. Our Endangered Values investigates just that.

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If ever there was a book that needs CliffsNotes, Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science is the one. This book has been dismissed as “no big deal” by some who have read only the first few hundred pages. Unfortunately, you have to wade through many more of the 1200 pages of this book to get to the main points that Wolfram is making.

The insights in this book are be as profound as Newton’s in Mathmatical Principles of Natural Philosophy but they take work to understand. Part of the problem is that his insights are as foreign to our worldview as quantum theory was to Newtonian physicists in the 1920s.

A major premise of A New Kind of Science is that science as we know it is blind to many relationships in nature because of the way that traditional science sets up experiments. Wolfram shows that all of nature is found in the execution of simple rules.,

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