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Spaceweaver Weaver

Evolution and Creativity: Why Humans Triumphed - WSJ.com - 2 views

online.wsj.com/...3691804575254533386933138.html

culture evolution trade innovation collective intelligence

shared by Spaceweaver Weaver on 05 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
  • Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Once human progress started, it was no longer limited by the size of human brains. Intelligence became collective and cumulative.
  • It is precisely the same in cultural evolution. Trade is to culture as sex is to biology. Exchange makes cultural change collective and cumulative. It becomes possible to draw upon inventions made throughout society, not just in your neighborhood. The rate of cultural and economic progress depends on the rate at which ideas are having sex.
  • Dense populations don't produce innovation in other species. They only do so in human beings, because only human beings indulge in regular exchange of different items among unrelated, unmated individuals and even among strangers. So here is the answer to the puzzle of human takeoff. It was caused by the invention of a collective brain itself made possible by the invention of exchange.
  • Once human beings started swapping things and thoughts, they stumbled upon divisions of labor, in which specialization led to mutually beneficial collective knowledge. Specialization is the means by which exchange encourages innovation: In getting better at making your product or delivering your service, you come up with new tools. The story of the human race has been a gradual spread of specialization and exchange ever since: Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. Self-sufficiency—subsistence—is poverty.
  • And things like the search engine, the mobile phone and container shipping just made ideas a whole lot more promiscuous still.
  • Spaceweaver Weaver on 05 Jun 10
     
    Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years-the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success-tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language-seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly-bang!-culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Editorial: Wikipedia fails as an encyclopedia, to science's detriment | Ars Technica UK... - 0 views

arstechnica.co.uk/...clopedia-to-sciences-detriment

arstechnica criticism Wikipedia fail encyclopedia as science reference jealous about people-led social knowledge

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Jan 16 - No Cached
    • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.
      Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Jan 16
       
      # ! Still many detractors of the social-driven knowledge, with perhaps a certain number of inaccuracies, in favor of the more biased multinational publishers' facts statements... (Special Report Internet encyclopaedias go head to head - Jim Giles http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html)
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Jan 16
     
    "by John Timmer (US) - Dec 29, 2015 4:35pm CET Ever look up an obscure scientific topic? Who is that information meant for?"
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Jan 16
     
    "by John Timmer (US) - Dec 29, 2015 4:35pm CET Ever look up an obscure scientific topic? Who is that information meant for?"
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