“This Article Won’t Change Your Mind,” lamented a March 2017 headline in the Atlantic, atop an article in which Senior Editor Julie Beck explained how in “charged situations, people often don’t engage with information as information but as a marker of identity. Information becomes tribal.” Beck surveyed social scientists and activists across the political spectrum to sound the alarm about the depredations of motivated reasoning. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, when terms such as “post-truth,” “alternative facts,” and “fake news” suffused the discourse, Beck’s hypothesis seemed reasonable indeed.
We just began another year, and we still don't know MH370's final resting place, who Jack the Ripper was, or whether the Alcatraz three really survived
Geographical Magazine
A STORY OF US: A New Look at Human Evolution by Lesley Newson & Peter Richerson book review A STORY OF US: A New Look at Human Evolution by Lesley Newson & Peter Richerson book review Written by Kit Gillet by Lesley Newson & Peter Richerson • Oxford University Press
The journey of the human race has been as much about changes in communities and culture as it has been about our physical evolution. That’s perhaps the key takeaway from the fittingly titled
A Story of Us, which charts humankind’s journey back to seven million years ago.
Through seven stages of human evolution we’ve morphed into the species we are today. However, while physical evolution – our switch to walking upright, larger brains, the ability to use tools – has been fundamental, without social constructs we might not have made it, let alone become the dominant species on the planet. Authors Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson
Geographical Magazine Geographical s pick of the books: April 2021 Written by Geographical 2021 There s something fresh for everyone this April. Read on for our pick of the best new non-fiction reads
BOOK OF THE MONTH – UNDER A WHITE SKY: The Nature of the Future, by Elizabeth Kolbert
‘I was struck, and not for the first time, by how much easier it is to ruin an ecosystem than to run one.’ It’s a throwaway sentence, but one which neatly encapsulates the phenomenon Elizabeth Kolbert aims to portray in her fascinating new book. The context for this comment concerns the many years spent pumping water from the aquifer that feeds Devils Hole, a geothermal pool in Death Valley National Park, Nevada, during the late 1960s. Quarterly surveys are now conducted to track the health of the pupfish population, with supplementary food delivered by the National Park Service to ensure they have enough to eat. The fish even h