FAMILY NAME: …… Hominidae AGE: ……………….. about 2.5 million years old PROFESSION: …… gambling MAIN BET: ………… that they have ‘dual existence’ ODDS AGAINST: …. 20 million to one (minimum). When modern members of this family bet on racehorses they tend to recoil from bets that involve odds that are much greater than 50 to… Continue reading →
Those who advocate population growth tend to be politicians, economists, systems analysts and professors of business administration. Their main opponents tend to be biologists, earth scientists, and conservationists who champion a wide range of environmentally based counter arguments. The more extreme of these warn that population reduction is essential if we are to avoid the… Continue reading →
As the oldest, flattest, most arid continent on Earth, Australia has largely resisted the encroachment of humans. Even now, its people are largely confined to the coastal fringes, and their grip on its heartland is often tenuous. Any further deterioration of the global climate will slash Australia’s meagre carrying capacity more savagely than other continents. Meanwhile, as… Continue reading →
The Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky proposed life as a dynamic extension of the Earth’s crust and a by-product of the chaotic gradient that mediates between the energy-rich body of the planet and the void of galactic space. Since hydrogen is the basic energy courier of the cosmos, this proposition supports the contention that life too,… Continue reading →
“Our timebomb is mysticism. Its delivery system is language. And its hiding place? The unfathomable coils of our DNA.” (The Spirit in the Gene, 1999) With the aid of photographs, diagrams and graphs Reg Morrison summarises the massive impact that humans have had on our planet and explores the evolutionary and genetic origins of the behaviour… Continue reading →
