Ever wondered why so many people are investing lots of hours into social media such as Facebook, Twitter or Blogs, vying for some more "friends", "followers", comments or clicks?

It's long been assumed that the reason is our evolutionary history. Whether we are studying obtaining food, organizing security, labour or - the feature most distinguishing us from other primates - cooperative child care, our species learned to rely on social cooperation for successful survival and reproduction. In fact, Charles Darwin dubbed "Man" as a "Social Animal" - although he was not yet aware i.e. of the importance of cooperative childcare. Now, a new Harvard-study by Coren Apicella et al. explored social networks among the contemporary hunters and gatherers of the African Hadza - and found them to resemble those we are building in "modern" ways, too.

And as a special feature, the colleagues not only featured the results on print, but also with a well-done video-presentation. Enjoy!

The paper appeared in Nature:

Apicella, C., Marlowe, F., Fowler, H., Christakis, N. (2012): Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers. In: Nature 481/2012, p. 497 - 502 

* (Extended) German blogpost here

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Friedrich August von Hayek (1899 - 1992) was one of the most prominent economists of the 20th century, scientifically taking a stand for liberalism and fighting nationalistic and internationalistic versions of socialism in Europe and abroad since his eminent "Road to Serfdom" (1944). Here is a nice "economy-rap", depicting the debates between him and (students of) John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946). Please note their trainers Ludwig von Mises (1881 - 1973) and Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834), as well as appearances of Ben Bernanke and Carl Levin. Enjoy the show.

F.A. von Hayek as an Evolutionist

Far less known than Hayeks image as a free-market-economist is the root of his scientific perspectives and arguments: Evolution. Coming from an Austrian family deeply embedded in natural sciences as well as philosophy (i.e. he served together with his nephew Wittgenstein in the army and read the first drafts of the tractatus) Hayek urged his fellow economists to study real humans instead of the "spectre" of homo oeconomicus.

In 1952 he published "The Sensory Order" about the evolution of human perception, preceding contemporary works on neurocognition and evolutionary psychology by decades.

F.A. von Hayek about the Evolution of Religion

In his last decade, the professing agnostic Hayek turned to the subject of religion and started to explore it from his evolutionary perspective. Personally, I would count his German lecture of 1982 about the topic at Klessheim castle and his final chapter "Religion and the Guardians of Tradition" in his final book "The Fatal Conceit" (1991) among the most important works in this field and time. For example, he rightfully observed the reproductive potential of religious groups.

Of course, you should find out for yourself! But if you were interested for a start, I discussed and tested some of his hypotheses here:

"Von Hayek and the Amish Fertility. How religious communities manage to be fruitful and multiply. A Case study", in: Frey, Ulrich (Hrsg.), "The Nature of God - Evolution and Religion", Tectum Verlag Marburg 2010 

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Today, I want to use this scilog in a new way: As a tool for presenting a question. I stumbled upon the topic while preparing a German book about Charles Darwin's works on religion & evolution. In his last year, the great Victorian became captivated by a book on the topic and wrote to its author William Graham:

Dear Sir

I hope that you will not think it intrusive on my part to thank you heartily for the pleasure which I have derived from reading your admirably written `Creed of Science,’ though I have not yet quite finished it, as now that I am old I read very slowly. It is a very long time since any other book has interested me so much. The work must have cost you several years and much hard labour with full leisure for work.

Read the full letter at the Darwin Correspondence Project (Letter 13230).

Intrigued, I started to read the book "The Creed of Science" myself, which is available in print as well as in open-access-directories.

Although a quotation from this Darwinian letter to Graham started a heated debate about the contradictions of atheistic naturalism by Alvin Platinga, I couldn't find much information about the author. He seems to be virtually unknown not only to German libraries and handbooks of philosophy, but also to the Internet including Wikipedia. According to the preface of 'The Creed of Science', William Graham has been Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy at Queen's College, Belfast.

Could you help out?

Therefore, I wanted to ask abroad if someone out there is having some bibliographic informations or scientific references to William Graham (1839 - 1911). Please don't hesitate to post a comment or contact me via my homepage.

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Maybe you have been wondering why so many people are freaking out because of another "end of the world" destined for 2012. After all, there have been numerous respective dates in the past, and it never happened.

But we are, simply put, products of evolution. And as a deeply social species, we have evolved to become addicted to experiencing and sharing captivating narratives. And what could be more fascinating than a story about the very topics of survival and reproduction: About great catastrophes wiping out nearly everyone, with the few survivors then going forth to be fruitful and multiply. It's a classic.

From Floods to the Apocalypse

Therefore, we shouldn't be too surprised to find respective narratives abundant among religious mythologies. There's plenty of popular end-of-the-world-myths available, ranging from the biblical, noachidic flood (which is only a late version of many older flood narratives) to the Norse Ragnarök and the genre-naming Christian apocalypse (greek: revelation). Ironically, the Mayan calendar is not among them - december 21st 2012 is just the non-specified end of a cyclus.

But modern "secular" culture is craving for apocalyptic tales as any human culture did before. The image of a punishing God may be replaced by those of a vengeful nature. Instead of demons and angels, aliens and asteroids are descending from the sky. And those lucky or worthy few that survive are destined to sire children and to turn the eternal circle of life...

Thus, whether you are secular or religious, you may want to "enjoy" the subsequent collection of some apocalypses. I'd be glad if you would share some of the ideas and emotions you experienced while watching.

* German Version of this post with a book review "Faszination Apokalypse" by Thomas Grüter.

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