Science   The Red Queen-Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature Matt Ridley   It is said of second law of thermodynamics that if any new theory in physics falls foul of this law it is bound to be doomed. In biological sciences a similar stature can be granted to Darwin’s theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. In modern biology all facts of life have to be explained in the light of this theory. It is now accepted that human anatomy and physiology are products of this evolution. But human nature was thought to be in a different league. It was argued to be a product of human culture. It was believed that animal behaviour could not have any parallel in human nature. Former was a product of inherited instincts while later was learnt. This view prevailed among biologist throughout the first half of twentieth century. Edward Wilson’s ‘Sociobiology’ challenged this opinion and the last four to five decades have witnessed a meteoric growth in Evolutionary Psychology, wherein...

Science/Psychology   Influence-The Psychology of Persuasion Robert B. Cialdini, PH.D   Ethologists for long have found some strange patterns of behaviour in birds. A mother turkey fawns and takes are of a chic that makes cheep-cheep sounds. Actually, even if a stuffed polecat, a natural enemy of turkey is artificially made to produce the sound, mothering behaviour of the mother turkey is switched on. And if a turkey chick doesn’t utter these magical notes, it is neglected by its mother. This is trigger feature of animal behaviour. ‘Click’ of a particular stimulus ‘whirrs’ the appropriate response, the ‘click-whirr’ pattern. Humans have inherited much of their behaviour from animals, from whom they descended in millions of years. ‘Click-whirr’ pattern of our behaviour has been confirmed by psychologists in many ingenious experiments. In most situations that we face in daily living, this action-reaction form of behaviour serves us well. It is fast and it saves the body...

                                                                                                                                                     Science Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics Richard H. Thaler Two young Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1974 published an article titled ‘Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’ in the Science journal. This article unleashed a ceaseless upheaval in the world of economics that gradually led to the birth of Behavioural Economics. Richard Thaler, an academician, was shaken irrecoverably when he read this article....

****/*****                                                                                                                                  Science How Mind Works Steven Pinker             Human mind, as distinct from brain but ineluctably linked to it (like digestion with gut, respiration with lungs), defines and distinguishes our species. We not only reproduce, eat, defecate but think of past and fret over future. We speculate on imaginary situations and how these could have affected our past and might change our future. We think of beauty, we enjoy and create art and literature, we deeply value mor...

****/*****                                                                                                                                        Religion/Science Religion Explained-The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits & Ancestors Pascal Boyer Religion - in one form or other - is ubiquitous. Religious con...

**** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                                                     Science THINKING FAST AND SLOW DANIEL KAHNEMAN We like to believe that humans are rationa...