“All the known living beings that subsist, grow, and reproduce on this planet – the trees and the flowers, the fungi and the mushrooms, the extraordinary richness of animal life, in the waters, in the air, and on land, including human beings, together with the immensely varied world of invisible bacteria and protists – all maintain and propagate themselves by the same mechanisms, no doubt inherited from a common ancestral form. The revelation is awe-inspiring. So is the realization that the unrelenting human urge to understand has, just in our times, disclosed life’s secrets for us.”
Christian De Duve, Life Evolving.
The origin and evolution of life on earth has been described in terms of the emergence of accelerating, hierarchical orders of complexity (Pettersson, 1996). The story of life on earth and the relatively brief history of human biological and cultural evolution is a fascinating one, with profound implications for understanding all aspects of our lifespan development.
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As human beings, we make thousands of decisions every day. Every time we go to the shop to buy bread we must decide whether we would prefer white bread, brown bread, small or large loaf, barrel or sliced, etc. The same goes for the ‘simple’ task of ordering a coffee. For example, if you enter Starbucks, it’s been estimated that there are over 19,000 possible beverages available to you (Vohs et al., 2014). Indeed, we are immersed in increasingly complex and differentiated environments — decisions are ever-present and surround us as we make our way in the world.Read More »
Michael Hogan 