Instinct, Snow, and Boats: Why We Think
(Room Lanier Grand Ballroom J)
25 Aug 21
4:30 PM
-
5:45 PM
Tracks:
Speaker (Non-Member)
How snow made us smart. An illustrated look at why nature makes a very few species think, while 99 percent of them depend on instinct. “Survival of the fittest” doesn’t really describe how genetics functions to change species; random chance has just as much to do with the appearance of any species as food-gathering. If there is life on other planets, life here can tell us which features those other life forms are likely to share. Strange things from the animal and insect world shed light on the essence of life. Unexpected new details have been recently revealed in human and Neanderthal genetics. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of how weird life is — and how bizarre being able to think really is.