Lives on Earth

3.8 Billion Years

  • Animals and the Law: More Like Persons Or Property?

    At the beginning of her article “Are Animals ‘Things’?: The law evolves” (Harvard Magazine, March-April 2016), Cara Feinberg tells the story of a Texas couple whose family dog ran off and ended up in a shelter. The couple found him… Continue reading

  • Steven Pinker on Disgust, Sex, and Happiness

    Hearts and brains. Mind and body. We are quite sure that our thoughts take place in our heads. But what about our emotions? Sometimes we locate them in our hearts, sometimes vaguely in our bodies. But Stephen Pinker in his… Continue reading

  • On Revising My Will

    My wife and I have been updating our wills and the financial and legal documents that go along with them. It’s a strange, awkward process. We discuss a scenario in which dying triggers a whole series of events from which… Continue reading

  • Spirituality and Evolution

    My wrestling with various late-life questions that might be called “spiritual” has taken me to a fuller appreciation of evolution and our biological history. The sequence here, the process—or so it has seemed to me—is that I’ve been looking for… Continue reading

  • Darwin’s Dark Vision: “Ten Thousand Sharp Wedges”

    Darwin has gotten to me. The third chapter of On the Origin of Species has changed how I look at nature. The name of the chapter sounds quaint at first: The Struggle for Existence. But it is an apt name… Continue reading

  • Sink Or Float: The Ordeal By Water

    Well-written history often reminds us that although people in the past lived differently than we do, their lives moved in many of the same spheres with many of the same motives as ours do. They managed sex, children, and an… Continue reading

  • Beavers, Humans, and Evolution

    Despite the links of many kinds between us and our animal ancestors, the obvious ways in which we are unique remain striking. Unlike any other species, we talk a lot, we learn by listening, we hold meetings, we make plans,… Continue reading