Parallel Evolution

Inspecting the beautiful palaeolithic cave art of the Chauvet Cave, scientists are shaken in their believes: How come that these drawing are as -or even more- skilful than paintings from civilisations that flourished 10-15,000 years later? Is something must be wrong with the dating of the paintings!

Inspecting the increasingly complete fossil record, it is now established for many developments that the view of a linear evolution needs to be supplanted by an iterative evolution of "developmental homoplasies and convergent ecological specialisations". Evolution is characterised by consecutive waves of radiation of species (many of which dead-end groups) into the same ecological niches - and not by an orderly step-by-step advancement.

Are humans part of nature, after all?

The French Disconnection

The French are convinced to live in the most beautiful country, the have the best food, and the most beautiful women; they work less than other nations, but have more holidays, and spent an awful amount of time on their favourite hobby: extramarital seduction and sex. Yet, despite all this, they use three times more antidepressants than any other nation. What do we learn from that?

Mirror-me

Every day we inspect ourself in a mirror, see our mirror image in shop windows, car mirrors etc., and we identify ourself with what we see. However, what we see corresponds to the mirror image of ourself, and since left and right halves of a human face are never the same, we have a different perception of ourself than what everyone else sees. On a global scale, are there effects of this?

Our own Holocene mass extinction

Our brain, which is too big for our body, excessively exalts emotions. Simultaneously, it creates self-awareness, and self awareness ultimately leads to a hedonotropic behaviour, where pleasure seeking -i.e. the satisfaction of emotion- becomes the central motivation for action, not success. Is that why humanoid intelligence has never been developed before us - because it is a catch 22 unsustainable condition for an organism? After only about 200,000 years of existence, Homo sapiens has caused a mass extinction event that, if it continues at its current pace, is predicted to wipe out half of all species within the next century. Is that how the short story of Homo sapiens, error of evolution, is to end?

Egocentricity

What if China's authoritarian capitalism provides a much better economical system than Western liberal capitalism? Is a people more powerful if it acts as one organism, disregarding individual misery? Is a society where individual happiness primes over global success sustainable? And if not, will it be supplanted by better working models in the future? European leaders have lost the mean of directing their people through unconditional patriotism and religion. And Europe loses possibilities to export productive misery. Do we need to fool all the people all the time?

Shop 'n pub

While waiting for over 30 min in front of the changing cabinets of H&M's female section, holding one of my wife's potential thongs (yellow), I was wondering why large cloth shops don't symbiose with pubs. Using a special display over the bar, one could enjoy a beer and the company of other mistreated males, while supporting one's partner's shopping. "Here's your lager, sir, and let me just remind you that your wife requests your comments - she's on monitor five now, wearing the same shirt in S, rather then XS."

Ballerina Camouflage

Just remembered how I felt like John Wayne, like a true cowboy, when I had to wear that gun on my belt for that 24h of duty at the military base entry gate during my military service, back in '89. I hated the military service, and I hated feeling like a cowboy because of that gun, but it's the crown that makes the king.
Human minds go both ways, and I just wondered what would happen if all armed forces had to wear, say, pink ballerina dresses, or full-body picachu gowns. How much violence would this take away from armed conflicts?