Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context

by Steven J. Dick (editor)

Authors with diverse backgrounds in science, history, anthropology, and more, consider culture in the context of the cosmos. How does our knowledge of cosmic evolution affect terrestrial culture? Conversely, how does our knowledge of cultural evolution affect our thinking about possible cultures in the cosmos? Are life, mind, and culture of fundamental significance to the grand story of the cosmos that has generated its own self-understanding through science, rational reasoning, and mathematics? Book includes bibliographical references and an index.

anthology including chapters by philosopher of the mind Daniel Dennett, cosmologist and theoretical physicist Paul Davies, evolutionary biologist and memeticist Susan Blackmore, SETI Institute Chief Astronomer Seth Shostak, founder of Big History David Christian, anthropologist Kathryn Denning, author of the world's leading astronomy textbook astrophysicist Eric Chaisson, and the book's editor, former NASA Chief Historian Steven J. Dick. Oh, and by Howard Bloom.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Philosophy

First published February 2, 2010

About the author

Steven J. Dick is an American astronomer, author, and historian of science most noted for his work in the field of astrobiology. He served as the NASA Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Office from 2003 to 2009 and, prior to that, as an astronomer and historian of science at the U.S. Naval Observatory for more than two decades.

Reviews

[Howard]

I'm biased once again. I wrote a chapter in this book. I'm still in the early pages and am reading via Kindle. But Steven J. Dick's chapter on the history of the field of "cosmic evolution" is tremendously eye-opening to a person who has been working in the field for decades without a clue that there were others in the field, much less a history of others that goes back over a century and a half.

And Kathryn Denning's chapter is revealing a welcome fact: that Jared Diamond's grossly oversimplified viewpoint in his book Collapse is not regarded as the be-all-and-end-all explanation of civilizational decline in the social sciences.

This book is only available via the US Government Printing Office at the moment, but it should be available via Amazon.com in the next month or so.

[Dustin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will disclaimer my rating with this statement: maybe I am just not in a right state of mind to read this book right now.

Either way, this book was very argumentative. It wasn't really a history book, it wasn't a novel, it wasn't science fiction. The best way I could describe this book is a semi-historical, philosophical SETI story.

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthology of uniformly high quality. Diverse enough that few will find all the articles exceptionally interesting.

It's divided into three parts: a pair of introductory essays on cosmic evolution, grounded in current work in complexity studies, a section on cultural evolution (cultural anthropology and memetics) and a back half on philosophy. I found the first three essays - the opening section and Kathryn Denning's long piece on the anthropology of SETI - really first rate and fascinating; the memetics pieces interesting, and little of the back half worthwhile, but I don't have much patience for philosophy.

The volume's subject to the critique that it's wishful thinking about extraterrestrial intelligence and our species having a future at astronomical timescales, dressed up in speculative science: that's a fair categorization of the back half, thought he front half has much to offer the scholar working on more ordinary timescales.

[So Hakim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting big picture, interesting topics -- but sadly couldn't manage for enjoyable narrative. Which is a shame; I personally feel this book can be magnificent if it has more engaging style. For serious learners only.

[Alexandra Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of this world....

[H.S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suggested reading for a class...