Friday 30 September 2011

Steven Rose: Can genetics explain human nature?

A 45-minute talk [1] by Steven Rose which sets out a persuasive and progressive approach to the dialectics of genetics and culture. He argues:

“To argue that we are determined by our genes, without actually understanding that our genes are meaningless except in the context of the cells in which they are embedded, the bodies in which those cells exist, the societies in which those bodies actually grow up, and the ways in which we transform continuously those societies as we grow and change the world around us, is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of what it is to be the bio-social organism that we are.”












[1] The person who posted this on YouTube has not written when or where it was recorded.

Alva Noë – we are not our brains


A video of an excellent talk by by the philosopher Alva Noë, in which he argues that consciousness cannot be reduced to our brains but arises out of a wider engagement with our environment.