Laura Betzig: Culture

What if the 100,000-odd year-old evidence of human social life—from the arrowheads in South Africa, to the Venus figurines at Dordogne—is the effect of nothing, more or less, but our efforts to become parents? What if the 10,000-odd year-old record of civilization—from the tax accounts at temples in the Near East, to the inscription on a bronze statue in New York Harbor—is the product of nothing, more or less, but our struggle for genetic representation in future generations? [...] ...

 Example of How Language Affects Thought

Another way of describing the revolution in physics is to say that the key moves and acts, physicists do not care; 'matter' to them means 'to matter'. moves and acts, physicists do not care; 'matter' to them means 'to matter', to make a difference. But our language is still geared to express 'states of being', rather than processes. In this connection, also, the German language helps to explain German philosophy. The Germans have been especially prone to hypostatize their abstractions, identi...