The Great Lifespan Escape

At the time when the lines begin, in the mid-18th century, life expectancy in Europe and the Americas was around 35, where it had been parked for the 225 previous years for which we have data.3 Life expectancy for the world as a whole was 29. These numbers are in the range of expected life spans for most of human history. The life expectancy of hunter-gatherers is around 32.5, and it probably decreased among the peoples who first took up farming because of their starchy diet and the diseases ...

 Science, Religion, and the Motion of the Earth

We may distinguish the progress of each science as it is in itself, which has no other limit than the number of truths it includes within its sphere, and the progress of a nation in each science, a progress which is regulated first by the number of men who are acquainted with its leading and most important truths, and next by the number and nature of the truths so known. In fine, we are now come to that point of civilization, at which the people derive a profit from intellectual knowledge, n...

 Our Radio Broadcasts into Space are a Monologue

Some individuals find the absence of a dialogue distressing – as if meaningful dialogues were commonplace on this planet. Philip Morrison, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has pointed out that such cultural monologues are entirely common in the history of mankind; that, for example, the entire cultural patrimony of classical Greece, which has influenced our civilization in a profound way, has traveled in only one direction in time. We have not sent our wisdom to the Greeks. The...