In one kind of book, a smooth talker who has published many books takes a fraction of a year to explore a topic that has newly piqued their curiosity. In another kind of book, someone who has spend a lifetime wrestling with a big subject tries to put it all together into an integrated synthesis. Sometimes they even synthesize an entire research group or tradition. Kevin Laland’s book
If politicians are the best navigators of social complexity and scientists the best at making legible the world... It seems that scientists get more long run prestige because their gains are more permanent. Politicians get more short run attention because people are concerned with how local fluctuations will bend the trajectory of their life. Most of how science affects your life is the science that was done before you were born rather than the science done last Wednesday. As (if) that changes then I think we should expect to see a change in the share of attention. Rendering the consequences of science legible to a non specialist audience will become a more widely spread profession. I suppose we are already seeing that with popsci books and sciencetainment blogs and YouTubers.
Laland seems to assume group size is a good proxy for the complexity/cognitive demands of social interaction. It seems to me that for different primate species, and quite possibly *within* a species (e.g. humans), there are lots of *other* factors which help determine that complexity.Typo: "...predictor of brain size *or* intelligence..."
Also, "Sometimes they even synthesis an entire research"... instead of synthesize.
And, "Leland’s research group" instead of Laland.
If politicians are the best navigators of social complexity and scientists the best at making legible the world... It seems that scientists get more long run prestige because their gains are more permanent. Politicians get more short run attention because people are concerned with how local fluctuations will bend the trajectory of their life. Most of how science affects your life is the science that was done before you were born rather than the science done last Wednesday. As (if) that changes then I think we should expect to see a change in the share of attention. Rendering the consequences of science legible to a non specialist audience will become a more widely spread profession. I suppose we are already seeing that with popsci books and sciencetainment blogs and YouTubers.
Typo fixed; thanks.
Laland seems to assume group size is a good proxy for the complexity/cognitive demands of social interaction. It seems to me that for different primate species, and quite possibly *within* a species (e.g. humans), there are lots of *other* factors which help determine that complexity.Typo: "...predictor of brain size *or* intelligence..."