Anthropological evidence suggests that the human species has evolved what could be called a “trading instinct” over many of years of Darwinian adaptation, where trade acts as a social catalyst and thus as a suppressor of violent conflict among trading groups. Without enough natural human interaction it is unlikely that the trading instinct will achieve its social purposes, even though it may ac...

Pinker 1994:18.The Language Instinct. Pelican.London. Language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell time.... Instead, it is a distinct piece of biological makeup of our brains. Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is ...

The Arabidopsis MEDEA gene is required in maternal tissues to restrict cell proliferation in embryos. Molecular characterisation indicates that MEDEA encodes a Polycomb-group protein, particularly intriguing as MEDEA's maternal effects may be a consequence of genomic imprinting.

This paper delivers some findings from the present-day cognitive sciences on man’s cognitive dispositions that support aspects of Veblen’s “instinct of workmanship,” which is an essential starting point of his evolutionary theory of institutional change. These cognitive dispositions partly govern which information will be subject to profound contemplation and be easy to disseminate within a pop...