The story of life: critical insights from evolutionary biology

The notion that humans, in all their complexity, are merely an evolutionary accident, an insignificant speck in a boundless cosmos, is deeply unsatisfying for most nonscientists and fails to resonate with their life experience. What, then, can evolutionary biology ultimately tell us about the meanin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2018-11, Vol.1432 (1), p.29-45
Main Authors: Paulson, Steve, Chang, Melanie Lee, Tattersall, Ian, Morris, Simon Conway
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Biological Evolution
Biology
cosmos
Evolution
Evolutionary biology
Humans
Life
meaning
paleontology
Philosophy
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Summary:The notion that humans, in all their complexity, are merely an evolutionary accident, an insignificant speck in a boundless cosmos, is deeply unsatisfying for most nonscientists and fails to resonate with their life experience. What, then, can evolutionary biology ultimately tell us about the meaning of our lives? In conversation with Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, paleoanthropologists Melanie Lee Chang and Ian Tattersall, and paleontologist Simon Conway Morris share their insights on these competing concepts and explain how meaning and purpose can be gleaned from the remarkable story of life itself.
ISSN:0077-8923
1749-6632
DOI:10.1111/nyas.13874