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Just my usual Monday morning reporting in from the weekend's NYTimes: this time it's a review by Natalie Angier of a new book by David Sloan Wilson, Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives:

"all of life is characerized by a 'cosmic' struggle between good and evil, the high-strung terms we apply to behaviors that are either cooperative or selfish, civic or anomic. The constant give-and-take between me versus we extends down to the tiniest and most primal elements of life...the conflict between being well behaved, being good, not gulping down more than your share, and being selfish enough to get your fair share, 'is eternal and encompasses virtually species of earth'....How do higher patterns of cooperative behavior emerge from aggregates of small, selfish units? With carrots, sticks and ceaseless surveillance....the entire human race can evolve the culturally primed if not genetically settled incentive to see our futures for what they are, inexorably linked on the lone blue planet we share."

See also "New Tricks," Charles Siebert's piece in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine: "In order to reduce the number of abandoned dogs put to death...shelter workers have become interspecies matchmakers."

For what intellectuals and academics contribute to either of these projects?

Come back tomorrow afternoon....

Anne