Science, the Deep Past, and the Political

Lowell Gustafson

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

| Peer-Reviewed

Science, the Deep Past, and the Political

Lowell Gustafson

Published in Social Sciences (Volume 6, Issue 6)

Received: 12 September 2017 Accepted: 26 October 2017 Published: 18 December 2017

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

Evidence from the natural sciences substantiate a narrative of the cosmos, earth, life, and humanity. Great amounts of matter do not become more complex and there is a highly uneven process of increasing complexity only where there are increasing energy flows. The pace of emergent complexity in pockets increases with the development of self-consciousness and social organization. This account influences the framing of key political issues such as identity, race and ethnicity, gender, globalization, and environmentalism.

Published in	Social Sciences (Volume 6, Issue 6)
DOI	10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
Page(s)	196-208
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2017. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Big History, Deep Past, Cosmos, Political Anthropology, Anthropocene

References

[1]	Alvarez, W. (2014). We are stardust Concentrated by earth! Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 8(1). Retrieved from http://expositions.journals.villanova.edu/issue/view/130
[2]	Alvarez, W. (2017). A most improbable journey: A big history of our planet and ourselves. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
[3]	American Historical Association, Brief History of the AHA, http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/brief-history-of-the-aha, accessed September 22, 2017.
[4]	Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd. ed. London: Verso, 1991.
[5]	Aristotle. Politics at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html, accessed September 21, 2017.
[6]	Atkinson, Steve; Chien-Yi Chang, R. Elizabeth Sockett, Miguel Cámara, Paul Williams. ‘Quorum Sensing in Yersinia enterocolitica Controls Swimming and Swarming Motility’. Journal of Bacteriology vol. 188, no. 4, February 2006, pp. 1451–61.
[7]	Bickerton, D. (2009). Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
[8]	Brown, C. S. (2007). Big history: From the Big Bang to the present. New York: New Press: Distributed by W. W. Norton.
[9]	Carroll, Sean. (2017). The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. New York, Dutton.
[10]	Chaisson, E. (2006). Epic of evolution: Seven ages of the cosmos. New York: Columbia University Press.
[11]	Christian, D. (2004). Maps of time: An introduction to big history. The California World History Library. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[12]	Christian, D., Brown, C. S., & Benjamin, C. (2014). Big history: Between nothing and everything. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.
[13]	Deamer, D. W. (2011). First life: Discovering the connections between stars, cells, and how life began. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[14]	Doody, John, Kevin L. Hughes, Kim Paffenroth, eds., (2005) Augustine and Politics. Lexington Books
[15]	Ferro, Marc. The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past Is Taught to Children. London: Routledge, 2003.
[16]	Esteban Sarmiento, G. J. Sawyer, and Richard Milner, (2007). The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans. Yale University Press, New Haven.
[17]	Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983. Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
[18]	Greene, B. (2000). The elegant universe: Superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory. New York: Vintage Books.
[19]	Greene, B. (2011). The hidden reality: Parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
[20]	Gustafson, Lowell. (2009). "Speaking Up: The Origins of Language." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Ma7dxu0O0, Falvey Library Lecture Series, Villanova University.
[21]	Hamilton, C., Bonneuil, C., & Gemenne, F. (2015). The anthropocene and the global environmental crisis. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
[22]	Hartnett, Stephen J., Lisa B. Keranen, and Donovan Conley, eds. (2017) Imagining China: Rhetorics of Nationalism in an Age of Globalization. Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press.
[23]	Hastings, Derek. (2017) Nationalism in Modern Europe: Politics, Identity and Belonging since the French Revolution. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
[24]	Hazen, R. M. (2005). Genesis: The scientific quest for life’s origin. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
[25]	Hazen, R. M. (2012). The story of earth: The first 4.5 billion years, from stardust to living planet. New York: Viking.
[26]	Herb, Guntram Henrik, and David H. Kaplan, eds. (2018) Scaling Identities: Nationalism and Territoriality. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
[27]	Hird, Myra. (2009). The Origins of Sociable Life: Evolution after Science Studies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
[28]	Hoffmann, P. M. 2012. Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order From Chaos. New York, NY: Basic Books.
[29]	Hutchinson, John. (2017) Nationalism and War. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
[30]	Johanson, D. C. and B. Edgar. (2006). From Lucy to Language. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
[31]	Kenneally, C. (2007). The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York, NY: Viking.
[32]	Kohl, Fawcett (eds.), Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, Cambridge University Press (1996).
[33]	Krauss, Lawrence M. (2017). The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far. New York, Atria Books.
[34]	Lane, Nick. (2016). The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life. New York, W. W. Norton & Company.
[35]	Lederman, L. M., & Hill, C. T. (2011). Quantum physics for poets. Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books.
[36]	Lederman, L. M., & Teresi, D. (2006). The god particle: If the universe is the answer, what is the question? Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
[37]	New Mexico Museum of Space History, a Division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Alexei A. Leonov, The first man to walk in space, http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=17, accessed September 21, 2017.
[38]	Oppenheimer, S. (2003). The real eve: Modern Man’s Journey out of Africa. New York, N. Y.: Carroll & Graf.
[39]	Pross, A. (2012). What is life?: How chemistry becomes biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[40]	Reiter, Russel J., Ahmet Korkmaz, Shuran Ma, Sergio Rosales-Corral, Dun-Xian Tan. (2012). "Melatonin protection from chronic, low-level ionizing radiation." Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research, Volume 751, Issue 1, July–September 2012, Pages 7–14.
[41]	Ridley, Matt. (2003). The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Harper Perennial, New York.
[42]	Rigveda, First Mandal, 13/9, quoted at http://www.neelkanthdhaam.org/rigveda1.html, accessed September 21, 2017.
[43]	Sagan, Carl. (1977). Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Reprint Edition. Ballantine Books, New York.
[44]	Schurr T. G. 2014. Human genetic diversity in a global context. In: Spooner BL, editor. Globalization: The Crucial Phase, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 71-114.
[45]	Schurr T. G. (2015) Tracing Human Movements from Siberia to the Americas: Insights from Genetic Studies. In: Frachetti M., Spengler III R. (eds) Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas. Springer, Cham.
[46]	Schwägerl, C. (2014). The anthropocene: The human era and how it shapes our planet. Santa Fe, NM: Synergetic Press.
[47]	Shubin, Neil. 2013. The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
[48]	Shubin, Neil. (2008). Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. New York, Vintage.
[49]	Smith, Eric and Harold J. Morowitz. (2016). The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth: The Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
[50]	Singh, Simon. (2004). Big Bang: The origin of the universe. New York: Fourth Estate.
[51]	Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1988.
[52]	Spier, Fred. (2015). Big history and the future of humanity. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
[53]	Steinhardt, P. J., & Turok, N. (2007). Endless universe: beyond the Big Bang. New York: Doubleday.
[54]	Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations", The Journal of Modern History, 73, 4 (Dec, 2001): 862-896.
[55]	Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, editors. (2009). The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth. Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books.
[56]	Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, editors. (2014). Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community. Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books.
[57]	Tyson, N. deG., & Goldsmith, D. (2004). Origins: fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
[58]	United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. “World Migration in Figures: A joint contribution by UN-DESA and the OECD to the United Nations High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development, 3-4 October 2013,” http://www.oecd.org/els/mig/World-Migration-in-Figures.pdf, accessed September 21, 2017.
[59]	Vince, G. (2014). Adventures in the anthropocene: A journey to the heart of the planet we made. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions.
[60]	Waal, F. B. M. de. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes. 25th anniversary ed. (2007). Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[61]	Waal, F. B. M. d. (2005). Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
[62]	Waal, F. B. M. d. (1989). Peacemaking Among Primates. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[63]	Wade, N. (2006). Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors. New York, NY: Penguin Press.
[64]	Waters, Christopher; Bonnie Bassler, ‘Quorum Sensing: Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria’, Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology vol. 21, November 2005, pp. 319–46.
[65]	Wien, Peter. (2017) Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East. London\uc0\u8239; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
[66]	Williams, Paul; Klaus Winzer, Weng Chan, Miguel Cámara. ‘Look Who’s Talking: Communication and Quorum Sensing in the Bacterial World.’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences vol. 362, no. 1483, 29 July 2007, pp. 1119–34.
[67]	Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
[68]	Wilson, E. O. (2012). The social conquest of earth. New York: Liveright Pub. Corporation.
[69]	Withers, Helen; Simon Swift, Paul Williams. ‘Quorum Sensing as an Integral Component of Gene Regulatory Networks in Gram-Negative Bacteria.’ Current Opinion in Microbiology vol. 4, no. 2, 1 April 2001, pp. 186–93.
[70]	Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, “Global Migration Data Sheet 2005–10,” http://www.global-migration.info/VID_Global_Migration_Datasheet_web.pdf, accessed September 21, 2017.
[71]	Yavelow, Jonathan. (2013). Star Gazing to Sustainability: Appreciating the Scientific Process. Kendall-Hunt, Dubuque, IA.
[72]	Zalasiewicz, Jan; Mark Williams, Alan Haywood, Michael Ellis, ‘The Anthropocene: A New Epoch of Geological Time?’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A–Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences Vol. 369, 31 January 2011, pp. 835–41.
[73]	Zimmer, Carl, ‘Can Answers to Evolution be Found in Slime?’ New York Times, 3 October 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04slime.html?pagewanted=all, accessed September 21, 2017.

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Lowell Gustafson. (2017). Science, the Deep Past, and the Political. Social Sciences, 6(6), 196-208. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Lowell Gustafson. Science, the Deep Past, and the Political. Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(6), 196-208. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Lowell Gustafson. Science, the Deep Past, and the Political. Soc Sci. 2017;6(6):196-208. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18,
  author = {Lowell Gustafson},
  title = {Science, the Deep Past, and the Political},
  journal = {Social Sciences},
  volume = {6},
  number = {6},
  pages = {196-208},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20170606.18},
  abstract = {Evidence from the natural sciences substantiate a narrative of the cosmos, earth, life, and humanity. Great amounts of matter do not become more complex and there is a highly uneven process of increasing complexity only where there are increasing energy flows. The pace of emergent complexity in pockets increases with the development of self-consciousness and social organization. This account influences the framing of key political issues such as identity, race and ethnicity, gender, globalization, and environmentalism.},
 year = {2017}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Science, the Deep Past, and the Political
AU  - Lowell Gustafson
Y1  - 2017/12/18
PY  - 2017
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
DO  - 10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
T2  - Social Sciences
JF  - Social Sciences
JO  - Social Sciences
SP  - 196
EP  - 208
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2326-988X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
AB  - Evidence from the natural sciences substantiate a narrative of the cosmos, earth, life, and humanity. Great amounts of matter do not become more complex and there is a highly uneven process of increasing complexity only where there are increasing energy flows. The pace of emergent complexity in pockets increases with the development of self-consciousness and social organization. This account influences the framing of key political issues such as identity, race and ethnicity, gender, globalization, and environmentalism.
VL  - 6
IS  - 6
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Lowell Gustafson

Department of Political Science, Villanova University, Villanova, Philadelphia, USA

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Lowell Gustafson. (2017). Science, the Deep Past, and the Political. Social Sciences, 6(6), 196-208. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Lowell Gustafson. Science, the Deep Past, and the Political. Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(6), 196-208. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Lowell Gustafson. Science, the Deep Past, and the Political. Soc Sci. 2017;6(6):196-208. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18,
  author = {Lowell Gustafson},
  title = {Science, the Deep Past, and the Political},
  journal = {Social Sciences},
  volume = {6},
  number = {6},
  pages = {196-208},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20170606.18},
  abstract = {Evidence from the natural sciences substantiate a narrative of the cosmos, earth, life, and humanity. Great amounts of matter do not become more complex and there is a highly uneven process of increasing complexity only where there are increasing energy flows. The pace of emergent complexity in pockets increases with the development of self-consciousness and social organization. This account influences the framing of key political issues such as identity, race and ethnicity, gender, globalization, and environmentalism.},
 year = {2017}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Science, the Deep Past, and the Political
AU  - Lowell Gustafson
Y1  - 2017/12/18
PY  - 2017
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
DO  - 10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
T2  - Social Sciences
JF  - Social Sciences
JO  - Social Sciences
SP  - 196
EP  - 208
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2326-988X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20170606.18
AB  - Evidence from the natural sciences substantiate a narrative of the cosmos, earth, life, and humanity. Great amounts of matter do not become more complex and there is a highly uneven process of increasing complexity only where there are increasing energy flows. The pace of emergent complexity in pockets increases with the development of self-consciousness and social organization. This account influences the framing of key political issues such as identity, race and ethnicity, gender, globalization, and environmentalism.
VL  - 6
IS  - 6
ER  -

Copy | Download