NASA-SP-2009-4802. NASA History Series. Edited by Steven J. Dick and Mark L. Lupisella. Authors with diverse backgrounds in science, history, anthropology, and more, consider culture in the context of the cosmos. How does our knowledge of cosmic evolution affect terrestrial culture? Conversely, how does our knowledge of cultural evolution affect our thinking about possible cultures in the cosmos? Are life, mind, and culture of fundamental significance to the grand story of the cosmos that has generated its own self-understanding through science, rational reasoning, and mathematics? Book includes bibliographical references and an index.
Reviews from Goodreads:
John Carter McKnight rated it with 4 stars and had this to say:
"Anthology of uniformly high quality. Diverse enough that few will find all the articles exceptionally interesting.It's divided into three parts: a pair of introductory essays on cosmic evolution, grounded in current work in complexity studies, a section on cultural evolution (cultural anthropology and memetics) and a back half on philosophy. I found the first three essays - the opening section and Kathryn Denning's long piece on the anthropology of SETI - really first rate and fascinating; the memetics pieces interesting, and little of the back half worthwhile, but I don't have much patience for philosophy.
The volume's subject to the critique that it's wishful thinking about extraterrestrial intelligence and our species having a future at astronomical timescales, dressed up in speculative science: that's a fair categorization of the back half, thought he front half has much to offer the scholar working on more ordinary timescales."
So Hakim rated it with two (2) stars and had this to say, "Interesting big picture, interesting topics -- but sadly couldn't manage for enjoyable narrative. Which is a shame; I personally feel this book can be magnificent if it has more engaging style. For serious learners only."
Reviews from Goodreads:
John Carter McKnight rated it with 4 stars and had this to say:
"Anthology of uniformly high quality. Diverse enough that few will find all the articles exceptionally interesting.It's divided into three parts: a pair of introductory essays on cosmic evolution, grounded in current work in complexity studies, a section on cultural evolution (cultural anthropology and memetics) and a back half on philosophy. I found the first three essays - the opening section and Kathryn Denning's long piece on the anthropology of SETI - really first rate and fascinating; the memetics pieces interesting, and little of the back half worthwhile, but I don't have much patience for philosophy.
The volume's subject to the critique that it's wishful thinking about extraterrestrial intelligence and our species having a future at astronomical timescales, dressed up in speculative science: that's a fair categorization of the back half, thought he front half has much to offer the scholar working on more ordinary timescales."
So Hakim rated it with two (2) stars and had this to say, "Interesting big picture, interesting topics -- but sadly couldn't manage for enjoyable narrative. Which is a shame; I personally feel this book can be magnificent if it has more engaging style. For serious learners only."
"
