Science and the Fate of the Human Soul in Tom Wolfe

Abstract

This article investigates Tom Wolfe's assessment of the age-old debate between nature and nurture, the Cartesian mind–body problem, and the tensions between science, politics, and morality that result from the human struggle to explain what the components of a human being are. I begin with Wolfe's own study of what evolution and neuroscience tell us about the “Human Beast.” Wolfe is not certain that evolution tells the whole story of how human beings came to be who and what they are in the twenty-first century. Evolution got us to the point of speech but Wolfe is persuaded that at that point, evolution ended and speech took over. Speech, according to Wolfe, made the development of reason and ingenuity and the creation of culture possible. And it is culture, the shared set of human behavior, knowledge, and beliefs, manners, and mores, and, above all for Wolfe, status, which then informs human motivation and actions. Wolfe is open to the idea that neuroscience might eventually be able to explain every detail of how and why the human brain functions as it does but he is skeptical that it will be able to explain away completely the idea that each of us is an individual, striving for honor and success within our status sphere.     

The Adoption of Agriculture in Ireland: Perceptions of Key Research Challenges

This paper outlines the results of a project carried out 2007–2008 providing oversight of key challenges in the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Ireland as understood by those researching the period. The project involved interviews with practitioners from a variety of fields in order to obtain qualitative data. The resulting synthesis is not a ‘consensus’ statement of priorities, but a reflection of a very diverse research field. Given that the project took place at a time of considerable change in Irish archaeology, the strengths and weaknesses of research into the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition are of broader relevance.     

Local Government Portfolios and Regional Growth: Some Combined Dynamic CGE/Optimal Control Results

A theoretical policy model is presented that combines regional dynamic CGE modeling and optimal control to explore the role of local government taxation and expenditure in enhancing regional growth. It contributes to the regional CGE literature by explicitly solving for an optimal policy and augments earlier regional optimal control models by adding endogenous optimization of producer and consumer agents in response to endogenously determined prices. Results of three policy regimes are analyzed in terms of gains in the objective function, impacts on income inequality, and sensitivity to model parameterization.     

Slavery,Gender and the Meanings of Freedom

Books reviewed in this article: Paul Goodman, Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality Leslie A. Schwalm, A Hard Fight for We: Women's Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation Marli Weiner, Mistresses and Slaves: Plantation Women in South Carolina, 1830–1880