Outward Bound - Off to See the Tiaga and Tundra

I will not be blogging for a while now as I am off to do ethnobotanical research in the Taiga and Tundra subarctic regions of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland on my way back to Maine.

Meanwhile here is a quote from Walt Whitman

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

The Generous Man by Tor Nørretranders

While I was in the Klimaforum in Copenhagen this winter I heard the Danish Mathematician Tor Nørretranders give a speech about sociology and evolution.

I have just finished reading his new book 'The Generous Man' wherein he debunks the popularly accepted idea of a selfish homo economicus. He draws upon the sciences to introduce the idea that instead we are homo reciprocans and are naturally inclined to cooperate. I am inspired to go on reading about links between sociology, biology and philosophy.

My follow up books are 'The Nature Of Design' by David Orr and Environmental Sociology by Scottish Sociologist Phillip W. Sutton.


Read more about Tor Nørretranders on Edge

Beyond Edge:Tor Nørretranders' Blog