Neoteny

La théorie de l’évolution ne prend pas en considération les hétérochronies du développement. Dans ce rapport, nous tenterons donc d’éclaircir ce concept et nous nous attarderons sur le processus de néoténie qui a longtemps retenu l’attention des scientifiques notamment avec le cas de l’axolotl.
Chez l’Homme, les hétérochronies supposées seraient une hypermorphose du développement des neurones allongeant la phase embryonnaire, une hypomorphose (néoténie) de la morphologie du crâne et plusieurs post-déplacements de caractères. Nous tenterons d’illustrer au mieux ces hypothèses du développement. En effet, ces exemples sont à considérer comme des hypothèses car les analyses hétérochroniques concernant l’Homme sont souvent controversées aussi bien d’un point de vue théorique que pratique. Nous verrons donc à travers quelques exemples en quoi l’Homme pourrait être un « singe néoténien » et quels sont les modifications hétérochroniques qu’il a subies et nous analyserons les différentes théories controversées à ce sujet.

«La neotenia è il veicolo di ogni rivoluzione»: terminava così un articolo di Enzo Melandri, pubblicato nel 1968, dedicato alla teoria dell'ominazione e della fetalizzazione enunciata fin dalla metà degli anni venti dall'anatomista olandese Lodewijk Bolk, e in seguito archi-viata sotto l'etichetta d'ipotesi neotenica della natura umana. Secondo Melandri, le conseguenze antropologiche, filosofiche e politiche della concezione bolkiana della natura umana-concezione, per ragioni op-poste, in egual misura ignorata o emarginata da umanisti e scienziati-sono in realtà talmente profonde da produrre una vera e propria rivo-luzione nella nostra immagine dell'uomo, e talmente ampie da indurre un'inevitabile rifondazione del paradigma antropobiologico sotteso alle più disparate discipline: la learning theory e la psicologia evolu-zionistica, la psicoanalisi e la sociologia, l'antropologia culturale e la filosofia della cultura e della storia. Infine, esse dovrebbero essere prese sul serio anche «dall'uomo della strada», il quale dovrebbe «porsi la domanda definitiva: in che modo queste conoscenze e questi schiarimenti possono servire a una presa di coscienza più adeguata della condizione umana, in vista della prassi (più che della teoria)»? Allo stato attuale delle conoscenze, prosegue Melandri, la dottrina neotenica dell'uomo-dottrina che afferma che l'uomo è un primate caratterizzato dal mantenimento in età adulta di caratteristiche anato-miche e comportamentali giovanili (dal greco neo = giovane, e teinein = tendere), tipiche degli stadi fetali e infantili delle scimmie antropo-morfe-rimane un'ipotesi in attesa di un'«autorevole recensione criti-ca» e di una rinnovata verifica empirica. È probabile che, dopo quarant'anni, molti dei dati [della teoria di Bolk] non reggano più la teoria e si spieghino diversamente: ma è altresì probabile che siano trovati molti altri dati a suo favore. In ogni modo ci troviamo di

Abstract. A new rhynchonellid brachiopod genus Tethyrhynchia, with type species Tethyrhynchia mediterranea n. sp., is described from specimens discovered in dark zones of submarine caves along the Mediterranean coast of France between Marseille and La Ciotat, and also at ...

"In 1974 Stephen Jay Gould began to write a column on the monthly review of the American Museum of Natural History: “This View of Life”. In more than 25 years of continuous activity, he published more than 300 brief essays, narrating evolution with particular attention to nature's quirkies and to the ways in which we explain them, and to nature's "jokes" defying our models; the essays also recount the history and historiography of biology, people and events contributing to the birth, revision and extension of the great evolutionary research programme. Many people (expert and not) see Gould's Reflections on Natural History as masterpieces of science writing, often realizing bold matches between science and various other forms of culture Gould drew from his own varied interests and intellectual depth. Italian readers access such richness in 12 books translated in Italian. I present and celebrate the five best brief essays by Stephen Jay Gould, who died ten years ago at 60. The "top five" is assembled through a poll among the readers of the webportal Pikaia (www.pikaia.eu). The site, active since 2004, is in debt towards Gould, beginning with choice of its name (Pikaia is the protochordate protagonist of Wonderful Life) and ending with the pluralistic and naturalistic attitude to science communication, leaned towards rigor and involvement. Gould's vivid and intriguing ideas and his unique style are sided with an overall vision of his work.

Gould and his column
Everyone's questions, everybody's questions
Collegiality and multicontextuality of science
Reflections on human nature
And the winners are
The Liberty Bell
Egg of the kiwi
Tits and clits
Being a platypus
Predarwinian prejudices
Darwinian prejudices
Fourth ex aequo: tribute of a biologist to neoteny
The Piltdown hoax
The veil of science
The veil of fraud, Teilhard's figure, and Gould's style

References
Con l’occasione ricordo che su Pikaia è disponibile l'utile bibliografia completa delle opere di S.J. Gould tradotte in italiano, redatta da Paolo Coccia e Marco Ferraguti: http://www.pikaia.eu/EasyNe2/Notizie/Bibliografia_delle_opere_di_SJ_Gould_tradotte_in_italiano_Versione_riveduta_e_corretta_il_10_maggio_2008.aspx

Riflessioni di storia naturale
Gould SJ (1977), trad. it. Questa idea della vita, Editori Riuniti, 1984.
Gould SJ (1981), trad. it. Il pollice del panda, Editori Riuniti, 1983; poi Il Saggiatore.
Gould SJ (1983), trad. it. Quando i cavalli avevano le dita, Feltrinelli, 1984.
Gould SJ (1985), trad. it. Il sorriso del fenicottero, Feltrinelli, 1985.
Gould SJ (1987), trad. it. Un riccio nella tempesta, Feltrinelli, 1991.
Gould SJ (1991a), trad. it. Bravo Brontosauro, Feltrinelli, 1992.
Gould SJ (1991b), trad. it. Risplendi grande lucciola, Feltrinelli, 1994.
Gould SJ (1993), trad. it. Otto piccoli porcellini, Bompiani 1994, poi Il Saggiatore.
Gould SJ (1996), trad. it. Gli alberi non crescono fino al cielo, Mondadori, 1997.
Gould SJ (1997), trad. it. Come un dinosauro nel pagliaio, diritti acquistati da Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, inedito.
Gould SJ (1998), I fossili di Leonardo e il pony di Sofia, Il Saggiatore, 2004.
Gould SJ (2000), Le pietre false di Marrakech, Il Saggiatore, 2007.
Gould SJ (2002), I Have Landed, Codice Edizioni, 2009.

Saggi citati (acronimi)
CMGC91: “Capezzoli maschili e glande clitorideo”, in Gould SJ (1991), trad. it. Bravo Brontosauro, Milano, Feltrinelli Universale Economica, 2002, pp. 125-139.
KIWI91: “Le uova del kiwi e la campana della libertà”, in Gould SJ (1991), trad. it. Bravo Brontosauro, Milano, Feltrinelli Universale Economica, 2002, pp. 109-123.
ORN91: “Essere un ornitorinco”, in Gould SJ (1991), trad. it. Risplendi grande lucciola, Milano, Feltrinelli “Saggi”, 1994, pp. 31-41.
PILT79: “Una nuova versione del caso Piltdown”, in Gould SJ (1981), trad. it. Il pollice del panda, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 2001, pp. 99-114.
PILT80: “La cospirazione di Piltdown”, in Gould SJ (1983), trad. it. Quando i cavalli avevano le dita, Milano, Feltrinelli Universale Economica 1989, pp. 203-228.
PILT83: “Risposta ai critici”, in Gould SJ (1983), trad. it. Quando i cavalli avevano le dita, Milano, Felrtinelli Universale Economica 1989, pp. 229-242.
TOP81: “Omaggio di un biologo a Topolino”, in Gould SJ (1981), trad. it. Il pollice del panda, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 2001, pp. 89-98.

Crediti per le immagini
Figura 1: http://best-places.net
Figura 2: liberamente ridisegnata da KIWI91, p. 120.
Figura 3: ML Gustafson, PK Donahoe (1994) Male sex determination: Current Concepts of Male Sexual Differentiation, Annual Review of Medicine 45:505-524
Figura 4: la foto del mosaico è “Platypus” di “toadranchlady”, http://www.flickr.com/photos/toadranchlady/2524577355/lightbox/ - il diagramma ad albero è un fotogramma del video “Genome analysis of the duck-billed platypus” (2008) realizzato da Nature, http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/platypusgenome/
Figura 5: © Walt Disney Productions, riprodotto da TOP81, pp. 92-93.
Figura 6: ristampa dell’ottobre 1956 sul Reader’s Digest di un articolo di Popular Science dell’aprile dello stesso anno. Ripresa sito creazionista http://www.purifiedbyfaith.com

Altri riferimenti
Calder III WA (1979), The kiwi and egg design: evolution as package deal, Bioscience 29(8):461-467.
Gould SJ (1981), The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton, New York. Trad. it. Intelligenza e pregiudizio. Le pretese scientifiche del razzismo, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1985.
Gould SJ, Vrba ES (1982), Exaptation – A missing term in the science of form, Paleobiology 8(1):4-15. Trad. it. in Gould SJ, Vrba ES, Exaptation. Il bricolage dell'evoluzione, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2008.
Gould SJ, Lewontin RC (1979), The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B, 205, 581-598. Trad. it. di M. Ferraguti, I pennacchi di San Marco e il paradigma di Pangloss: critica al programma adattazionista. Piccola biblioteca on line, Einaudi, Torino, 2001. http://www.einaudi.it/einaudi/ita/pdf/gould-lewontin.pdf
Nagel T (1974), What is it like to be a bat?, Philosophical Review 63:435-450. Trad. it. Com’è essere un pipistrello? in De Palma A, Pareti G (a cura di), Mente e corpo. Dai Dilemmi della filosofia alle ipotesi della neuroscienza, 2004, pp. 164-180.
Sales J (2005), The endangered kiwi: a review, Folia Zool. 54(1-2):1-20.
Serrelli E (2008), Conoscere cosa, conoscere come, come conosciamo... un kiwi: un laboratorio epistemologico. In Meloni E, Beretta V (a cura di), Saperi e sapori. Idee e pratiche per umanizzare le organizzazioni, Monti, Saronno (VA), pp. 201-226."

The definitions of human behavior guiding traditional psychology, psychiatry or sociology lack the defining capacity of sciences, the provision of causal explanations of phenomena. Humanities are, by definition, anthropocentric disciplines. The mental, emotional, and social mannerisms or actions of human individuals or populations that represent behavior are manifestations of complex strategies responding to stimuli in perceived realities. In this they apply neurologically constituted means such as consciousness, theory of mind, and self-awareness, while also following culturally imposed conventions of various types. None of these and other factors contributing to human behavior can be dissociated from their historical trajectories, leading all the way into the deep hominin past. Nor can they be explained effectively without an understanding of these trajectories. Such understanding has largely escaped scientific attention thus far, and this chapter cannot provide more than a rudimentary introduction illustrating the profound shortcomings of traditional disciplines in defining the complexities of human behavior.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book summary in downloadable .doc]      Our instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection— evolved for life on the savannah 10,000 years ago, not in today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons—that gratify these gut instincts with often-dangerous results. Animal biologists coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and exert a stronger pull than real things, such as soccer balls that geese prefer over eggs. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett applies this concept to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment, demonstrating how supernormal stimuli are a major cause of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity and war. However, Barrett does more than show how unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. She also reminds us that by exercising self-control we can rein them in, potentially saving ourselves and civilization.

El concepto de hombre como ser en falta o deficiente, “Mängelwesen”, desarrollado por Arnold Gehlen en su antropología filosófica, no ha estado exento de polémica ni de rectificaciones luego de su proposición inicial en la primera edición de El Hombre, en 1940 (Der Mensch). Gehlen sitúa su antropología a partir de este concepto, desde el que deriva la necesidad absoluta de la acción [Handlung] para la supervivencia, en sus concreciones técnica y cultural, que a causa de esta función vital es considerada dentro del espectro de una “biología”. El hombre es un animal cultural por naturaleza en el sentido amplio porque es un animal biológicamente deficiente cuando se le compara con los otros animales. Si el término remonta a Herder, en quien Gehlen busca padrinazgo, su propósito es sobre todo de romper con la metafísica que defiende Scheler, su referente más cercano. Esta presentación tiene el objetivo de exponer el valor de este concepto en el corpus de la antropobiología, tanto como aclarar el sentido de la polémica en la tradición alemana motivada por la referencia a Herder, que algunos autores denuncian como un acto de oportunismo profesional o, más grave aún, como una oscura interpretación de un filósofo iluminado.

Although there are many established hypotheses for bipedalism in hominins none satisfactorily explain the basis for this development but rather propose different explanations or motives for increasingly sustained periods of bipedal behavior. The proposition here differs by suggesting an ontogenetic basis for extended periods of bipedal locomotion. This theory parsimoniously explains the underlying reason for the establishment of bipedalism by placing this particular adaptation within the context of the neotenous developmental trajectory of hominins. It is proposed that neotenous development and the plasticity this process afforded provided the platform upon which adaptations of the forelimbs supported increasingly refined manipulation. Natural selection for the advantages of increased dexterity likely resulted in further retardation of the hominin lineage by tending toward favouring progressively more neotenous hands. In parallel, increasingly neotenous feet demanded more sustained periods of bipedalism which indirectly conferred further self-selective advantages by freeing the hands for longer periods of time. Morphological evolvability conferred by neoteny may underlie both the evolution of the human hand and the subsequent transition toward obligated bipedal locomotion. Ultimately it was adoption of a bipedal stance which supported the accelerated encephalization maintained over the course of several million years until the fairly recent " self-domestication " of our species rapidly reversed this trend.

Music is a remarkable universal human-unique trait based on a special genetic and neuroanatomical infrastructure, shared among vocal learners, that links auditory inputs to motor outputs via a sensorimotor feedback. This neural configuration is necessary for rhythmic synchronization, a crucial feature of music that fosters affiliation and positive affects. As a social glue, music is associated with an increased oxytocin and reduced testosterone and cortisol, an endocrine profile linked to parental care. Based on the physiological oxytocinergic loop extended to sociality, music is grounded on cooperation and affiliation. Hence, its power. Yet, how did music propagate? Sexual selection is a prominent theory, claiming that music evolved as an honest signal of cognitive, motor, and cooperative skills, thus an index of good genes positively valued by females.
To empirically test sexual selection, and a possible musical division of labor, an experiment was run. The hypothesis was based on the evidence that a) the basal ganglia is a pivotal brain structure in rhythm synchronization which contains vasopressin (AVP) receptors; b) AVP is a neuropeptide similar to oxytocin abundant in males and related to music, dance, and courtship phenotypes; c) AVP peaks in women during ovulation, the most fertile period of the menstrual cycle, in which courtship receptivity reaches the maximum point.
Fifteen subjects (8 men, 7 women) participated in a study that measured rhythmic skills through a tapping task. It was predicted that rhythmic synchronization is better in men than women, who perform at the best during ovulation. The hypothesis was confirmed: best synchronization and less tapping variability was recorded for men while within women, ovulation enhanced synchronization. Results point toward within- and between-sex differences in the core structure of music, rhythm, and highlight two aspects of the sexual selection theory: a) within-sex differences suggest that synchronization is a means for alignment during courtship displays; b) between-sex differences shed light on how cooperation and trust propagated.
In courtship displays, synchronization is a partner test to assess compatibility. Coordinating in joint activities increases affiliation and positive feelings. By music, cooperation and trust spread in the human lineage via a selection against aggression, viz., neoteny. By reiteration, this inevitably led to a reduced sexual dimorphism and increased paternal care in our lineage, which are associated with reduced testosterone and increased oxytocin, the endocrine responses to music.
In conclusion, through the extension of the oxytocin loop from physiology to the social realm, music extended trust and cooperation from blood relationships to peer relationships, allowing the emergence of a novel courtship display based on a cooperative competition.

In this paper we analyse the possibility that the early hominin Ardipithecus ramidus had vocal capabilities far exceeding those of any extant non-human primate. We argue that erect posture combined with changes in craniofacial morphology, such as reduced facial and jaw length, not only provide evidence for increased levels of pro-sociality, but also increased vocal ability. Reduced length of the face and jaw, combined with a flexed cranial base, suggests the larynx in this species was situated deeper in the neck than in chimpanzees, a trait which may have facilitated increased vocal ability. We also provide evidence that Ar. ramidus, by virtue of its erect posture, possessed a degree of cervical lordosis significantly greater than chimpanzees. This is indicative of increased mobility of the larynx within the neck and hence increased capacity to modulate vocalisations. In the paleoanthropological literature, these changes in early hominin skull morphology have to date been analysed in terms of a shift in mating and social behaviour, with little consideration given to vocally mediated sociality. Similarly, in the literature on language evolution there is a distinct lacuna regarding links between craniofacial correlates of social and mating systems and vocal ability. These are surprising oversights given that pro-sociality and vocal capability require identical alterations to the common ancestral skull and skeletal configuration. We therefore propose a model which integrates data on whole organism morphogenesis with evidence for a potential early emergence of hominin socio-vocal adaptations. Consequently, we suggest vocal capability may have evolved much earlier than has been traditionally proposed. Instead of emerging in the Homo genus, we suggest the palaeoecological context of late Miocene and early Pliocene forests and woodlands facilitated the evolution of hominin socio-vocal capability. We also propose that paedomorphic morphogenesis of the skull via the process of self-domestication enabled increased levels of pro-social behaviour, as well as increased capacity for socially synchronous vocalisation to evolve at the base of the hominin clade.

Among the several main reasons for the present gradual demise of the hitherto dominant hypotheses of 'modern' human origins, the replacement or 'out of Africa' models, are the issues of genetic drift and introgression. The operation and consequences of genetic drift are considered, especially in terms of their effects on the evolution of the human species during the Late Pleistocene period. The complexity of the subject is reviewed in the light of several relevant frames of reference, such as those provided by niche construction, gene-culture co-evolutionary theories, and by the domestication hypothesis. The current cultural, genetic and paleoanthropological evidence is reviewed, as well as other germane factors, such as the role of neurodegenerative pathologies, the neotenization of humans in their most recent evolutionary history, and the question of cultural selection-based self-domestication. This comprehensive review leads to a paradigmatic shift in the way recent human evolution needs to be viewed. This article explains fully how humans became what they are today.

During sexual intimacy, humans have a strong preference for ventro-ventral copulatory posture (VVCP). This allows for an increase in oxytocin (OT) maximized by eye contact and skin-to-skin contact, kiss, and nipple stimulation. Previous studies have shown that coitus is more satiating than masturbation, and that OT enhanced the intensity of orgasm and improved interaction between partners. Thus, sex is a bonding device. People with low level of OT prefer eye-contact-avoidant forms of sexual contact, such as dorso-ventral copulatory position (DVCP). DVCP is also prevalent in male-oriented pornography, but women —with higher OT levels— rate erotic clips with VVCP as being more arousing than those involving DVCP.
Among great apes, also bonobos show a preference for VVCP, since the clitoris is barely stimulated by the penis during the DVCP. Sex for bonobos is a means to reduce tension and aggression. When compared to chimpanzees, bonobos also show lower levels of testosterone (T), explaining their higher levels of empathy and feminized neuroanatomy. Likewise, when compared to other great apes, moving from a polygynous ancestry towards a gradual passage to monogamy, humans show greater paternal investment, associated with reduced aggression and sexual dimorphism.
Having opposite effects in the brain, OT is associated with prosocial behavior, whereas T brings about opposite effects: while OT shifts the activation from the amygdala towards the rewarding areas, T inhibits their activation in favor of the amygdala, which is related to fear and aggression. Modulated by T and OT, these regions are sexually dimorphic and contribute to the development of stereotypical cognitive and behavioral sex differences, in particular empathizing and systemizing.
Supported by neuroanatomical and endocrine evidence, I will suggest a link between copulatory posture and neoteny. Neoteny is an important process in hominization, and is associated with the preservation of juvenile traits in adulthood, reduced aggression, and sexual dimorphism as a consequence of selection against male aggression. Considering that romantic attachment aligns T levels within the couple and increases OT production, I will point out that VVCP might have had a role in reducing sexual dimorphism and aggression, fostering paternal investment, and eventually promoting human encephalization.

Understanding the controversy over " Messages to Extra Terrestrial Intelligence " or METI requires a grounding in the history and rationale of SETI (Search for ETI). Insights since the turn of the century have changed SETI's scientific basis. Persistent null results from the radio search do not invalidate continuing effort, but they do raise questions about long-held assumptions. Modified search strategies are discussed. The Great Silence or Fermi Paradox is appraised, along with the disruptive plausibility of interstellar travel. Psychological motivations for METI are considered. With this underpinning, we consider why a small cadre of SETI-ist radio astronomers have resisted the notion of international consultations before humanity takes a brash and irreversible step into METI, shouting our presence into the cosmos.

The paradigm of the Philosophical Anthropology is not an "immunitarian" one: in fact, it makes possible to think the human being as characterized by "Mitweltoffenheit"

In this paper I resume the essential issues of the critics that Roberto Esposito, one of the most radical contemporary philosophers, has moved towards the paradigm of Philosophical Anthropology, that he describes as an anti-communitas paradigm (§ 1). After this short reconstruction, I claim that the Philosophical Anthropology view is not grounded – as Esposito suggests – on the idea of immunitas (§ 2): indeed, it is moving from such a paradigm that the reflection upon openness and community, that constitute the never fulfilled human existence, become possible (§§ 3-4). For men, being in the world means being together to-the-world-open (weltoffen) – that is, being co-world-co-open (mitweltoffen) – § 5.

In questo intervento mi propongo di analizzare la creatività umana dal punto di vista di una condizione di “eccedenza espressiva”, soffermandomi in particolare su quelle forme di creatività che agiscono nel processo formativo di una persona o di un’opera d’arte. Svolgo la mia analisi in due parti: nella prima considero come sia stato affrontato il tema dell’eccedenza umana nell’antropologia filosofica del Novecento; mentre nella seconda mi soffermo sulla relazione fra eccedenza espressiva e inaugurazione della singolarità. Al centro del ragionamento c'è una nuova interpretazione del concetto di neotenia: la neotenia non viene più interpretata come un difetto organico che, a seguito di una serie di fortunate coincidenze, avrebbe portato a un aumento delle dimensioni della scatola cranica, ma al contrario viene considerata come una brillante soluzione evolutiva al problema del parto di un ominide con una scatola cranica già eccezionalmente sviluppata, soluzione che a sua volta avrebbe impresso una straordinaria accelerazione allo sviluppo delle funzioni culturali e sociali.

A coming ‘Age of Interdependent Forms’ seems destined to mark the success of what could be called ‘despecialized/interspecific fitness’ among neotenic strains (perpetuating juvenile traits) of species such as humans and domestic animals. Humans as well as the first domesticants underwent a neotenic evolution in the wild during the repeated interglacial periods which, acting on a number of mammalian forms, selected against adult species-specific ancestral adaptations to a stable environment. Neotenic species continue to look and behave more like ancestral youths than adults—even after sexual maturity and throughout their life-history. As they retain lifelong youthful dependency motivations, they can easily, under suitable conditions, become interdependent forms. By the time of melting of the last Pleistocene glacier, all the domestic partners had already become more dependency-prone than formerly, and were behaviourally despecialized enough to form the alliance that is now changing the order of Nature.

This text presents a reading of Paolo Virno’s /Essay on Negation/, at the time of writing (May 2018) due to appear in an English rendition by Lorenzo Chiesa. I attempt to clarify the place of this work and its problematic within the context of Virno’s work as a whole and to demonstrate how it might be employed so as to resolve certain questions raised by a systematic reconstruction of Virno’s philosophical gesture. This means engaging with his conception of the relation between the transcendental and the empirical, their historical collapse, and the way in which ‘human nature’ is conceived in light of this.

In this essay David Kennedy argues that children represent one vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult–child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. Following Herbert Marcuse's invocation of a " new sensibility, " Kennedy argues that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny — the long formative period of human childhood and the paedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle — makes of the adult–child collective of school a primary site for the reconstruction of belief. After exploring child–adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what John Dewey called " impulse " and " habit, " Kennedy identifies three key dimensions of dialogic schooling, all of which are grounded in a fourth: the form of dialogical group discourse called community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), which is based on the problematization and reconstruction of concepts through critical argumentation. As a discourse model, CPI grounds practice in all of the dialogic school's emergent curricular spaces, whether science or mathematics, whether literature, art, or philosophy. Second, CPI opens a functional space for shared decision making and collaborative governance, making of school an exemplary model of direct democracy. Finally, CPI as a site for the critical interrogation of concepts encountered in the curriculum (such as " alive, " " justice, " " system, " and " biosphere ") and as a site for democratic governance leads naturally to expression in activist projects that model an emergent " new reality principle " through concrete solutions to practical problems on local and global levels. School as Archetype In this essay, I aim to offer one normative definition of " school " as a form of intentional community in which certain social, psychological, and political possibilities are present in the purposeful interaction between youth and age that act as agents of cumulative cultural evolution, or " cultural ratcheting. " 1 I argue that school, when organized as a purposeful site of intergenerational dialogue or " meeting " in the strong sense, opens spaces for the ongoing reconstruction of habit and belief that are promised both in the long period of neuronal development offered by human childhood, or " neoteny " ; and by the related phenomenon of " paedomorphism, " or the extent to which Homo sapiens, in comparison with its forebears, is marked throughout the life cycle by both physiological and psychological characteristics that are childlike. 2 But I also argue that, while (1) political democratization and class mobility — the rise, specifically, of a new class of " free men " in fifth-century BC Athens that challenged aristocratic hegemony 3 — first created a social space for the emergence of this form of adult–child collective, (2) the school's full potential as a transformative social and cultural institution has only been realized through a widespread transformation of 1. Michael Tomasello, Why We Cooperate

Evolution and time are inseparable. Thus, the riddle of time – what it is and how it works – should be worth some consideration from evolutionists. But contemplations of time are hardly to be found in any textbook on evolution. Biologists mostly tend to reckon such " philosophical " questions as subtle and unproductive. When a biologist-Christoph J. Hueck-recently pondered this theme, however, a surprising result came out of it: A notion of evolution comprising four sources, related to each aspect of time. * * *

The concept of health has been mainly interpreted from the pharmacological point of view of «cure», so far. In this paper I consider the concept of health from the viewpoint of «care». This allows to think the health with reference to the care of desire, that is to say to a process of cultivation of emotions that, thanks to an act of overcoming egocentricity and envy, becomes care of the world.

L’auteur montre que la discrimination des minorités visibles se fonde, moins sur la particularité de leur culture, que sur l’idéologie hiérarchisante qui conduit à appréhender leurs caractéristiques physiques en termes quasi biologiques permettant de les situer à un palier inférieur à celui de leurs ex-colonisateurs sur l’échelle de l’évolution. Après avoir donné des exemples de la prégnance actuelle de cette idéologie racialisante, elle en analyse les soubassements : la théorie des climats, les perspectives évolutionnistes de l’histoire humaine et des espèces, et la théorie de la néoténie. Pour illustrer les répercussions tragiques de cette appréhension des différences, l’auteur va prendre pour exemple le sort qui a été réservé, en Australie et au XXe siècle, aux métis issus des relations entre les Aborigènes et leurs colonisateurs britanniques. C’est en raison de la reconnaissance des conséquences désastreuses de ces mesures que le Premier Ministre australien a décidé d’adresser des excuses officielles aux peuples indigènes de son pays en février 2008, ce qui a suscité, du côté des Aborigènes et de leurs supporters, des émotions intenses et, du côté des racistes opiniâtres, une contre-offensive qui s’est exprimée sur internet. Celle-ci, tout comme l’expression publique récente de propos ignominieux adressés à des personnalités politiques éminentes de couleur les comparant à des singes, met en lumière la persistance d’une appréhension essentialisante des différences. Il faut en reconnaître les effets sur ce qu’ont à vivre aujourd’hui encore les ressortissants de pays ayant été colonisés par ceux qui se voyaient comme appartenant à des races supérieures,  justifiant, par là, leur mission civilisatrice. C’est pourquoi l’auteur suggère, en guise de conclusion, que l’un des enjeux majeurs de la thérapie avec les représentants des minorités visibles doit consister à accepter d’être affecté par leur expérience de sujets dépréciés afin de transformer l’affect partagé en ressources thérapeutiques.

Après avoir, dans leurs Numéros 1 et 2, confronté Simondon à Bergson, Wiener, Heidegger, Piaget et Agamben tout en abordant certaines grandes thématiques de son œuvre – l’invention, le vivant, les sciences sociales, l’épistémologie de la physique – et en proposant de prolonger son interrogation anti-dogmatique dans les domaines de l’éthique, de l’esthétique et de la philosophie générale, les Cahiers Simondon entendent, dans ce Numéro 3, dresser d’abord un bilan de la redécouverte récente du lien central de Deleuze à Simondon : c’est ici Anne Sauvagnargues qui propose une synthèse des trois chapitres concernés de l’ouvrage par lequel elle a renouvelé en 2009 l’exégèse deleuzienne.
    Ce Numéro 3 entend ensuite confronter Simondon à Arendt sur la question décisive du travail, à Dufrenne sur celle de l’esthétique en tant qu’elle tend à devenir une « techno-esthétique », revenir aussi sur le problème des sciences humaines dans L’individuation psychique et collective, sur celui du dialogue avec la cybernétique et les « théories des machines » dans Du mode d’existence des objets techniques ou dans des textes inédits, et sur l’enjeu de la néoténie dans L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information.
    Enfin, Jean-Hugues Barthélémy dialogue avec le dernier ouvrage de Xavier Guchet à propos du mode d’unité de l’ensemble de l’œuvre, et Vincent Bontems clôt le présent numéro en évoquant les activités de l’Atelier Simondon qu’il anime à l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris.

From a subjective point of view, we take the existence of integrated entities, i.e., ourselves as the most unproblematic given, and blithely project such integrity onto untold many "entities" far and wide. However, from a naturalistic perspective, accounting for anything more integral than the attachments and attractions that are explicable in terms of the four fundamental forces of physics has been anything but straightforward. If we take it that the universe begins as an integral unity (the singularity referred to as "the cosmic egg") and explodes into progressive stages of internal detachment, then we can also fathom the idea that eddies of relative detachment becoming increasingly integral. Helmuth Plessner made a powerful case for the onset of "positionality" constituting one of the major transitions in nature. Surely, the emergence of "entities" (i.e., life-forms) that position themselves in relation to their surround marks a decisive transition in relative levels of detachment and some would say "autonomy." It would follow, with no less force, that where and when entities can be seen to be normatively integrated, and indeed to be the agents of their own normativity, that another threshold of detachment has been crossed. The paper introduces and explores the idea that normativity, embedded in a wide-ranging theory of natural detachment, can be considered an emergent force of nature that is requisite to accounting for levels of integration beyond that which is explicable in terms of the four fundamental forces of physics. Following this line of enquiry, we argue that the first expression of a fully, normatively-integrated life-form is neither a spoken language user nor for that matter an individual but rather the neoteny-based, Homo erectus Group. In so doing we claim to have made an inroad into embedding the force of normativity into a wide-ranging naturalist framework, to have provided philosophical anthropology with a new (post-individualist) point of departure, and at least playfully, to have given some naturalistic grist to Hegel's proclamation that spirit (Geist) is the truth of nature.

August Weismanns early Research on Evolution: Experiments and Theory in Techno-natural Assemblages
(künstliche Naturräume)
August Weismann’s early engagement with Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory offers an unique insight into
the develoment of the thinking and the research practice of one of the most important evolutionary theories of
the 19th century. The ways in which he successively carves out gradualism and natural selection as the central
components of the evolutionary process become visible. This involved a strategy of employing alternative theories
of evolution to further refine his own arguments. Central were the theory of heterogenous generation (Theorie der
heterogenen Zeugung) by Albert von Kölliker and the separation theory by Moritz Wagner. But Weismann did
not only engage with their theoretical positions. To counter their arguments and to sharpen his own interpretation,
he developed a research programme, in which he experimentally studied phenomena central to these alternative
theories and analysed the temporality of developmental processes as well as the influence of the environment. The
program was focused on the controlled variation of factors like temperature in the developments of butterflies and
the transition from water onto land in the Mexican axolotl. For these experiments, he used techno-natural assem-
blages (künstliche Naturräume), which were then new to zoological research. Thus, the specialised knowledge and
the skills of the aquarium fancier and naturalist Marie von Chauvin were necessary to successfully complete the
experiment on the Mexican axolotl.

Die frühe Phase von August Weismanns Auseinandersetzung mit der Evolutionstheorie Charles Darwins bietet
einen einmaligen Einblick in die Entwicklung des Denkens und der Forschungspraxis eines der wichtigsten Evolu-
tionstheoretikers des 19. Jahrhunderts. Seine schrittweise Herausarbeitung des Gradualismus und der natürlichen
Selektion als zentrale Elemente des Evolutionsprozesses wird sichtbar. Gleichzeitig zeigt sich, wie Weismann alterna-
tive Evolutionstheorien dazu nutzte, seine eigene Argumentation weiterzuentwickeln. Hier standen die Theorie der
heterogenen Zeugung, vertreten durch Albert von Kölliker, und die Separationstheorie von Moritz Wagner
im Zentrum. Weismann setzte sich jedoch nicht nur mit ihren Argumenten auseinander. Um gegen ihre Position
argumentieren zu können und die eigenen Argumente zu schärfen, entwickelte er ein Forschungsprogramm, in
dem er Phänomene, die eine zentrale Bedeutung in der Begründung der alternativen Theorien spielten, experimen-
tell untersuchte und hier insbesondere den zeitlichen Verlauf von Entwicklungsvorgängen sowie die Rolle der Um-
welt analysierte. Dabei ging es um die kontrollierte Variation von Faktoren wie der Temperatur und des Übergangs
vom Wasser zum Land (Luft). Die hierfür notwendigen künstlichen Naturräume wie das Aquarium stellten ein
neues Instrumentarium in der Zoologie dar, und erst die Kooperation mit der Aquarianerin Marie von Chauvin
machten eine erfolgreiche Durchführung der Experimente möglich.

As with juvenile wolves or coyotes, adult livestock conducting dogs displayed the first-half segment of a functional predatory system of motor patterns and did not express play or social bonding toward sheep; whereas, like wolf or coyote pups, adult livestock protecting dogs displayed sequences of mixed social, submissive, play and investigatory motor patterns and rarely expressed during ontogeny (even when fully adult) predatory behaviors. The most parsimonious explanation of our findings is that behavioral differences in the two types of livestock dogs are a case of selected differential retardation (neoteny) of ancestral motor pattern development.

Alors que la question de « l’essence de l’humain » semblait être classée une fois pour toutes par divers courants de pensée issus des univers scientifiques et philosophiques, « le reste », vu comme littéralement « inexistant » était dédaigneusement laissé au domaine religieux et aux spéculations métaphysiques. Or voici que, contre toute attente, les récents développements de la biologie, comme de « l’intelligence artificielle » conduisent les hommes à remettre encore une fois sur le métier de l’analyse la représentation qu’ils se font d’eux-mêmes. Les capacités de raisonnement, le rire, l’émotion, l’humour, l’empathie, sont-ils encore « le propre de l’homme » ? A l’heure des robots émotifs, tous ces « traits » que l’on a cru longtemps exclusifs à l’espèce humaine sont-ils encore distinctifs ? Aristote a longtemps défini l’homme comme « un animal doué de raison ». Descartes a placé son existence dans sa faculté de penser. Pensée ou conscience ? La redécouverte de l’inconscient a conduit, au siècle dernier, à postuler un homme structural, inconsciemment assujetti, au-delà de son illusion de conscience et de liberté, au système dont il est partie prenante. Que ce système soit familial, éducationnel, linguistique, social. Ces frontières semblent aujourd’hui remises profondément en cause par une conception naturaliste de l’homme. La vision darwiniste des espèces est vécue par la plupart comme une forme d’évidence scientifique qu’on ne songe plus à contester.

On assiste dès lors à la prise de conscience collective d’une forme d’abus de propriété exercé par l’homme sur la nature entière, accompagné de la montée d’un animalisme moral. Ces éléments combinés avec les avancées de la biologie rendent poreuse la frontière homme-animal. L’homme est présenté comme « un animal comme les autres ». Et, sur le plan moral, c’est de façon subliminale l’animal, qui devient « un homme comme les autres », méritant respect et droit absolu de préservation. L’avènement de cet « homme biologique », qui est aussi dans ce sens un « homme neuronal », se conjugue avec les rêves de « transhumanisme », dans lesquels le « supportsilicium » est envisagé sur le même plan que le « support » vivant. L’accélération technoscientifique, mais aussi le foisonnement intense des productions culturelles, viennent contribuer à brouiller les cartes davantage encore. Les francs-maçons ne pouvaient y rester insensibles.

En regard des schémas de représentation ambiants, la Franc-Maçonnerie propose le modèle d’un « homme essentiellement humain », en perpétuel devenir, sur le mode initiatique. La cinquième rencontre Lafayette entre le Grand Orient de France et la Grande Loge Nationale Française permettra à deux conférenciers issus de leurs rangs, Didier Desor et Norbert Hillaire d’apporter leur contribution aux nouvelles réflexions développées sur l’essence de l’homme. Deux grands témoins de la société civile viendront leur donner la réplique : Laurence Devillers et Guy Vallancien apporteront leurs réactions éclairées, l’une chercheuse en robotique, l’autre chirurgien. Cette rencontre, comme les précédentes, est publique.

Simondon seldom mentions desire. Stiegler criticizes him for that, arguing it renders his thought “apolitical”. Yet, every category to which desire is associated can be found in Simondon: a notion of incompleteness (neoteny), the impulse towards exterior objects (tropism), the relation between body and collective. This paper explores the links between Simondon's affective-emotive subconscious and the concept of desire, conceived as producer of its objects. These connections help to question Simondon's link to other philosophers of his day, by means of a reading of Stiegler's critique, which helps to sketch the outlines of a political reflection based on Simondon.

En posant les bases d’une conception du langage fondée sur le languaging, l’approche énactive et autopoïétique ouvre un cadre d’intelligibilité pour appréhender l’apparition du phénomène langagier dans sa globalité, y compris dans sa relation avec l’hominisation. Pour l’heure, cette approche n’a pas été suffisamment explorée dans le domaine de recherche portant sur les « origines du langage », à quelques exceptions près (Andresen, 2014). En effet, la « théorie de la dérive naturelle » (Maturana & Varela 1994 ; Varela et al., 1993 ; Maturana & Mpdozis 2000) et la théorie des « Systèmes développementaux » (Oyama et al., 2001) peuvent constituer l’arrière-plan idéal pour repenser les conditions écologiquement situées de la trajectoire phylogénétique, ainsi que le rôle réel de l’action organismique pour l’affirmation transgénérationnelle de la coordination par le languaging comme domaine privilégié des interactions. Afin d’en montrer les apports novateurs, nous traiterons d’abord les aspects les plus controversés des modèles néodarwiniens courants (perspectives génocentriques et adaptationnistes) qui informent de nombreuses hypothèses au sein de ce domaine d’études. Nous allons ensuite introduire une piste d’enquête phylogénétique, qui nous permettra d’examiner l’évolution anatomique et neurobiologique (notamment, l’encéphalisation et les corrélats périphériques impliqués dans l’articulation vocale et brachio-manuelle) d’une part, le facteur relationnel et social du vivre ensemble humain d’autre part.

A Harvard psychologist explains how our once-helpful instincts get hijacked in our garish modern world. Our instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection— evolved for life on the savannahs 10,000 years ago, not in today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons—that gratify these gut instincts with often-dangerous results. Animal biologists coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and exert a stronger pull than real things, such as soccer balls that geese prefer over eggs. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett applies this concept to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment, demonstrating how supernormal stimuli are a major cause of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity and war. However, Barrett does more than show how unfettered instinct...

The aim of this paper is to consider the Gehlen’s critique of modernity through his concept of the awkwardness of technology. In order to highlight his philosophical anthropology, I will focus on the special relationship between humankind and the multitude of objects that surround us in everyday life. To clarify this relationship in the age of modernity, firstly I tackle two key concepts of Gehlen’s work. If with the notion of ‘technological action’ I will focus on anthropobiological aspects, through his idea of ‘imagination’ I will handle psychosocial problems. Only after this overview I will deeply focus on the sociological and psychological aspects of modern technology and their effects on contemporary man.

This essay contains two hypotheses: the first postulates that infectious and parasitic conditions in the first baby-carrying devices or “slings” selected for changes in juvenile hair distribution and immuno-resistance, and that a convergence of datable mutations and osteological changes indicate that infants in our lineage adapted to the microenvironment between 1.2 and 2.8 million years ago - with evidence converging towards the older end of that range. Such slings, which might have been first used to carry gleanings, would have surrounded offspring in dangerous pathogens and parasites. Babies whose fetal body baldness had not disappeared would have had an advantage over infants with previously normal body fur, because adults could clean them better – probably resulting in the neotenic extension of the fetal trait.
The microenvironment might have selected for the elimination of infectious pathways as well. The inactivation of the CMAH gene, which could have provided a pathway for pathogens associated with ungulate and proboscidean hides to infect infants with diarrhea, is explored as a candidate, and multiple ways of testing the hypothesis are described.
The related hypothesis, which is based partly on avian comparisons and milk chemistry, postulates that slings gradually forced adults to focus on the kind of nutrition needed by more slowly maturing infant brains by making their babies more altricial. This might have triggered more scavenging, hunting, and feedback mechanisms that slowly extended the new juvenile hair distribution to adults as part of a whole-body cooling system based on sweat and body baldness while contributing to speciation.

You can either download this article from Academia.edu or from my website, www.duncancaldwell.com, which offers more publications and information.

The phylogenetic relationships of the families Polystomatidae and Sphyranuridae (subclass Polystomatoinea) within tetrapod monogenean parasites were investigated using partial 18S rDNA sequences. About 600 nucleotides of 11 species were sequenced, including 7 species of the most common subfamilies of Polystomatidae found in anurans and turtles, 1 species of the family Sphyranuridae parasitizing exclusively urodelans, and 3 species of the subclass Oligonchoinea infesting teleostean fishes. The phylogenetic analyses were performed using three reconstruction methods: neighbor-joining, maximum-parsimony, and maximum-likelihood. Polystomatoineans but not polystomatids were shown to be monophyletic. Within the polystomatoineans there are two clades: one includes the amphibian monogeneans (anuran polystomatids and urodelan sphyranurids) and the other includes the turtle polystomatids. Polystomatoineans may have coevolved with amphibian hosts, and an ancestral “polystome” dispersed at least 200 million years ago, either from the basal stem of lissamphibians or from an anuran ancestral stock, to freshwater turtles. Furthermore, the urodelan genus Sphyranura, initially assigned to the family Sphyranuridae on the basis of morphological and ontogenetic evidence, is clearly nested within polystomatids, suggesting that its systematic status must be revised. This supports recent findings which argue that species of the family Sphyranuridae may be paedomorphic parasites exclusively infesting neotenic mudpuppies.