Modern scientific knowledge appeared piecemeal. Historians wrote about human history; physicists tackled the material world; and biologists studied the world of living organisms. But there were few links between these disciplines, as researchers focused on getting the details right. — David Christian Copy Share Image
You go to the cosmologists and ask how they tell the history of the universe; you go to the geologists, how do they tell the story of the earth, and the biologists, and then you string them together. And it… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“It was possible to borrow British technology, and increasingly governments began to promote development. By the end of the nineteenth century, governments and large… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“the conquests of the Achaemenid and Hellenistic dynasties encouraged commercial and intellectual exchanges reaching from central Asia to India to the western Mediterranean. In… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“So, as networks expand in size, their potential intellectual synergy increases much faster: “larger and denser populations equal faster technological advance.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“typical modern households live in urban environments where they earn incomes through some form of wage work and buy food produced by others. In… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“no complex, nonlinear system can be adequately described by dividing it up into subsystems or into various aspects, defined beforehand.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
Every kid goes to school full of questions about meaning. You know, 'What's my place in the universe? What does it mean to be… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“Both animal and human slaves could be controlled best if kept economically and psychically dependent on their owners.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“The modern world is ruled by larger and more impersonal forces, from faceless bureaucracies to abstractions such as “inflation,” or “the rule of law.”… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“contain into new, durable configurations, which can handle huge energy flows without disintegrating. This, we will see, is the characteristic pattern of all such… — David Christian Copy Share Image
We, as extremely complex creatures, desperately need to know this story of how the universe creates complexity and why complexity means vulnerability and fragility. — David Christian Copy Share Image
If, in schools, we keep teaching that history is divided into American history and Chinese history and Russian history and Australian history, we're teaching… — David Christian Copy Share Image
An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing that can create even more sophisticated things, such as chickens. And we know in our heart of… — David Christian Copy Share Image
“Earth, for example, is made up of oxygen (almost 50 percent) and smaller amounts of iron (19 percent), silicon (14 percent), magnesium (12.5 percent),” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“most of human history (chronologically speaking) has taken place in communities quite innocent of state power.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
“what we can see may constitute no more than 10 percent, and perhaps as little as 1 percent, of the matter in the universe.” — David Christian Copy Share Image
