Learning to domesticate the horse was a sort of energy revolution. — David Christian Energy Copy Share Image
Living organisms are created by chemistry. We are huge packages of chemicals. — David Christian Biology Copy Share Image
“Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas which, given enough time, changes into people.” — David Christian Enough time Copy Share Image
If historians don't tell stories at the scales of creation myths, someone else will. — David Christian Creation Copy Share Image
“Quantum physics shows that it is in the nature of reality to be unpredictable.” — David Christian Nature Copy Share Image
All religions, all indigenous traditions, all origin stories provide a large map of where you are. — David Christian Indigenous Copy Share Image
“The explosive properties of gunpowder were first used in war by the Jin, the northern rivals of the Song, in 1221.” — David Christian Gunpowder Copy Share Image
“In the 1990s, global military expenditures declined by perhaps 40 percent, and stocks of weapons of all kinds fell.” — David Christian Investing 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 Dividing Subsystems Copy Share Image
“Robert de Balsac, ended a study on warfare with the remark that “most important of all, success in war depends on having… — David Christian Education Copy Share Image
I had this feeling that, somehow, we ought to be teaching not just the history of particular nations or particular regions, but… — David Christian Feeling Copy Share Image
“defines domestication as “the human creation of a new form of plant or animal—one that is identifiably different from its wild ancestors… — David Christian Domestication Copy Share Image
Maps of Time attempts to assemble a coherent and accessible account of origins, a modern creation myth. — David Christian Accounts Copy Share Image
“Both animal and human slaves could be controlled best if kept economically and psychically dependent on their owners.” — David Christian Slavery Copy Share Image
“Choices whose outcomes matter even though they are neither deterministic nor completely random surround us all the time. So it is not… — David Christian Predictions Copy Share Image
“In mechanical terms, humans are quite efficient converters of food into energy, so human slaves were often more valuable than animal slaves,… — David Christian Fossil fuel Copy Share Image
“there are several distinct types of networks of exchange, each with its own typical range and characteristics. The main types that they… — David Christian Networks Copy Share Image
“All knowledge systems, from modern science to those embedded in the most ancient of creation myths, can be thought of as maps… — David Christian Knowledge Copy Share Image
Modern scientific knowledge appeared piecemeal. Historians wrote about human history; physicists tackled the material world; and biologists studied the world of living… — David Christian About 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… — David Christian Modern world 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… — David Christian Beautiful 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… — David Christian Free Energy Copy Share Image
“Within a single information network, processes of collective learning may be more or less powerful in different regions; it is thus possible… — David Christian Information Networks 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… — David Christian Family Copy Share Image
“Machiavelli’s descriptions of the strategic and tactical rules of this world are valuable despite an element of caricature: A Prince, therefore, should… — David Christian Art Copy Share Image
I, and all the complex things around me, exist only because many things were assembled in a very precise way. The 'emergent'… — David Christian Arrangements Copy Share Image
“As A. J. McMichael writes: “Each species is an experiment of Nature. Only one such experiment, Homo sapiens, has evolved in a… — David Christian Evolution Copy Share Image
“But even peasants within agrarian states were likely to take more interest in raising productivity when they had secure access to land… — David Christian Modern era 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… — David Christian Conquests Achaemenid Copy Share Image
“Thomas Malthus, was one of the first to analyze the relations between population growth and available resources. At the end of the… — David Christian Compound interest Copy Share Image
What we normally define as history doesn't interest me. It's a constraint. — David Christian Constraint Copy Share Image
“it takes photons of light just over 8 minutes to reach Earth, 150 million kilometers away.” — David Christian Photons Copy Share Image
“As an anonymous wit is supposed to have put it: "Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas which, given enough time, changes into… — David Christian Enough time 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… — David Christian Complex Copy Share Image
...from schools to universities to research institutes, we teach about origins in disconnected fragments. We seem incapable of offering a unified account… — David Christian Accounts Copy Share Image
Unfortunately, historians have become so absorbed in detailed research that they have tended to neglect the job of building larger-scale maps of… — David Christian Absorb Copy Share Image
“thus animals without symbolic language may lack the ability humans have to deliberately think about the past and imagine the future.” — David Christian Animal Copy Share Image
“Even in Jericho, the oldest-known farming village, the walls, which were once believed to have been fortifications, are now thought to have… — David Christian Jericho Oldest Copy Share Image
