THE EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATION

This course draws on economics, evolutionary theory, and psychology to address such key issues as how did humans go from relatively isolated tribal life to an increasingly cooperative, interconnected, globalized world; and how can our knowledge of human nature and past progress be used to help solve major societal challenges? This course investigates natural selection as a useful framework for understanding how humans have progressed from subsisting in relatively isolated groups to where individuals are highly specialized in their productive efforts and highly integrated with the entire world through globalization. The course explores how this progression may be the result of genetic selection, but likely more the result of selection acting on ideas, or memes, rather than genes, but in an analogous manner. The course explores, through an understanding of human evolution, the origin of economic development. Combined with the psychological perspective of understanding the individual, we attempt to shed light on how complex civilization has come into existence. Lectures ask one or two main scientific questions and then focus on answering them, showing the types of evidence that can be used to address the question and the logical progression of ideas.