Dragging Humanity Up the Shining Hills of a GIS Map to Create a Virtuous Planetary Superorganism: A Review of The Neighborhood Project

August 17, 2012, 10:01 am by Scientific American: Mind and Brain

The following is an expanded version of a review originally published in this month’s BioScience , published here with the permission of the American Institute of Biological Sciences . David Sloan Wilson s latest book, The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time , is many things. It is an account of the genesis and early development of the ongoing Binghamton Neighborhood Project (BNP), offered as an inspirational metaphor and a model for academics who want to engage in improving the neighborhoods and cities where they live. It is a personal account of an evolutionary biologist s efforts to make his own work relevant to his city and the world. It is a collection of stories illustrating the diverse life pathways of people engaged in science (evolutionary or otherwise) and in other ways of making a difference in our world. [More]

Read the full article

More from Scientific American: Mind and Brain

Cancer, genomics and technological solutionism: A time to be wary
Scientific American: Mind and Brain : May 20, 2013, 11:57 am
[caption id="attachment_1465" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Genetic sequencing may provide easy data but the truly useful missing data might lie at the level of protein signaling pathways (Image: Yaffe, Science Signaling, 2013, doi: 10.1126/scisignal.2003684)"]

#SciAmBlogs Monday - eating healthfully, DSM-5, polyploidy, fecal transplants, non-identical twins, and more.
Scientific American: Mind and Brain : May 20, 2013, 11:24 am
We have just started a Pinterest page - follow it, and let us know how you like it. - Patrick Mustain - Dear American Consumers: Please don't

DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice
Scientific American: Mind and Brain : May 20, 2013, 11:00 am
Like many psychiatrists, I have been amazed by the debates surrounding the DSM-5 , the first major revision of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in

Why Feeling Anxious About a Vaccine Makes It More Effective (And Other Benefits of Short-Term Stress)
Scientific American: Mind and Brain : May 20, 2013, 9:00 am
[caption id="attachment_761" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Source: CDC, via Wikimeda Commons"] [/caption]SAN FRANCISCO--Standing at a podium in front of an audience of psychiatrists, clinicians and scientists, Firdaus Dhabhar brings up

China's One-Child Policy Affects Personality
Scientific American: Mind and Brain : May 20, 2013, 9:00 am
In 1979 China instituted the one-child policy, which limited every family to just one offspring in a controversial attempt to reduce the country's burgeoning population. The strictly enforced law had the desired