What are we? Where did we come from? and Why do we exist? are questions that have fascinated humans for at least 25,000 years.
This presentation will offer a synthesis and an evaluation of science’s current answers, from the origin and evolution of the matter and energy of which we ultimately consist, the origin and evolution of life on Earth, and the origin and evolution of humans. It will argue that many scientific paradigms, like NeoDarwinism, have ossified into dogma and are contradicted by empirical evidence obtained in the 21st century. Moreover, there is an underlying pattern in the evidence of cooperation, complexification, and convergence. This shows that, uniquely as far as we know, we humans are the unfinished product of an accelerating cosmic evolutionary process and the self-reflective agents of our future evolution.
John Hands graduated in chemistry from the University of London and co-authored two research studies and published one book in the social sciences. He was the founding Director of the Government’s Co-operative Housing Agency and served on three Government committees. He has tutored in both physics and management studies for the Open University and was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at University College London. He has written three novels and been published in 8 countries. He devoted more than ten years to evaluating scientific theories about human evolution from the origin of the universe, resulting in the recent publication of Cosmosapiens, which was selected by two reviewers as Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement and as one of The Telegraph’s Best Science Books of 2015.
