Author Archives: Ilari Mäkelä

Gregory Bern’s has just released a new book: Self Delusion: The Neuroscience of How We Invent – And Reinvent – Our Identities. I had the honour of reading the book before publication and discussing it with Berns himself. Interested in listening to the conversation? You can find it on the On Humans –website, or listenContinue reading “The Harmful Delusion of a Singular Self ~ Gregory Berns”

 Evolution can shed light on the human condition. But scepticism is needed when bleak claims are declared from the armchair. In this essay, published in the Skeptic, I explore ways in which Darwinism has been distorted by forcing evolutionary terminology onto the human psyche.

In “All Quiet on the Western Front”, the German novelist portraits war as both inexplicably horrible and surprisingly humane.

Dennis Krebs’ excellent overview of evolutionary moral psychology succeeds in celebrating Darwin as source for understanding ethics.

A book chapter I had the privilege of co-authoring with Professor Han Shihui, a leading figure in the field of cultural neuroscience.

Humans are not born selfish. But why? Bowles and Gintis suggest that Darwin was right: altruism is good the group. But this leads them to the troubling suggestion that virtue evolved in times of war.