The Evolutionary Model

Author(s):  
Eliezer Geisler

It is often heralded that we live today in the “knowledge economy” and the “knowledge society.” It has become quite a traditional endeavor to divide the history of human progress into three main phases: the agrarian economy, the industrial economy, and the contemporary economy. The agrarian economy was based on labor and land, the industrial economy on labor and capital, and the contemporary economy on labor and knowledge.

Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova

This chapter introduces the issue of how systemic leadership and energy are intertwined. One compound question is: How did we shift from a primarily agrarian economy to a primarily industrial economy, and how did this shift shape world politics? We develop an interactive model of the significant factors involved in this change, not all of which necessarily had an equal impact in each single case. A second set of questions involve the linkages between the systemic leadership that emerged from these historical processes and the global warming crisis of the twenty-first century. How is systemic leadership linked to the crisis in the first place? What is systemic leadership’s likely role in responding to the crisis?


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Dieter Evers

Knowledge has been widely recognised as the most important factor of production in a "new economy". The production, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge are therefore essential for development. Some countries, Malaysia among others, have embarked on an ambitious plan to use knowledge as a base for economic development, by-passing earlier stages of industrialisation. Some commentators have, in contrast, asserted "that it is doubtful that the knowledge revolution will let developing countries leapfrog to higher levels of development" as "the knowledge economy will actually expand the gap between rich and poor" (Persaud, 2001:108). The paper discusses this controversy by arguing that the knowledge-gap (k-gap) is in fact a precondition for development. It is, however, no natural phenomenon but it is constructed by experts and governments. Socio-economic indicators are used to show that the existing global knowledge gap is widening between Southeast Asia and the OECD countries and within ASEAN. Malaysia, whose government has pursued a vigorous strategy of knowledge development is moving ahead of other ASEAN nations, but falling behind industrialised countries. Factors explaining the situation are outlined in this article.


Author(s):  
Sharon Howell ◽  
Richard Feldman

This chapter casts the deindustrialization of Detroit as part of a larger transition providing new dangers and opportunities. The disappearance of industrial economy has created opportunities for the emergence of alternative means of creating new, sustainable and vibrant urban life. The resources of African American culture and imagination provide a perspective on developing innovative ways of making a living that nurture our capacities for cooperation and care. Rooted in Detroit’s long history of social struggle, a vision of self-determining urban life based, on local production for local needs is emerging. Mainstream elites and media generally ignore or deride these efforts. This chapter explores specific examples of the practices and programs emerging from the community. New forms of resisting dehumanization, especially since the takeover of the city by emergency management, are combined with creation of concrete alternatives to questions of land, water new ways of thinking.


2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Primoz Krasovec

Today?s discussions on education policy mostly consist of uncritical shuffling of allegedly neutral and merely technical or practical notions such as life-long learning, learning to learn or problem-solving and are based on similarly uncritical acceptance of socio-economic theories of the knowledge society, which is supposed to present an objective framework of education reforms. The aim of this article is to sketch the history of mentioned notions and to present a critique of theories of the knowledge society through an analysis of its tacit political content. To this aim, we took upon early neoliberal epistemology (Hayek and Polanyi) as well as its transition towards theories of human capital (Drucker and Machlup).


2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-246
Author(s):  
Nico M. van Straalen

AbstractEvolution acts through a combination of four different drivers: (1) mutation, (2) selection, (3) genetic drift, and (4) developmental constraints. There is a tendency among some biologists to frame evolution as the sole result of natural selection, and this tendency is reinforced by many popular texts. “The Naked Ape” by Desmond Morris, published 50 years ago, is no exception. In this paper I argue that evolutionary biology is much richer than natural selection alone. I illustrate this by reconstructing the evolutionary history of five different organs of the human body: foot, pelvis, scrotum, hand and brain. Factors like developmental tinkering, by-product evolution, exaptation and heterochrony are powerful forces for body-plan innovations and the appearance of such innovations in human ancestors does not always require an adaptive explanation. While Morris explained the lack of body hair in the human species by sexual selection, I argue that molecular tinkering of regulatory genes expressed in the brain, followed by positive selection for neotenic features, may have been the driving factor, with loss of body hair as a secondary consequence.


2020 ◽  

Education was the fuel for the communication and knowledge society of the Renaissance. This period saw increasing investments in educational institutions to meet the growing demand for literacy in the context of a religiously divided Europe with growing cities and emerging central governments. An essential resource for researchers, scholars, and students in history, literature, culture, and education, A Cultural History of Education in the Renaissance presents essays that examine the following key themes of the period: church, religion and morality; knowledge, media and communications; children and childhood; family, community and sociability; learners and learning; teachers and teaching; literacies; and life histories.


Author(s):  
Nigel Brissett

The countries in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) share a history of colonialism that has left an indelible mark on all their institutions and systems of socialization, including education. A dominating theme across these countries is the question of equitable access to quality education at all levels, an issue that increasingly finds resonance in the 21st century’s technological era. The region has generally made important strides in the areas of universal access to basic education and increasingly to secondary education. Tertiary education has also been prioritized under the new “knowledge economy,” with many countries exceeding the 15% of qualified cohort (those who are academically qualified to be enrolled) that was set as a regional target in 1997 by Caribbean governments. Yet, even with these strides, the education project is still incomplete, with new and continued challenges of affordability and quality. These concerns are now incorporated into the Caribbean’s deliberate attempts at regionalism through the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), which serves as CARICOM’s organizing mechanism to face the new opportunities and challenges of the 21st century’s knowledge economy. These regional and development plans are expressed in CARICOM’s Human Resource Development 2030 Strategy (HRD Strategy), a multiyear development plan that is predicated on educational advancement across the region. The Caribbean’s educational achievements, equity challenges, and development plans are best understood in a historical context that captures the social, political-economic, and cultural idiosyncrasies of the region.


Author(s):  
Kajsa Hallberg Adu

This chapter offers a critical examination of the “collaborative development model” (UNESCO, 2005) or the Knowledge Societies discourse. By comparing international indicators and flagship publications of the Knowledge Economy and the Knowledge Society, the author uncovers a paradox: How can an idea centered on knowledge, sharing, and openness further cement global and local inequalities? By employing Southern/decolonizing theory, the author suggests a response from the Global South that allows for a more complex, symphonic, and inclusive development paradigm, compared to the Western ideas of linear stages of development. Three core aspects of Knowledge Societies are highlighted: The value of sharing, financing of education, and knowledge-on-knowledge. The author contends that fully embracing the concept of Knowledge Societies entails much more than country level indexing and benchmarking; it means opening up the world in terms of trade, mobility, and data, employing new technology in cross border collaborations and acknowledging our humanity's interconnectedness or ubuntu.


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