neuroplasticity, twelve years after this quoted passage was written

Excellent dialogue with neuroethics graduate students from two different universities at my "From Cosmology to Neurology and Back Again" exhibition. I keep finding (finding again) some of the sources of my hypotheses, which are not my own except for the particular mix of academic disciplines involved:

"According to [social scientist] Ted Benton, the plasticity of the human brain may itself have an evolutionary explanation. 'If, indeed, the selective advantage that brain development conferred was an ability to respond flexibly, creatively and quickly to environmental challenges, then this would suggest an evolutionary trend towards more open-ended learning and regulation of behavior and away from "hard-wiring.”' This points towards a resolution of the tired argument between biological determinism and cultural voluntarism. Freedom is itself an evolutionary legacy; biology has supplied us with the tools for transcending biology."

—Edward Skidelsky, “Where Darwin Meets Malthus” (review of Hilary and Steven Rose, eds., Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology), TLS, August 18, 2000, p. 27.

I gave Barbara Maria Stafford a tour of the exhibition on the final day. We'll see where all this leads, if anywhere at all.