Authors:Martí Domínguez Abstract: The physicist and science communicator Jorge Wagensberg used to say that the creativity of the human mind requires three things: to have a good idea, to know that the idea is good, and to convince others of it. But to have a good idea, we first need to look curiously at the world around us and ask the right questions. These questions may need to change as knowledge grows and events unfold. Years ago, when we talked about the climate emergency, the main question was what we needed to do to prevent climate change from crossing critical thresholds. The problem is that we did not take this question very seriously, or perhaps we did not like the answer enough, and so the main question we are facing now is how to ensure that the impact of climate change on our societies is minimised, and how to adapt to this new scenario which, if nothing changes, will only get worse in the coming years. What is both comical and worrying is that just as the consequences of climate change are becoming impossible to deny or ignore, the number and aggressiveness of climate deniers and delayers on the Internet is growing in parallel. In this scenario, it is more important than ever to reflect on the models of science communication that we are currently implementing, as Professor Hans Peter Peters does in the article that opens this new volume of Metode Science Studies Journal. This volume contains four monographs that address necessary questions and issues, such as the opportunities, challenges and threats facing drylands today, the origins of human societies, the One Health framework and how it can help us, and whether there is anything natural about the concept of beauty. Four monographs born of curiosity about the world around us, our own species, and the questions we ask ourselves in the face of new challenges that make us think and reflect. In short, they are the genesis of new ideas, always based on science. PubDate: 2023-01-31 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.26012
Authors:Hans Peter Peters Abstract: More than two decades ago the Public Engagement with Science and Technology (PEST) paradigm gained influence in the field of science communication, marked by the publication of the third report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology in the year 2000. The approach advocated in the report went beyond the traditional Public Understanding of Science (PUS) paradigm that had focused on sharing scientific knowledge with broader publics via top-down dissemination. It assigned citizens a more active and powerful role vis a vis science, emphasized the need for participatory discourses aiming at a shared understanding with non-scientific publics, and acknowledged both citizens' democratic rights regarding science-related decisions and their potential constructive contributions in the creation of socially relevant knowledge. PubDate: 2023-01-31 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.26011
Authors:Raquel Ortells Bañeres, Eduardo M. García Roger Abstract: In a world where it seems best to go unnoticed, many creatures display their beauty in plain sight. We could even say that we are surrounded by beauty. A diverse and overwhelming beauty that inspires artists and engineers, one that scientists have tried (and keep trying) to study and understand. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.25627
Authors:Juan Ignacio Pérez Abstract: Do bees or hummingbirds perceive the beauty of the flowers they approach to take nectar' That is, can non-human animals appreciate beauty' Is there a universal truth regarding beauty' Or is it just a useful attribute, an indicator of a valuable trait' As with so many other natural phenomena, there is no simple answer to these questions. In the following document, we analyse different aspects of sexual selection and its connection (or lack thereof) to aesthetic criteria and the so-called handicap principle. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24722
Authors:Tamra C. Mendelson, Michael J. Ryan Abstract: Taking an evolutionary approach to the question of beauty, we discuss the expression and perception of sexual beauty across the animal kingdom. Animals experience beauty in their brains, and animal brains are tuned to features of the environment most relevant to their survival. Over evolutionary time, sexually reproducing animals have exploited that tuning to maximize their attractiveness to the opposite sex, often leading to extreme courtship traits and behaviors. These are the traits of sexual beauty. Combining modern principles of neuroscience and neuroaesthetics with established principles of evolutionary biology, we aim to understand the biological basis and evolution of beauty in all animals, including ourselves. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24202
Authors:Enrique Font, Enrique V. Font‐Ferrer Abstract: We tend to regard beauty as the product of our education, the quintessence of cultural refinement, and we often emphasise the relative nature of beauty. That is why many find it shocking that the perception of beauty, especially human beauty, has a clear biological explanation, one that is largely independent from our education and culture. People are surprised because not only do the characteristics that define beauty originate in biology, but they are also universal and common to all members of our species. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24205
Authors:Mónica Vergés Alonso Abstract: By the mid-19th century, the United Kingdom reached the peak of industrialisation and economic expansion, while revealing the first drawbacks of progress: social inequality, urban overcrowding, and aesthetic discontent as a result of productive techniques. In this context, and in opposition to the prevailing academic art, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was born. They sought the authenticity they considered lost in their time in pre-Raphaelite paintings and medieval legends, with an attentive gaze on nature. From the outset, the Brotherhood had the support of the art critic John Ruskin. His writings on a new economic ethic and the creative and dignifying value of craftsmanship marked his «disciple» William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24203
Authors:Romà de la Calle Abstract: The relationship between natural and artistic aesthetics has not always been easy. Neither have the correlations between art and nature been independent from the contextualising filter that is human cultural history and its corresponding scientific developments. Approaching the subject requires studying the transition between the rights of the natural environment and its unstoppable conversion into nature-product over time. It will be necessary to reflect upon a number of dichotomies: aesthetic and natural objects; representation and expression; nature as an available reality and nature as a given reality; natural environment and artificial environment. These conceptual and functional hinges may provide us with a better understanding of the different historical moments that have articulated the dialogues between art and nature. PubDate: 2022-11-28 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.23666
Authors:Juli Peretó, Jaume Bertranpetit Abstract: Evolutionary biology provides explanations for the natural and remote origins of cooperation, as well as for the cognitive revolution associated with the emergence of the human species and its characterising social organisation. To understand the foundations of this human social organisation, we need to look for the adaptive advantages that social structures may have provided in the history of life, and understand which of these qualities appear to follow genuine biological vectors. Undoubtedly, human cognitive skills have allowed us to go even further and the increase in the complexity of social structures also followed an independent process, based on what would later be called economics and power structures, and initially rooted in a distinctively human trait, cumulative culture. It is now a matter of debate whether the behaviours from the earliest hunter-gatherer settlements to today’s large urban structures are truly biologically rooted. Building on the evolutionary basis of cooperation, this monograph looks at human social structures, from the most ancient and simple to the most complex of modern societies. PubDate: 2022-09-07 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24679
Authors:Teresa L. Thompson Abstract: Although a One Health perspective has, in one way or another, been around at least since the time of Hippocrates, the term itself was coined by William Karesh in a 2003 The Washington Post article. Since that time, the concept has been discussed, applied, and elaborated in numerous ways. Little, however, has done more to make the concept relevant to global concerns than the COVID-19 pandemic (the third major coronavirus to emerge in this millennium, including SARS and MERS). As is evident in the label, One Health essentially «is an intersectoral and interdisciplinary approach that focuses on where the health of humans, animals and environments or ecosystems converge» (Soares, 2020, p. 652). Although some who write on One Health have argued about definitional issues, such argumentation is not particularly helpful to our discussion at present. PubDate: 2022-09-05 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.23768
Authors:Maria Knight Lapinski, Matthew Seeger, Deanna Sellnow, Timothy Sellnow, Teresa L. Thompson Abstract: One Health is a framework focusing on the dynamic intersections between humans, animals, and ecosystems regarding health systems and practices. As human decisions and actions are the locus of One Health challenges, it is critical to understand how people perceive and act on these connections. Fundamentally, the literature in this area is based in the natural and health sciences; further efforts are still necessary to fully realize the potential of bringing social research squarely into One Health. We suggest several areas of scholarship that could move this effort forward. PubDate: 2022-09-05 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.23821
Authors:Victoria Ledford, Xiaoli Nan Abstract: Effective public health messages about vaccination can bolster human vaccine uptake to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Despite this potentiality, the One Health framework that values an interdependent approach to health has not fully considered the role of communication science in promoting public health. In this article, we offer evidence-based recommendations for health practitioners and researchers creating vaccine promotion messages. An interdisciplinary field, communication science suggests that vaccine messages can change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors through a systematic understanding of one’s audience and targeted and tailored health messages that appeal to beliefs about the outcomes of a behavior and beliefs about an individual’s behavioral efficacy. Implications for and challenges to vaccine communication are discussed. PubDate: 2022-09-05 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.23759
Authors:Fernando Valladares Abstract: There is ample evidence that contact with nature generates measurable benefits for people’s psychological and physiological health. There is also abundant research showing that well-conserved ecosystems with high levels of biodiversity serve additional functions, including the reduction of risks to human health from animal-borne infections (zoonoses such as COVID-19) or climate change. The United Nations coined the concept of One Health specifically to encourage the multidisciplinary study of human health in a global context of animal, plant, and ecosystem health, enabling progress towards more preventive and effective medicine. PubDate: 2022-09-05 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24072
Authors:Júlia Vergara Alert Abstract: With more than six million associated deaths to date, the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the worst diseases with an animal origin. Other zoonotic diseases such as SARS (2002–2004, mainly in China), MERS (2012, mainly in the Middle East), Ebola (2013–2016 in West Africa) and Rift Valley fever (from 2016 to the present) have caused major outbreaks in recent decades. In addition, and especially in low-income countries, some zoonotic diseases such as tuberculosis and rabies are endemic and cause thousands of deaths. Up to 60 % of known infectious diseases and 75 % of emerging infectious diseases have an animal origin and are responsible for public health problems and economic losses. PubDate: 2022-09-05 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24001
Authors:Laila Darwich, Rafael A. Molina-López Abstract: The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in both humans and livestock is attributed largely to the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials. The alarming emergence of this resistance in human and veterinary medicine has activated awareness for monitoring the levels of AMR pollution in the environment. In this report, the emergence of genes conferring resistance to human last-resort antibiotics is described in a wide diversity of wild animals. It suggests that wildlife can be good sentinels of AMR environmental pollution, especially in highly populated areas. Moreover, wild animals can also contribute in the dissemination of AMR bacteria and genes in the environment and represent a zoonotic risk for the population who are exposed to them. PubDate: 2022-09-05 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.23653
Authors:Pau Carazo Abstract: To talk about life is to talk about cooperation. Its evolutionary origin, different levels of organisation, and current complexity are the result of cooperation between different biological entities. This is also the case with animal societies, including the most complex of them all, the human society. Our language and extraordinary culture, our cities and vast social networks, are the fruit of cooperation. In a world dominated by Darwinian competition, how has cooperation come to play such an important role' Social evolution, the study of the biological bases of cooperation, tackles this question. From the origin of the first cell and to the explosion of social life in animals, social evolution explains how and why cooperation has guided life on our planet. PubDate: 2022-06-14 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.22348
Authors:Anna Bach Gómez Abstract: Human communities have settled very diverse geographical and climatic environments on a more or less permanent basis. Much of the archaeological evidence left by humans shows the strategies they adopted in terms of mobility, the structure of exchange networks, and the evidence of their inhabiting an environment that they quickly learned to manage and appropriate. This article provides an overall assessment of the archaeological reality and analytical potential of this record. It is based on cases of recent prehistory and evidence of mobility and nomadism, both from a global perspective and by using specific examples from the Near East. PubDate: 2022-06-14 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.22791
Authors:Laureano Castro, Miguel A. Toro Abstract: Norms govern many aspects of human behaviour and facilitate coordination in cooperative activities. Regarding the origin of normativity, the most widely accepted hypothesis holds that it was shaped by processes of cultural selection between human groups with different rules on how to organise social life. However, in our opinion, we still lack an evolutionary explanation that would allow us to trace the origins of this incipient normativity in early humans. In this text we suggest that normativity appeared early in the development of our hominin ancestors as a consequence of the development of elementary teaching skills, understood not only as the ability to show others how to do something, but also as the ability to point out what one may and may not do. PubDate: 2022-06-14 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21755
Authors:Greg Woolf Abstract: Urbanistic projects have dominated the last six thousand years of our species’ history, appearing independently on all the inhabited continents. The majority of the population already live in cities and the trend seems to be increasing. An evolutionary approach entails explaining first what factors first made urban experiments possible in the late Holocene, and then what selective pressures made urban forms of social organization more successful than their alternatives. A range of factors, some environmental and some emerging from the characteristic of the human animal, explain the possibility of urbanism. Among reasons for the comparative advantage displayed by cities, it is argued that state formation and urbanization have tended to form synergistic relationships, the success of each facilitating the success of the other. PubDate: 2022-06-14 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21713
Authors:Carolyn Steel Abstract: The question of how to eat has always been central to human life. Our evolution has mirrored a series of technical innovations such as the control of fire, farming, and railways that have transformed, not just how we eat, but how we live. Our ancestors understood the value of food, but modern urban life has obscured the true costs of how we eat. By externalising the cost of industrial farming, we have damaged planetary ecosystems and thus threatened our future on earth. By recognising and restoring food’s true value, however, we can rebalance our lives with nature and create more resilient, equitable societies for the future. PubDate: 2022-06-14 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21771
Authors:Salva Duran-Nebreda, Sergi Valverde Abstract: The popular science fiction series Foundation penned by Isaac Asimov explores the idea that the course of the future of societies is not only predictable but can be engineered as well. In Asimov’s fictional world, a multidisciplinary science called psychohistory combines mathematics, psychology, and history to predict future events. Nicolas Rashevsky, the father of mathematical biology, lent credibility to the existence of universal principles underpinning human cultural evolution using mathematical models. His vision remains to be fully realized, as our capacity to predict and even engineer is very fragmented. Two main obstacles are a misunderstanding of the role of mathematical models and the limitations of current datasets. Recent advances in complex systems research, computer-based simulations, and large-scale databases, are paving the way towards fully developing a mathematical theory of human history. PubDate: 2022-06-14 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21763
Authors:Jaime Martinez-Valderrama, Emilio Guirado, Fernando T. Maestre Abstract: Hyper-arid, arid, semi-arid and dry-sub-humid climate zones (all of them considered drylands) occupy over 40 % of the Earth’s land surface and are home to more than 2 billion people. Contrary to the popular image of this important set of biomes, drylands are home to 36 % of carbon stores, 30 % of forested areas, 50 % of the world’s livestock, and 44 % of croplands. These figures give an idea of their social, economic, and ecological importance – the focus of the monograph’s first article – and argue for the need to know and understand their functioning and manage human activities in an increasingly changing climate scenario. This is key to enabling their development and preventing their desertification. PubDate: 2022-04-06 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.24248
Authors:Jaime Martinez-Valderrama, Emilio Guirado, Fernando T. Maestre Abstract: Drylands occupy approximately 40 % of the Earth's surface. Their peculiar hydrological regime, with water as the main limiting factor, together with other characteristics, such as the variability of rainfall and their ecological heterogeneity, turn these regions into one of the main and most relevant sets of biomes on the planet. Beyond their stereotypical conception as places with a low economic and ecological profile, these territories have enormous biodiversity and support 40 % of the world's population. Global warming is increasing atmospheric aridity and the strategies developed over millennia by their inhabitants are a model to learn from. Preserving these places is essential to combat climate change, and to do so, it is essential to have an in-depth understanding of their structure and functioning. PubDate: 2022-04-01 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.22006
Authors:Víctor M. Castillo Sánchez Abstract: Desertification is a controversial concept whose nature, extent, causes, and potential solutions are still debated. This paper reviews the arguments put forward to consider desertification a global environmental challenge and analyses the institutional response within the United Nations framework, in particular that of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The most significant elements of the desertification debate are analysed with respect to their scientific and political dimensions. The text concludes discussing the need to establish an integrated framework for desertification assessment and response validated by a science-policy interface. PubDate: 2022-04-01 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21901
Authors:Laura Yahdjian, Lucas J. Carboni, Sergio Velasco Ayuso, Gaston R. Oñatibia Abstract: Livestock grazing modifies and even degrades dryland ecosystems, which threatens the sustainability of livestock farming itself. It is essential to learn more about the effects of grazing on vegetation and soil in order to design strategies to avoid desertification, perhaps the most serious problem faced by dryland ecosystems. In this paper, we evaluate the changes in the functional traits of the plant community and the biological soil crust induced by the intensification of grazing in Patagonian ecosystems. This description, together with changes in diversity, composition, and ecosystem performance, can help us to understand the mechanisms by which the intensification of sheep grazing could degrade dryland ecosystems. PubDate: 2022-04-01 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21553
Authors:Anahi Ocampo, América Lutz-Ley, Adriana Zuñiga, Claudia Cerda, Silvana Goirán Abstract: The drylands of Latin America sustain their countries’ economies. However, governance and economic models focused on exports and the short term have resulted in environmental injustice, unsustainable development, and the promotion of desertification. Addressing development challenges in water-limited ecosystems requires a thorough understanding of their complex socio-environmental interactions. In this document, we examine two of the most important economic activities in Latin American drylands: agriculture and mining. We use representative cases from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico to illustrate the complexity of socio-environmental interactions in which climate change affects the availability of water resources and results in power struggles. We also discuss how the approach to ecosystem services and transdisciplinary research can result in development models that benefit and protect ancestral communities and the ecosystems that make these territories unique. PubDate: 2022-04-01 DOI: 10.7203/metode.13.21458
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