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Author and Sociobiologist Rebecca Costa to Lecture Soon at TU

What does it mean when the recent financial meltdown is fully understood by only one American citizen (or two, at the most) out of every 100 randomly chosen individuals? What should we make of law-makers --- based in Washington, DC, or elsewhere --- who debate nuclear policy when they've never taken a class in physics? What happens when people everywhere become more and more reliant on technology even as they understand less and less of it? Whether its the endless instability of the Middle East or the vexing reality of climate change or the increasingly alarming presence of, say, drone warfare or cyber-terrorism, life today is getting ever-more complex --- obviously --- but how will this complexity ultimately affect society? What happens when life becomes literally too complicated for human beings? On this installment of ST, an interesting discussion with an expert on such matters. Our guest is Rebecca Costa, a sociobiologist whose work, per her bio at Amazon.com, aims to provide "a genetic explanation for current events, emerging trends, and individual behavior. A thought-leader and provocative new voice in the mold of Thomas Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jared Diamond, Costa traces everything from terrorism, debt, epidemic obesity, and upheaval in the Middle East to evolutionary imperatives." Costa is also the author of "The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse," and she'll appear here at TU as part of the Collins College of Business Distinguished Lecture Series on Thursday the 11th. She'll be speaking at both 2pm and 7pm on that date --- in each case, alongside IBM Big Data program director Gary Robinson --- in Helmerich Hall (Room 219) on the TU campus; Costa and Robinson's free-to-the-public co-presentation is called "Striving, Thriving, Diving, and Surviving: Why Fast Adapters Win." You can learn more about this upcoming joint-lecture at this link.

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