Marek Kohn

Marek Kohn
BornMarek Kohn
OccupationScience journalists
LanguageEnglish
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Sussex
University of Brighton
GenreScience
SpouseSue Matthias Kohn

Marek Kohn is a British science writer on evolution, biology and society.

Early life and education

Kohn holds an undergraduate degree in neurobiology from the University of Sussex, a PhD from the University of Brighton and has held fellowships at both schools. He is currently an honorary research fellow with the latter.[1] His articles have appeared in The Independent, New Scientist, Prospect, Financial Times, and The Guardian, and he writes frequently for the New Statesman.

Career

His first two books were on drugs, their cultural history, and their politics. He is the author of seven books and hundreds of articles.[2]

Kohn's book, A Reason for Everything (2004), has received widespread praise, including Steve Jones' stating in his Nature review that "every evolutionist should read it,"[3] and Andrew Brown,[4] author of the Darwin Wars, writing in his Guardian review, "one of the best science writers we have."[5]

In 1999, Kohn had proposed, together with the archaeologist Steven Mithen, the "sexy hand-axe hypothesis."[6] This hypothesis proposes that pressures related to sexual selection could result in men making symmetric hand axes to demonstrate their cognitive and physiological fitness.[7]

Following the publication of his name in a list of persons invited to participate in Steve Sailer's Human Biodiversity Institute discussion pages, Kohn wrote to Lynn Conway to dissociate himself from many of the participants' scientific and political views.[8]

Kohn has also written about the possible future effects of climate change on Britain's landscape and society; health inequalities; the evolutionary psychology of trust; and Poles in British society. Kohn is also the author of a guide to the Wellcome Collection.

In December 2014, Kohn also contributed to the BBC Radio 4 Live Documentary: Palace of Great War Varieties presented by Matthew Sweet.[9]

Personal life

Kohn resides in Brighton with his wife, Sue Matthias Kohn; the couple have a son.

Books

  • Narcomania: On Heroin (1987)
  • Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground (1992; re-released 2003)
  • The Race Gallery: The Return of Racial Science (1995; re-released 1996)
  • As We Know It: Coming to Terms with an Evolved Mind (1999)
  • A Reason For Everything: Natural Selection and the English Imagination (2004)
  • Trust: Self-Interest and the Common Good
  • Turned Out Nice: How the British Isles will Change as the World Heats Up (2010)

References

  1. ^ "Marek Kohn | Academic staff | Arts and Humanities". Archived from the original on 24 November 2015. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  2. ^ Marek Kohn's "What I Do" Archived 2005-03-05 at the Wayback Machine (at his NTL World website Archived 2006-01-06 at the Wayback Machine).
  3. ^ "When giants walked the Earth" (review by Steve Jones, Nature, September 2, 2004, p. 21) [paid or subscriber view only].
  4. ^ Andrew Brown's "Who I Am" (at his Darwin Wars website).
  5. ^ "Thinking big: Marek Kohn's study of the men behind Darwinism" (review by Andrew Brown, The Guardian, September 18, 2004).
  6. ^ Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2005, pp. 188-191.
  7. ^ Gabora, Liane; Kaufman, Scott Barry (2010), Kaufman, James C.; Sternberg, Robert J. (eds.), "Evolutionary Approaches to Creativity", The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 279–300, arXiv:1106.3386, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511763205.018, ISBN 978-1-107-74604-6, S2CID 28678743, retrieved 3 October 2022
  8. ^ Lynn Conway, Interim investigative report on Bailey's affiliations and ideological associations (at her University Michigan site).
  9. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Matthew Sweet's Palace of Great War Varieties".