There is an interesting and thought-provoking essay at The Oil Drum.
It was written by href="http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=about/students/Nathan_Hagens.html&SM=about/about_menu.html">Nathan
Hagens, a student at the Gund Institute, University of
He makes some errors in the science, and engages in some armchair
hypothesizing (see graph above), but the overall conclusions are not
He romps through evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and behavioral
neuroscience on his way to explaining why we have an addiction to oil.
It clearly is not intended to be a definitive work. Rather,
it is intended to lay a the groundwork for a way of understanding how
we got ourselves into a predicament, and why it is so hard to get out.
Among his conclusions is the notion that we cannot change the biology,
thus government regulation is needed. I think he’s right.
He could improve his work by expanding on the explanatory power of
Cloninger’s tridimensional theory of personality and psychopathology.
He also could benefit from expanding on what is known about
the neurobiology of addiction. A bit of dual inheritance
theory wouldn’t hurt.
This probably cannot be done adequately by just one person; it would
have to be an interdisciplinary effort. Not only that, but,
once completed, it would hardly be a blog post. It would be a