Peter Corning

Latest Posts in Peter Corning

A Species in Peril: What Evolution Can Teach Us About the Path Forward

Between the growing environmental crisis, extreme economic inequality and global poverty, a long list of social needs that are unfunded, or underfunded, and, not least, the dysfunctional or corrupt political regimes in many countries, our species is in genuine peril.  And it’s entirely a self-made crisis.  Yet this is precisely why there is reason for hope.


About Peter Corning

Peter Corning is currently the Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Seattle, Washington.  He was also once a science writer at Newsweek and a professor for many years in the Human Biology Program at Stanford University, along with holding a research appointment in Stanford’s Behavior Genetics Laboratory.  


Does Our Species Have a Future?

Does Our Species Have a Future? Dr. Peter Corning’s New Book Redefines What Evolution Can Teach Us About How the World Works.

Why the “Fair Society” is the Way Forward

The New Narrative: Why the “Fair Society” is the Way Forward


“Feedback”: It’s the Only Way to “Control the Controllers”

Feedback” is a hugely important phenomenon.  It plays a key role in all goal-oriented, dynamic systems, from living organisms to self-driving cars.  Feedback is information that tells a system how it is doing in relation to its goals and guides its behavior over time.  (Feedback systems are often referred to as being “cybernetic”, after the Greek word for “helmsman” – kybernetes.)  Positive feedback tells the system to continue doing what it is doing, or even to do more of it.  And negative feedback tells the system to change its behavior.