About the Author

David J. Pope was born in Minnesota. As his mother and father would entertain themselves playing the music that was their shared and avid hobby interest, little David would sit under the piano and call out by ear the names of the notes they were playing. Too bad for him! Piano lessons ensued, and by the time the family had moved to the Chicago area a few years later his talents had resulted in an unusual level of skill.

A parochial school training there sharpened both his academic toolbox and his religious curiosity. By the time Pope got to college he determined to develop in earnest the personal theology that he had been encouraged to formalize by a rather liberal faculty at Immanuel Lutheran School.

But professional music training drew him to the concert stages of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. What began as a “Day Gig” at a Midwestern university provided enough stability for David and his wife to raise a family, and it also expanded his interests in a variety of pursuits not obviously related to music.

An MBA and a commercial pilot’s license led him to concert management, university administration, business consultancies, and some flight instructing. Now retired from academia, Pope has directed his time to continued study and to writing, and to some more piano playing.

The reality of our shared environment has been a consistent element in David’s approach to problem solving. A beautifully turned musical phrase is as real to him as is the piano upon which it is played. Though unseen, the airflow over his airplane’s wing is a fully embraced act of nature. The evolutionary origins of humankind are as palpable to him as are the oceans from which land animals emerged hundreds of millions of years ago. Nor do the mysteries of human spirituality reside in a dark world of the supernatural for David Pope.

That perspective characterizes Interrupting Behavioral Evolution. For David, to deny the supernatural simply means that there are a lot of unanswered questions out there. Time spent denying the question is an answer delayed.

Pope raises some very elemental questions in this little book. He answers some of them, and points the way to the discovery of answers for others. Few people will be able to read this disclosure of our human behavior without gaining some unique insights.