Today is the day widely celebrated as Darwin Day. Two hundred and two years ago, Charles Darwin was born, and many evolution enthusiasts hold rallies and teach-ins to celebrate this anniversary every year. And while my role as a college professor teaching a great variety of evolution courses ought to put me in a celebratory Read More
Belief, Evolution, Evolution Education, Public Outreach, Religion, TeachingIn a recent posting I discussed the book The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod [1, 2]. The book chronicles Axelrod’s work in the 1980’s to understand the dynamics of the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD), which is perhaps the most well-known of game theory constructs. Axelrod’s work is important because it points out how rich Read More
Cooperation, Easy Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, Educational Software and Apps, Evolution Education, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Individual-based Models, Lesson Ideas, Reciprocity, Spatially Explicit Modeling, System Stability, Teaching, Teaching ToolsThis month’s edition of Scientific American features a cover article entitled “Dawn of the Deed” by John A. Long. Long describes how fossil discoveries he and his colleagues made several years ago have changed the way we understand the evolution of copulation. While there has long been evidence that the sharks have practiced internal fertilization Read More
Adaptation, Paleonotology, Sex and ReproductionI just finished reading Robert Axelrod’s seminal book entitled The Evolution of Cooperation. Although I had read a lot about Axelrod’s work and am quite familiar with the body of literature that it inspired, I had never actually read his book cover to cover. Going in, my expectation was of finding a rather primitive treatment Read More
Altruism, Behavioral Ecology, Books, Coevolution, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Human Evolution, Individual-based Models, Interdisciplinarity, Multilevel Selection, Mutualism, Political Science, Public Policy, Reciprocity, Sociology, Spatially Explicit ModelingJohn C. Avise [1, 2] started off the colloquium by giving a very brief introduction to the In the Light of Evolution series, highlighting much of the history I discussed in my preview. Peter Nonacs “Insect Societies: Pinnacles of Cooperation” Nonacs began his talk by giving it an additional subtitle: “peaks of runaway niceness”. His Read More
Conferences, Cooperation, Evolution, Talks & SeminarsIn a couple of days I will be attending the In the Light of Evolution V: Cooperation colloquium, and in preparation I have been reviewing the work of the featured speakers. Tomorrow, I will be posting a preview of the meeting. The meeting promises to be broad and interdisciplinary. It also features a very elite Read More
Conferences, Cooperation, Social Network AnalysisIn preparation for my attendance at the In the Light of Evolution V: Cooperation conference, I have been checking out past National Academy of Sciences colloquia in this series. In 2009, there was an In the Light of Evolution of III: Two Centuries of Darwin conference. There are podcast MP4’s for each of the talks Read More
Conferences, Evolution, History, Homo species, Human Evolution, Phylogenetics