Understanding the role of the Templeton Foundation in funding evolutionary biology research

Back in March, David Barash used his regular column in the Chronicle of Higher Education to unveil “The Truth about the Temple of Templeton“. Reacting to an increasingly-large funding stream coming out of the Templeton Foundation, Barash questions whether receiving money from this religiously-affiliated, pro-business group will lead to tainted science. Barash begins his critique by Read More

Preschoolers cooperatively rock chimps in puzzle tournament

The New York Times “With Teamwork, Humans Best Other Primates“

Prominent evolutionary biologists weigh in on whether humans can evolve into a ‘superorganism’

io9 “Could Humans Evolve into a Giant Hive Mind?” What I find fascinating about this nice journalistic piece is the biases in particular scientists that it exposes once it asks for uninformed speculation. Most prominently, Joan Strassman betrays her biases about relatedness (we have to be highly related to be a superorganism, period) and the Read More

Is this what free-market conservation looks like?

Nature News “Lizard’s future hinges on voluntary measures” What is so annoying about this policy is that it ignores the fact that landowners could have been “volunteering” to not destroy habitat well before this species became endangered. Allowing “voluntary measures” to trump the mandates of the Endangered Species Act takes the teeth out of the Read More

Mutualistic fungus transfers nitrogen from parasitized insects to its plant host

Science “Endophytic Insect-Parasitic Fungi Translocate Nitrogen Directly from Insects to Plants” What I find fascinating about this story is how a fungus that parasitizes one species can use that ability to form a mutualism with a plant host. I wonder whether there is a value-added feature of this parasitism: are the parasitized insects potential parasites Read More

North Carolina legislators enact strict law limiting the rate of natural change

Science “Legislating Sea Level Rise” Well, I guess if North Carolina says that nature only changes in a linear manner, it must be true! Thank goodness for brave legislators who are not going to let nature get non-linear on us! We evolutionary biologists have seen this play out before, but this must come as a Read More

A competitive nominee in the “weirdest YouTube video about a theoretical biology paper” category

Gerald Carter produces an informative video on cooperation in vampire bats

Also check out Gerry’s PetriDish site seeking funding for his project.

Familiarity breeds… mutual aid (at least in some birds)

Biology Letters “Long-term familiarity promotes joining in neighbour nest defence“

Interesting reports from the Consilience Conference

Evolving Economics “Group selection and the social sciences” Rationally Speaking “Report from the Consilience conference, part I“, “Report from the Consilience conference, part II“, and “Report from the Consilience conference, part III“