Posted 20 Sep 2012 / 0
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “No third-party punishment in chimpanzees” This is pretty astonishing, but perhaps not entirely surprising. As numerous other studies have shown, there are many qualitative differences in the cognition and resulting behaviors of humans and chimpanzees. Whether the fact that chimps do not maintain a sense of ‘social justice’ Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Primates, Psychology, Punishment
Posted 20 Sep 2012 / 0
CreationRevolution “If Morality Evolved, Is It Righteous?” It is striking how this reaction lacks any self-consciousness. Research like that referred to in this post is a potential means of understanding how religions and their particular constructed righteousness (in other words their morals, what they believe ought to be) can succeed.
A Minor Post, Altruism, Cooperation, Creationism, Cultural Evolution, Game Theory, Punishment, Web
Posted 20 Sep 2012 / 0
The Society Pages “Progressing from game theory to agent based modelling to simulate social emergence” This is a nice albeit pretty choppy explanation for why we should not listen to orthodox/traditional game theorists. The only argument I see missing here is that game theory relies on the assumption of a well-mixed population: even the Prisoner’s Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Emergence, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Individual-based Models, Spatially Explicit Modeling, Web
Posted 20 Sep 2012 / 0
Public Library of Science ONE “Evolving Righteousness in a Corrupt World” In the race to build the next over-simplified model of cooperative dynamics, it will be interesting to see how the media runs with this one. Is this a “scientists discover the evolutionary rationale for honorable police” moment? I think it is important to take Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Cooperation, Ethics, Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Punishment, Social Networks, System Stability
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
Marine Pollution Bulletin “Occurrence and concentration of caffeine in Oregon coastal waters” Coffee addicts worldwide can be proud of this result: you are leaving a “pissprint” on local waters.
A Minor Post, Articles, Freshwater Ecosystems, Marine Ecosystems, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences “Mistletoe as a keystone resource: an experimental test“
A Minor Post, Articles, Community Ecology, Interactions, Keystone Species, Parasitism
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants This is another example of how considering air pollution from the perspective of both climate change and human health might begin to inspire global action.
A Minor Post, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Health & Medicine, Pollution, Public Policy, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Web
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
American Carbon Registry “ACR Approves MSU-EPRI Carbon Offset Methodology for Emission Reductions from Agricultural Nitrous Oxide“
A Minor Post, Pollution, Sustainable Agriculture, Web
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment “Native invaders – challenges for science, management, policy, and society” This article makes an important point: the “alien” criteria for invasives is a bit arbitrary when the problem with invasives is their ability to explode in population and inordinately impact other populations. Perhaps we need to re-think the way Read More
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Coevolution, Competition, Ecology, Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species, Pollution, Predation
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment “A world of their own” This is an absolutely fascinating article. I was not aware that there were any cultures outside of Amazonia that have maintained such isolation. As Burton points out, we need to decide how to balance our curiosity and potential charity with respect for the wishes Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Climate Change, Conservation Biology, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Extinction, Human Evolution, Marine Ecosystems, Memetic Fitness, Traditional Ecological Knowledge
