Posted 30 Jul 2013 / 0
National Public Radio Morning Edition “For Some Mammals It’s One Love, But Reasons Still Unclear” Although brief, I appreciate how this article lays out the three hypotheses for monogamy: Monogamous co-parenting increases the survival rate of offspring as compared to parenting by the mother alone; Monogamy results from the pattern of resource distribution: if resources are Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Competition, Cooperation, Evolution, Genetics, Human Uniqueness, Mating systems, Radio & Podcasts, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 27 Jul 2013 / 0
I do think that the old adage “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is apt: if people are willing to copy what you do, they obviously think that what you have done is valuable. So I suppose that I should be flattered by this: Look at bit familiar? Sound a bit familiar? Yeah, that Read More
A Minor Post, Creative Commons, Ethics, Higher Education, WordPress
Posted 26 Jul 2013 / 0
At the end of every semester there is an important ritual that I participate in. In my department, this ritual is initiated by Margaret, our indispensable Assistant to the Chair. She sends out a message requesting that all untenured professors schedule a ten-minute period during each of their classes during which course evaluations can be completed by Read More
A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Course Evaluations, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, Teaching
Posted 25 Jul 2013 / 0
Now that I have made the decision to seriously assess my conceptual teaching, it is time for me to take a look at what might produce student learning. As I described in my previous post, I plan to dramatically overhaul my The Evolution of Cooperation course to optimize the value of everything that makes up my teaching. Read More
A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Concept Mapping, Conceptual Teaching Assessment Project, Evolution Education, MSCI-463, The Evolution of Cooperation
Posted 24 Jul 2013 / 0
I pride myself on being a conceptual teacher: although you will likely learn a lot of interesting facts in my classes, the focus of my teaching is on ideas and concepts. I want my students to understand how things work and why things exist, and both of these pursuits are fundamentally conceptual in nature. Almost all of Read More
A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Concept Mapping, Conceptual Teaching Assessment Project, Cooperation, Course Readings, Evolution Education, Higher Education, MSCI-463, The Evolution of Cooperation, Teaching
Posted 23 Jul 2013 / 0
The Harvard Gazette “Learning through doing“
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Art & Design
Posted 21 Jul 2013 / 0
I have been preparing for next semester’s Evolution of Sex course by looking for new media that might help my students. I just spent a few enjoyable hours checking out Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno series, produced by the Sundance Channel. I have been aware of Rossellini’s rather interesting foray into the world of animal sex and reproduction for awhile Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Biodiversity Loss, Ecology, Film, Television, & Video, Marine Ecosystems, MSCI-362, The Evolution of Sex, Parasitism, Predation
Posted 15 Jul 2013 / 0
Studio 360 “Isabella Rossellini’s Mammas”
A Minor Post, Radio & Podcasts, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 15 Jul 2013 / 0
The Quarterly Review of Biology “Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development” What makes this theory so compelling is how it addresses the “heritable but not at all clearly genetic” problem of explaining the very high prevalence of homosexuality in human populations. There have been other theories of homosexuality that invoke sexual antagonism, but Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Epigenetics, Human Evolution, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 15 Jul 2013 / 0
Wired “Sperm Trajectories” I like the way that color is used to denote time in these images, and how they show these four different trajectory types in multiple dimensions. Now if we can figure out the evolutionary significance of this diversity, we have a real story.
A Minor Post, Sex and Reproduction, Web
