Posted 27 Nov 2011 / 0
Harvard Business Review “The Unselfish Gene” This is a great introductory article for those who are looking to appreciate the current landscape of the many fields studying how cooperation evolves. Benkler is particularly strong in pointing out the insufficiency of conventional reward-and-punishment systems at producing optimal outcomes; he does a good job of outlining both Read More
Posted 27 Nov 2011 / 0
Lorentz Center workshop “Cooperation in multi-partner settings: biological markets and social dilemmas“
Posted 26 Nov 2011 / 0
Edge “Lynn Margulis 1938-2011, ‘Gaia Is A Tough Bitch’” NY Times “Lynn Margulis, Evolution Theorist, Dies at 73” Washington Post “Lynn Margulis, leading evolutionary biologist, dies at 73” Scientific American Cross-Check Blog “R.I.P. Lynn Margulis, Biological Rebel” Discover News “Evolutionary Biology Pioneer Lynn Margulis Dies”
Posted 21 Nov 2011 / 0
Binghampton University “Evolutionary practices in schools can benefit at-risk students: Can also work for general population” You can also read the published paper on this work here: Public Library of Science ONE “A Program for At-Risk High School Students Informed by Evolutionary Science“
Posted 17 Nov 2011 / 0
Reason Magazine “In Search of Free Will and Moral Responsibility” There’s some great commentary here, although I would certainly question whether “the worst type of free riding is criminal behavior, e.g., robbing, assaulting, and murdering others for personal gain”. One need only look to the ultimate defections perpetuated by the despots of the 20th Century Read More
Posted 11 Nov 2011 / 0
TED Talks “Jared Diamond on why societies collapse” Diamond suggest that five factors push civilizations toward collapse: impacts on the environment/environmental degradation; climate change; loss of cooperation with other groups; conflicts with hostile group; and political, social, and economic factors. I found his analysis of culture particularly interesting: the culture that served people in the Read More
Posted 04 Nov 2011 / 0
TED Talks “Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration”
Posted 03 Nov 2011 / 0
TED Talks “Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color” There is an excellent explanation here of how different UV spectra have affected the evolution of human skin color. Jablonski also provides a compelling depiction of how human migration has influenced the evolution of pigmentation.
Posted 02 Nov 2011 / 0
TED Talks “Spencer Wells builds a family tree for humanity” This is a nice overview of human history. Wells does a good job of emphasizing the important facets of our evolution. I am most fascinated by the population bottleneck that we went through very recently: less than 2000 individuals around 70,000 years ago.
Posted 02 Nov 2011 / 0
TED Talks “Svante Pääbo: DNA clues to our inner neanderthal” The genetic comparisons between Africans and Euroasians discussed by Pääbo are far more fascinating to me than the story of Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture with modern humans. That there are no endemic polymorphisms (among almost 39 million!) is amazing — it shows that our diversity Read More
