Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Why Two Kids Are Too Many” This article has a provocative title that makes you believe that it is going to make a persuasive argument for public policy that encourages smaller families, but it is more like a meandering survey of the very confused landscape of the “baby culture wars”. Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Population Pressure, Public Policy
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Pacific Southwest Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia Commons The Chronicle of Higher Education “Ecomodernists Spark Rhetorical Heat” In my Ecology for Architects course I have students work on an activity that asks them to advocate one of four “extreme” environmental positions: Population bombers; Neo-luddites; Deep ecologists; or Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Environmental Justice, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Risk & Uncertainty, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Transportation, Sustainable Urban Design
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Frans de Waal via Wikimedia Commons Journal of Comparative Psychology “Inference in a social context: A comparative study of capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella), tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri), hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus), and rats (Rattus norvegicus)” This is not a surprising finding, but it reinforces the fact that the ability to understand the effects Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Empathy, Primates
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Why We Should Teach Less, Not More” This is a great opinion piece that effectively captures my perspective on this issue. High-quality higher education requires really labor-intensive curriculum development and maintenance. In order for a professor to provide a course that is comprehensive and up-to-date, she must spend countless hours Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Higher Education, Teaching, Web
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
Social Evolution Forum “Natural Selection on Human Height Doesn’t Measure Up To Much” I agree overall with Yoder’s analysis, although it seems that he misreads the study a bit: by my reading, women’s height also had an effect on the survival of offspring, although the effect was nearly half that of men. But Yoder’s larger Read More
A Minor Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Development, Gene by Environment Interactions, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Genetics, Human Evolution, Natural Selection, Population Genetics, Web
Posted 16 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons A recent study published in Current Biology claims to have demonstrated that children raised in religious households are less altruistic and more vindictive than their peers raised in non-religious households. Using two different tests — a Dictator Game conducted with stickers and a task that measured reactions to watching interpersonal Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cultural Evolution, Emotion, Empathy, Ethics, Group Selection, Human Nature, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Punishment, Religion, Reputation, Social Norms
Posted 16 Nov 2015 / 0
PLoS ONE “Probing the Strength of Infants’ Preference for Helpers over Hinderers: Two Replication Attempts of Hamlin and Wynn (2011)” Great example of how studies need to be replicated! I am wondering if funding agencies should reserve particular lines for replication studies. Does this kind of funding opportunity exist?
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Cooperation, Development, Empathy, MSCI-463, The Evolution of Cooperation
Posted 16 Nov 2015 / 0
arXiv “Toy model for the adaptive origins of the sexual orientation continuum” This is an interesting idea that definitely bears further exploration, but by my reading of the math, the tradeoff here (what’s good for the species in having trait diversity versus what’s good for an individual in achieving reproductive success) is expressed purely in Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Evolutionary Modeling, MSCI-362, The Evolution of Sex, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 10 Nov 2015 / 0
Image from PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans” (Suvilehto et al. 2015) This is a really clever study in that it aggregates a lot of data that is collected rather efficiently from a lot of participants. This makes the results robust for this Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Communication, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Human Nature, MSCI-362, The Evolution of Sex, Social Networks, Social Norms
Posted 10 Nov 2015 / 0
This is a fascinating talk by Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist situated within one of the most prestigious business schools in the world whose research focuses on morality and emotion. I can’t help but be impressed when someone addressing business concerns leads with biology, and Haidt does a good job of summarizing the “disruptive cooperation” (read: competitively-superior Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Competition, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Film, Television, & Video, Human Nature, Human Uniqueness, Multilevel Selection, Parasitism, Religion, Social Norms
