Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Perhaps nestedness is just an artifact of ecological opportunity (and not stability)

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

One of my chief interests is stability: I am curious about what allows for the persistence of genes, individuals, groups, species, and communities. This is a broad question and it may not have single, simple answer, but it is exciting to think that there may be ‘rules of stability’ in nature that might help us Read More

A Major Post, Articles, Coevolution, Ecological Modeling, Interactions, Mutualism, Mutualistic Networks, Pollination, System Stability

Condors, hunters, and the National Rifle Association

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Lead poisoning and the deceptive recovery of the critically endangered California condor” Nature News “California condors face lead menace“

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Conservation Biology, Extinction

Jerry Coyne refutes the E.O. Wilson NYT piece

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

Why Evolution is True “Did human social behavior evolve via group selection? E. O. Wilson defends that view in the NYT” Anyone who reads my posts here has learned that I find Jerry Coyne’s general tone to be really annoying and that I am predisposed to entertain group selective explanations of human behavior. But with Read More

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection

E.O. Wilson on the biological origins of sin and virtue

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

The New York Times Opinionator “Evolution and Our Inner Conflict“

A Minor Post, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Psychological Adaptation

A new salvo in the punishment wars: if everyone can punish, defectors triumph

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

arXiv “Punishment can promote defection in group-structured populations” This paper points out a major problem with theoretical modeling, especially modeling that is simulation-based: tiny changes in assumptions matter. Testing just one set of assumptions takes a lot of effort, and so only through the work of multiple groups do the entire “state space” of possible Read More

A Minor Post, Punishment

Andrew Colman on “spontaneous similarity discrimination”

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

WAMC Academic Minute “Dr. Andrew Colman, University of Leicester — Natural Selection and Cooperation“

A Minor Post

Call it “ethnocentrism” or the “green beard effect”, “tags” assist cooperation

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group “Evolution of ethnocentrism in the Hammond and Axelrod model“

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Social Networks, Web

Sometimes our simulations have more to tell than we first see

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group “Bifurcation of cooperation and inviscid ethnocentrism” One of the big dangers of simulation work is that it produces so much data, so it is natural to just code in some analysis algorithms that spit out digested data. But sometimes this analysis can hide interesting results!

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Web

A final solution to the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma?

Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma contains strategies that dominate any evolutionary opponent” An interesting digestion of this paper: Rules of Reason “Tit-for-tat no more: new insights into the origin and evolution of cooperation“

A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory

Robert Krulwich on the value of telling stories about science

Posted 26 Jun 2012 / 0

RadioLab “Tell Me a Story“

A Minor Post, Public Outreach, Radio & Podcasts