Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

A competitive nominee in the “weirdest YouTube video about a theoretical biology paper” category

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0 A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution Education, Film & Video, Public Outreach

Gerald Carter produces an informative video on cooperation in vampire bats

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Also check out Gerry’s PetriDish site seeking funding for his project.

A Minor Post, Altruism, Cooperation, Film, Television, & Video, Public Outreach

Familiarity breeds… mutual aid (at least in some birds)

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Biology Letters “Long-term familiarity promotes joining in neighbour nest defence“

A Minor Post, Articles, Birds, Cooperation, Reciprocity, Social Networks

Interesting reports from the Consilience Conference

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Evolving Economics “Group selection and the social sciences” Rationally Speaking “Report from the Consilience conference, part I“, “Report from the Consilience conference, part II“, and “Report from the Consilience conference, part III“

A Minor Post, Conferences, Group Selection, Web

Jason Collins questions the utility-to-fitness conversion

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Evolving Economics “Gandolfi, Gandolfi and Barash’s Economics as an Evolutionary Science” Great commentary on the fitness-maximizing behavior (or lack thereof) by the ultra-rich. Clearly humans are maximizing something other than their genetic fitness when they seek utility.

A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Memetic Fitness

Do you need cooperation in your model to explain why there are more right-handed people?

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Interface “A model balancing cooperation and competition can explain our right-handed world and the dominance of left-handed athletes“

A Minor Post, Competition, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Web

Once your subject becomes a continuing education class…

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

…you know that it has gotten into the mind of the public. University of Oxford course “Evolution of Cooperation and Cheating: From Microbes to Humans“

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution Education

Scientific American “Why We Help”

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 1

The July issue of Scientific American features a cover story written by Martin A. Nowak called “Why We Help“. This very short article contains a brief review of Nowak’s “five rules” for cooperation, a little bit of connection to experimental work in real organisms, and some hazy conjecture concerning what makes humans cooperate. It seems as Read More

A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Behavior, Climate Change, Cooperation, Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Kin Selection, Punishment, Reciprocity, Social Networks

July issue of Scientific American will feature a cover story on the evolution of cooperation

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Scientific American July issue

A Minor Post, Cooperation

Who is the bigger bioterrorist, man or nature?

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Nature “Engineering H5N1 avian influenza viruses to study human adaptation” I think that the most interesting idea expressed by this article is: In considering the threat of bioterrorism or accidental release of genetically engineered viruses, it is worth remembering that nature is the ultimate bioterrorist. There is so much in this single statement, so many Read More

A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Parasitism