Posted 13 Mar 2011 / 0
No one denies that contemporary human beings cooperate extensively with non-kin. This social behavior sets us apart from even our closest primate relatives, who tend to only display strong cooperative behaviors with kin. But explaining this difference is no easy task: modern culture exerts such a strong influence on our behavior that it is easy Read More
Articles, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Kin Selection, Mismatch theory
Posted 13 Oct 2010 / 16
One of the most difficult things about being the only full-time biologist on the Pratt Institute campus is that I do not have the opportunity to discuss serious science in my field with colleagues or guest speakers. To help alleviate this problem, I have my friends who are at serious research institutions on the lookout Read More
Adaptation, Altruism, Articles, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Data Limitation, Evolution, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Sociology, Superorganisms, Talks & Seminars
Posted 15 Sep 2010 / 0
George C. Williams, eminent scholar of evolutionary biology, died on September 8th at the age of 84. During the second half of the twentieth century, Williams emerged as one of the most influential thinkers in evolutionary biology, and helped to clarify a number of key issues in the field. His defining style was to tackle Read More
Adaptation, Biography, Evolution, Group Selection, Obituary, Senescence
Posted 10 Jun 2010 / 0
Awhile back I read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and more recently I finished David Sloan Wilson’s Darwin’s Cathedral. Both books provide a view on religion from the perspective of a prominent evolutionary biologist, and the contrast between these views tells us a lot about the culture of evolutionary biology as well as the nature Read More
Evolution, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Religion, Reviews
