Posted 07 Jul 2012 / 0
Social Evolution Forum “Matthew Zimmerman: Groups as the Most Natural and Useful Level of Analysis (a comment on Pinker)” I am not sure which frustrates me more: The contention that genes are the only “target” of selection; or The contention that selection on organisms is the only level at which selection occurs; or The contention Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Cooperation, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Political Science, Sociology
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
Posted 26 Jun 2012 / 5
Frequently I feel like I am listening to an early 2000’s George W. Bush speech when the ‘opponents of group selection’ step up to the podium. Seemingly, you are either “with us or against us” when it comes to considering selection acting at a level above the individual. As someone who is open to thinking Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Group Selection, Kin Selection, Memetic Fitness, Multilevel Selection, Natural Selection, Punishment, Web
Posted 25 Jun 2012 / 0
A fascinating new paper published this week in the journal PLoS One demonstrates how selection acting at least three different levels produces distinct selective pressures that shape the song behavior of male Dupont’s lark (Chersophilus duponti) in the Ebro Valley of northwestern Spain. Authored by Paola Laiolo and José Ramón Obeso and entitled “Multilevel Selection Read More
A Major Post, Articles, Behavior, Competition, Group Selection, Multilevel Selection, Population Growth
Posted 25 Jun 2012 / 0
PLoS One “Multilevel Selection and Neighbourhood Effects from Individual to Metapopulation in a Wild Passerine” I am about to dive into a close reading of this paper, but it suggests that perhaps the reason we do not record multilevel selection pressures is in part because we do not go looking for them.
A Minor Post, Birds, Multilevel Selection, Population Growth
Posted 24 Jun 2012 / 0
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Evolution of music by public choice” Science Now “Computer Program ‘Evolves’ Music From Noise” DarwinTunes site I am excited to read this article in full. What’s clear is that this is a pretty “canned” version of cultural evolution, but it is exciting to see this cultural evolution being Read More
A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Music
Posted 23 Jun 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “EvoPolitics” I really appreciate Barash’s reinforcement of the “is-ought” distinction: it is amazing to me how many people still commit the naturalistic fallacy. This is a really enlightening historical review, but I think that it gets the present-day implications wrong. The defining question about the political implications of evolutionary theory Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Multilevel Selection, Philosophy
Posted 05 Feb 2012 / 0
On the Media “Life in Facebookistan” I am fascinated by the idea that we all belong to many overlapping social groups, and I wonder how these groups might be subject to multilevel selection. “Facebookistan” is an interesting conceptualization of a large international group: Facebook users. With characteristic incisive questioning, On The Media suggests that this might Read More
A Minor Post, Multilevel Selection, Psychology, Radio & Podcasts
Posted 03 Nov 2011 / 0
Martin Nowak has accomplished a lot for a mid-career scientist. His theoretical work exploring how cooperation evolves has illuminated the importance of a great number of evolutionary mechanisms. He has also been unafraid to tackle real-life problems of cooperation, including questions like “why do we get cancer?” and “how did language evolve?”. Nowak likes to Read More
Altruism, Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, History, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Kin Selection, Language Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Mutualism, Punishment, Reciprocity, Religion, Superorganisms, Sustainability
Posted 07 Oct 2011 / 0
There are so many science books that I want to read that I frequently neglect to read fiction. This is too bad, because good fiction can be as rich with interesting hypotheses about human nature and evolution as any book illuminating evolutionary theory. Towards the end of thinking about how my field informs and can Read More
Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Fiction, Group Selection, Happiness, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Multilevel Selection, Pratt Institute, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Science in Art & Design, Superorganisms
