If you don’t think that culture can make us do maladaptive things, check out “trepanning”
Posted 11 May 2012 / 0Scientific American Images of the Week “Guns in Ancient Egypt and Nubia?“
A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Memetic Fitness, WebNaturalistic Fallacy: 1, Sam Harris: 0
Posted 15 Sep 2011 / 2For those who don’t know Sam Harris, he is a rather famous critic of theism who often invokes science and broad rationalism in his arguments for the abandonment of organized religion. Along with Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins he is sometimes known as one of the “four horsemen of the neo-atheiest movement” (Wilson Read More
Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Memetic Fitness, Multilevel Selection, Philosophy, Radio & Podcasts, Religion, Talks & Seminars, WebHow the right wing co-opts research into the evolution of cooperation
Posted 20 Aug 2011 / 2One of the ways that I keep up with my field these days (inasmuch as that is even possible given the pace of innovation and activity) is by using Google Alerts. For those of you who are not familiar with the service, it allows you to receive updates via e-mail every time that a new Read More
Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Political Science, Punishment, Reciprocity, Sociology, WebIs humanity’s most dangerous technology debt?
Posted 11 Aug 2011 / 0If there is a theme running through my diverse interests, it is stability. For those who understand how ecological systems and evolutionary processes work, this should be entirely unsurprising: the living systems that persist today are those that are stable at multiple levels. The interactions between populations in a community must be stable, individual organisms Read More
Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, ReciprocityWhat can Dean Potter teach us about evolution?
Posted 02 Aug 2011 / 2I have a bit of an obsession with why people push limits in particular sports. Although I am far from a big limit-pusher myself, I do enjoy the more dangerous forms of skateboarding, bicycling, and snowboarding. Of late I have taken up rock climbing, although I have only once made it out of the gym. Read More
Articles, Cultural Evolution, Film, Television, & Video, Happiness, Memetic Fitness, Play, Psychological AdaptationUnderstanding Rupert Murdoch from an Evolutionary Perspective
Posted 19 Jul 2011 / 0If you have been following the news at all this summer, you are undoubtedly aware of the recent phone hacking scandal at The News of the World, a tabloid newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s [1, 2, 3] global media empire, News Corporation. For those of you who missed it, here is what happened: reporters from Read More
Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Memetic Fitness, Multilevel Selection