Posted 31 Oct 2012 / 0
Slate “Tool use and exploration may be just side effects of social skills” Great examples in this short piece of how scientists quantify the benefits of social connection in terms of survival and reproduction. It will be interesting to see how the “Social Brain Hypothesis” stacks up against the “Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis” in future research, Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Brain size, Evolution, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Hypothesis Testing, Neuroscience, Quantifying Costs and Benefits, Web
Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Reinventing Ourselves” This article is — in a word — scary. After dangling a couple of vague promises to engineer our susceptibility to viruses out of our collective genome (7 billion visits to the DNA doctor later), these authors plow enthusiastically into a variety of wild territories: resurrecting Neanderthals and Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Development, Epigenetics, Ethics, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Homo species, Human Evolution
Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Psychopathy’s Double Edge” There are so many fascinating elements to this article and what it says about human behavior. First, there is the fact that most people walk around with a very potent regulatory of behavior, one that suppresses both impulses that would put oneself at risk and drives that Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Gene by Environment Interactions, Human Evolution, Neuroscience, Psychology
Posted 06 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “The Marketplace in Your Brain” I think that this article suggests that much of economics is not much of a science. Faced with new information, mainstream economics has failed to update its models of how the world works. Doing so would make economics akin to physics or medicine or evolutionary Read More
A Minor Post, Belief, Economics, Emotion, Evolutionary Psychology, Game Theory, Neuroscience, Psychological Adaptation, Psychology, Religion, Social Networks, Social Norms
Posted 28 Sep 2012 / 2
PLoS ONE “What Are Punishment and Reputation for?” Once again, a valuable and ingenious experiment over-reaches on the meaning of its finding, and the over-reach bleeds into the popular media. This is a really valuable experiment in that it asks about the scale at which social norms are enforced. It is significant that participants in Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Cooperation, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Punishment, Reciprocity, Reputation, Social Networks, Social Norms
Posted 27 Sep 2012 / 0
Science Now “Bearing Sons Can Alter Your Mind” Once again, epigenetic effects complicate our understanding of biological evolution! Two interesting omissions in this article: The fail to point out that female fetuses might also be donating DNA to mom: it is just easier to detect the male DNA unequivocally; and The real implication here is Read More
A Minor Post, Epigenetics, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Phenotypic Plasticity, Sex and Reproduction, Web
Posted 27 Sep 2012 / 1
One of the very talented students I work with in the Envirolutions club, Rhett Bradbury, pointed me towards the work of Jane McGonigal, a game designer and evangelist for the idea that games can save the world. For Rhett, her work is important to his Master’s thesis in graphic design, as he is considering how to move Read More
A Major Post, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Development, Emotion, Evolutionary Psychology, Happiness, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Phenotypic Plasticity, Play, Psychological Adaptation, Psychology, Radio & Podcasts, Social Networks, Subsistence, Web
Posted 20 Sep 2012 / 0
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “No third-party punishment in chimpanzees” This is pretty astonishing, but perhaps not entirely surprising. As numerous other studies have shown, there are many qualitative differences in the cognition and resulting behaviors of humans and chimpanzees. Whether the fact that chimps do not maintain a sense of ‘social justice’ Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Primates, Psychology, Punishment
Posted 19 Sep 2012 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment “A world of their own” This is an absolutely fascinating article. I was not aware that there were any cultures outside of Amazonia that have maintained such isolation. As Burton points out, we need to decide how to balance our curiosity and potential charity with respect for the wishes Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Climate Change, Conservation Biology, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Extinction, Human Evolution, Marine Ecosystems, Memetic Fitness, Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Posted 10 Sep 2012 / 0
On Being “Alain de Botton on a School of Life for Atheists” Religion for Atheists What I find very interesting about this philosopher’s approach are his implicit memetic assumptions: that religions have nested within their complex cultural structure extractable “ways of living” that are valuable to believers and non-believers alike.
A Minor Post, Altruism, Behavior, Belief, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Memetic Fitness, Philosophy, Radio & Podcasts, Religion
