Posted 25 Oct 2013 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Sex on the Mind” Ugh. How do I decompose this enough? I have always had a fear that David Barash is more pundit than academic, but this column is really scary. There is complete agreement among evolutionary biologists that all we need to understand the evolutionary process is a consideration of Read More
A Major Post, Articles, Evolutionary Psychology, Genetics, Human Evolution, Mating systems, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 11 Oct 2013 / 0
WMAC Northeast Public Radio “Academic Minute: Dr. Alicia Melis, University of Warwick – Cooperation and Chimpanzees” Chimps’ ability to take the perspective of others has been questioned, but this set of experiments seems to show that chimps can mentally put themselves in the place of a comrade, imagining what that comrade should do and then Read More
A Minor Post, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Human Uniqueness, Primates, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Web
Posted 13 Sep 2013 / 0
NPR Morning Edition StoryCorps “How One Man Continues To ‘Just Pass It On’” The story of this man’s life and how he has reacted to the kindness of a stranger nicely encapsulates the very powerful nature of human network reciprocity. Rather than focusing on “repaying the kindness”, Thomas Weller was charged to “pass it on”. Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Uniqueness, MSCI-463, The Evolution of Cooperation, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Social Networks, Social Norms
Posted 09 Sep 2013 / 0
NPR Shots “Gut Bacteria We Pick Up As Kids Stick With Us For Decades” NPR Shots “Staying Healthy May Mean Learning To Love Our Microbiomes” NPR Shots “Diverse Gut Microbes, A Trim Waistline And Health Go Together” NPR Shots “How A Change In Gut Microbes Can Affect Weight” What I find interesting here is the Read More
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Mutualism, Radio & Podcasts
Posted 09 Sep 2013 / 0
NPR Morning Edition “From Birth, Our Microbes Become As Personal As A Fingerprint” It’s a bit corny, but this is a great tour of our diverse microbiome. It is critical that people start to recognize how potentially-damaging overuse of antibiotics and fear of bacteria could be to our health. It will be exciting to see Read More
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Mutualism, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity
Posted 30 Aug 2013 / 0
I am excited to report that my review of Origins of Altruism and Cooperation was just published in the Quarterly Review of Biology. Although it requires some work to get through, this collection presents a really important counter-narrative to the prevailing attitude in evolutionary biology that altruism is simply self-interest in disguise. The book uses Read More
A Major Post, Altruism, Behavior, Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Empathy, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Kin Selection, Multilevel Selection, My publications, Primatology, Reciprocity, Social Networks, Social Norms
Posted 21 Aug 2013 / 0
WNYC The Leonard Lopate Show “The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments” This great feature uncovers two major sources of scientific distortion: Milgram himself selectively reported his results in order to tell a more sensational story; and Media depictions, fueled by popular preconceptions, further filtered and distorted the meanings of Milgram’s scientific results. Both Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Behavior, Emotion, Empathy, Ethics, Human Nature, Methods, Psychology, Radio & Podcasts, Scientific Fraud, Social Norms
Posted 30 Jul 2013 / 0
National Public Radio Morning Edition “For Some Mammals It’s One Love, But Reasons Still Unclear” Although brief, I appreciate how this article lays out the three hypotheses for monogamy: Monogamous co-parenting increases the survival rate of offspring as compared to parenting by the mother alone; Monogamy results from the pattern of resource distribution: if resources are Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Competition, Cooperation, Evolution, Genetics, Human Uniqueness, Mating systems, Radio & Podcasts, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 15 Jul 2013 / 0
The Quarterly Review of Biology “Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development” What makes this theory so compelling is how it addresses the “heritable but not at all clearly genetic” problem of explaining the very high prevalence of homosexuality in human populations. There have been other theories of homosexuality that invoke sexual antagonism, but Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Epigenetics, Human Evolution, Sex and Reproduction
Posted 15 Jul 2013 / 0
Wired “Humanity’s Recent Evolution” Of course increased genetic diversity just makes evolution more possible… but there still still needs to be some viable selective force to do something with all this variation. One could argue that the amount of variation we now see ‘tolerated’ by nature suggests that humans have been released from many selective Read More
A Minor Post, Genetics, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Population Genetics, Web
