New fossil find pushes back the origin of bilaterally symmetrical multicellular organisms
Posted 08 Jul 2012 / 0Live Science “Tiny Tracks of First Complex Animal Life Discovered“
A Minor Post, Macroevolution, PaleonotologyMatthew Zimmerman on how international relations views the evolution of groups
Posted 07 Jul 2012 / 0Social 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, SociologyHigh-throughput screening accelerates the rate at which evolved plant chemicals can be turned into medicine
Posted 29 Jun 2012 / 0Science “Mining the Biodiversity of Plants: A Revolution in the Making” What’s fascinating to me about this is what happens when we have screened every plant we can find… will we then stop caring about the medicinal value of biodiversity?
A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, GeneticsChanging rice from C3 to C4 in order to feed our growing population
Posted 29 Jun 2012 / 0Science “The Development of C4 Rice: Current Progress and Future Challenges” I will be amazed if this works. The C3/C4 pathway split is a major evolutionary event in plants, and apparently we are poised to horizontally transfer this adaptation across lineages using genetic engineering. If this works, it will be an unprecedented feat of cultural Read More
A Minor Post, Food, Genetic Engineering, Sustainability, Sustainable AgricultureIf your loners are truly loners they won’t punish, and cooperation thrives even in the presence of antisocial punishment
Posted 28 Jun 2012 / 1Last summer I discussed a paper by Rand and Nowak that explored the dynamics of antisocial punishment in groups composed of cooperators, defectors, and loners playing a public goods game. In a conventional public goods game, at least some players must make a contribution in order to reap group reward. Cooperators make that contribution and Read More
A Major Post, Altruism, Articles, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, PunishmentLarry Arnhart on Singer, Bowles, and Gintis and Darwinian libertarianism
Posted 28 Jun 2012 / 0Darwinian Conservatism “Does Strong Reciprocity Support a Darwinian Left?” This is a really interesting comparison of the “utopian” and “realist” versions of leftist politics, and of the struggle of thinkers like Singer. What I think needs to be kept in mind is that all these folks are doing more than just trying to produce science Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Punishment, Reciprocity, Social NormsA victory for collective action and national cooperation
Posted 28 Jun 2012 / 0New York Times “Supreme Court Health Care Decision” U.S. Supreme Court “NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS ET AL. v. SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL.“
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Law, Political ScienceAustralopithecus sediba was a C3 muncher (so say the teeth)
Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0Nature “The diet of Australopithecus sediba“
A Minor Post, Homo species, Human EvolutionAntibiotic overuse: a porcine tragedy of the commons
Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0Nature Editorial “Pig out“
A Minor Post, CooperationIdentifying the genes that gave dolphins their big brains
Posted 27 Jun 2012 / 0Science Now “Building a Bigger Dolphin Brain“
A Minor Post, Brain size, Cetaceans, Cognitive Ability, Genetics, Neuroscience