Open Book Publishers “Introducing Some Data to the Open Access Debate: OBP’s Business Model” Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3. This is a fascinating model, and one that I will be keeping in mind as I figure out where to land my first book project. Certainly the way that this is set up is far Read More
A Minor Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Public Outreach, PublicationI am now about halfway through a one-semester sabbatical. As I have posted about before, the central project of my sabbatical is a popular science book with the working title Breeders, Propagators, & Creators. I have had this idea kicking around in my head for a long time, and being on sabbatical has afforded me Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Public Outreach, Publication, Science as a careerA couple of months ago, as I was working on my first book proposal, I began to face some of my demons. The names of those demons are Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. As I discussed in a previous post, I have a lot of reservations about participating in social media because of the ways Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Public OutreachI am excited to announce that I am scheduled to speak about the tension between biological and cultural evolution at Saint Francis College in Brooklyn Heights. The title of my talk is “Highly-creative baby-breeding idea propagators: what human (re)productive choices mean for the future of our species“, and it will provide a partial overview of Read More
A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Behavior, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Carrying Capacity, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Parenting, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Psychology, Public Outreach, Reproductive Fitness, Resource Consumption, Sex and Reproduction, SustainabilityNPR Morning Edition “Are Big Cities Still A Primary Engine For Scientific Innovation?” The geography that is explored in this short piece is interesting to me: proximity used to be a pre-requisite for exchanging ideas, which led to creative centers for particular industries. Now that access to information is largely decoupled from geographical location, the need Read More
A Minor Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Radio & Podcasts, SociologyWNYC The Leonard Lopate Show “Options Grow For Starting a Non-Traditional Family” As I continue to work on my popular science book with the working title Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a parent. Biological parenting (what I call “breeding”… why to be explained) is a Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Kin Selection, Parenting, Radio & Podcasts, Reproductive Fitness, Social Diversity, SociologyWNYC The Brian Lehrer Show “Where Women Go from Here” Several years ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote the seminal article on the conflict between work and parenting. Published in The Atlantic and entitled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All“, Slaughter’s article used her own professional experience to explore the challenge faced by many women in the developed world: the Read More
A Major Post, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Parenting, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sex and Reproduction, SociologyThe Guardian “Why the UK sperm bank is running short” Further evidence that while we are — on the one hand — one of the weirdest species in the world, at our core we remain not unlike the rest of our animal brethren. Think about it for a second: if humans were both rational and Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Uniqueness, Psychology, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and ReproductionNational Geographic News “Sperm Whales’ Language Reveals Hints of Culture” It is interesting how the number of animal species displaying culture keeps getting larger. There’s a lot of evolutionary convergence involved here, as the phylogenetic tree of vertebrates is still only sprinkled with pockets of culture. But those pockets of culture are deep, and therefore Read More
A Minor Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cetaceans, Communication, Convergence, Cultural Evolution, Exaptation, Human Uniqueness, WebNational Public Radio “For Prospective Moms, Biology and Culture Clash” Seven years later, I need to check and see how these American demographic trends have developed. Are even more women having babies later in life? Interesting thing here is how big a tension there is between our cultural choices and our biological realities. If fertility peaks Read More
A Minor Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Memetic Fitness, Radio & Podcasts, Reproductive Fitness, Senescence, Sex and Reproduction, Social Norms