Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Evolution may be too slow: British Columbia begins assisted migration of forests

Posted 26 Jun 2012 / 0

Discover “The Transplanted Forest: A Bold Experiment in Preemptive Climate Adaptation” Given the chances that we will fail to prevent climate change, it seems like the Canadians have the right idea here. Ironic that industries that rely on stable climate are less apt to deny its reality.

A Minor Post, Adaptation, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Climate Change, Extinction, Habitat Destruction, Public Policy, Resilience, Risk & Uncertainty, Taiga (Boreal Forest), Temperate Forest

Apparently you need to know something about rare granite erosion to understand the evolution of multicellularity

Posted 24 Jun 2012 / 0

Science Now “You Owe Your Life to Rock“

A Minor Post, Fossil Data, Geology

Should conservation scientists also be advocates for particular policies?

Posted 24 Jun 2012 / 0

Science Insider “Society for Conservation Biology in Turmoil Over Editor’s Ouster“

A Minor Post, Conservation Biology, Ethics, Law, Political Science, Professional Societies, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Science as a career

A pharma-agricultural tragedy of the commons?

Posted 23 Jun 2012 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “As Beef Cattle Become Behemoths, Who Are Animal Scientists Serving?” This is a scary story of corporate tainting of science.

A Minor Post, Ethics, Grants & Funding, Scientific Fraud

Understanding the role of the Templeton Foundation in funding evolutionary biology research

Posted 22 Jun 2012 / 0

Back in March, David Barash used his regular column in the Chronicle of Higher Education to unveil “The Truth about the Temple of Templeton“. Reacting to an increasingly-large funding stream coming out of the Templeton Foundation, Barash questions whether receiving money from this religiously-affiliated, pro-business group will lead to tainted science. Barash begins his critique by Read More

A Major Post, Articles, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Evolution, Grants & Funding, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Religion

Prominent evolutionary biologists weigh in on whether humans can evolve into a ‘superorganism’

Posted 22 Jun 2012 / 0

io9 “Could Humans Evolve into a Giant Hive Mind?” What I find fascinating about this nice journalistic piece is the biases in particular scientists that it exposes once it asks for uninformed speculation. Most prominently, Joan Strassman betrays her biases about relatedness (we have to be highly related to be a superorganism, period) and the Read More

A Minor Post, Adaptation, Cooperation, Human Uniqueness, Prediction, Superorganisms, Web

A competitive nominee in the “weirdest YouTube video about a theoretical biology paper” category

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0 A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution Education, Film & Video, Public Outreach

Gerald Carter produces an informative video on cooperation in vampire bats

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Also check out Gerry’s PetriDish site seeking funding for his project.

A Minor Post, Altruism, Cooperation, Film, Television, & Video, Public Outreach

Interesting reports from the Consilience Conference

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Evolving Economics “Group selection and the social sciences” Rationally Speaking “Report from the Consilience conference, part I“, “Report from the Consilience conference, part II“, and “Report from the Consilience conference, part III“

A Minor Post, Conferences, Group Selection, Web

Is a comic movie about getting a Ph.D. revealing of some scientific tragedies?

Posted 21 Jun 2012 / 0

Nature “Piled too high“

A Minor Post, Science as a career, Web