In my eyes, the best thing that a teacher can do is to broaden the future possibilities of their students. As students, we don’t always understand how — or even that — our best teachers open up our minds to a wider and richer road ahead. And even as teachers, we can’t be at all Read More
A Major Post, Biography, Biology (general), Experiments (General), Higher Education, Science as a career, TeachingOne of the activities that I regularly have my students complete in my Evolution course is called “Future Evolution“. The activity sends students on what most evolutionary biologists consider a fool’s errand: to try to predict the future evolution of some particular trait in some particular species. Making such predictions is really difficult for these basic reasons: Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Animal Domestication, Anthropogenic Change, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Evolution Education, Human Evolution, Lesson Ideas, MSCI-260, Evolution, Prediction, Resistance Evolution in ParasitesInvestigators from the United States Food and Drug Administration raided the offices of the American Society of Human Genetics this week. The unusual raid was the culmination of what has been a three-year investigation of science journalist Carl Zimmer, who is now being accused of cloning himself in order to increase his writing output. “We Read More
A Major Post, Cognitive Ability, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Epigenetics, Ethics, Genetics, Intelligences, Memetic Fitness, Neuroscience, Scientific FraudEarly this morning in a remote rural area just outside of Powder Springs, Georgia, astrophysicist and international science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson was safely liberated from captivity by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI raid rescued Tyson following four grueling weeks as a hostage of the radical Creationist terrorist organization CRISIS (Christians Reveling In Superheroes Instead Read More
A Major Post, Creationism, Evolution, Physics, Public OutreachCurious George and his cooperative partner The Man in the Yellow Hat are widely loved by naive children In a scathing press release disseminated today, the American Society of Primatologists (ASP) condemned the work of the children’s author/artist duo Margret and H.A. Rey on their famous Curious George series. At issue are the frequent allusions to George Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Behavior, Cooperation, Empathy, Evolution, Fluidity of Knowledge, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Phylogenetics, Primates, Primatology, Professional Societies, ReciprocityOn Monday, March 21st I had the pleasure of visiting the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, New York to discuss the role that science plays in helping people to achieve the goal of a sustainable society. In a talk entitled “Pulling Humanity Back Inside the Boundaries: How Science Serves Sustainability“, I gave students some Read More
A Major Post, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Closed Loop Systems, Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, Ecology Education, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Eutrophication, Food, Habitat Destruction, Hypothesis Testing, Methods, Philosophy, Pollution, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Resource Consumption, Science (General), Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Harvesting, System Stability, Teaching, Water Supply, Wild FoodsIt was a great honor to speak on this past Monday, March 7th, 2016 as part of Columbia University’s Population Biology seminar series. I gave a talk entitled “Breeders, Propagators, & Creators: Culture, Biology, and the Future of Human Evolution” to a small group of biology faculty and students from a nice diversity of different Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Uniqueness, Kin Selection, Parenting, Population Pressure, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and ReproductionArt in the Lab, a really cool event-based science/art project, is celebrating Brain Awareness Week. On March 16th, 2016 at St. Francis College, neuroscientist and artist Greg Dunn will give a talk that starts at 5:30 pm. After the talk, attendees will get the chance to look at — and react creatively to — neuroscience-related models and Read More
A Minor Post, Neuroscience, Public Outreach, Science in Art & DesignOn Monday, March 21st I am scheduled to appear as the keynote speaker for the Green Meadow Waldorf School’s week-long sustainability workshop. Throughout the week high school students will be taking part in a variety of activities that they envisioned themselves, many of which explore the cultural and creative aspects of sustainability. My job will be to Read More
A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Green Design, Public Outreach, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Harvesting, Sustainable TransportationI am excited to be speaking on March 7th, 2016 at Columbia University about the topic of my book-in-progress: Breeders, Propagators, & Creators. The talk, a part of the Columbia Population Biology seminar series, starts at 6 pm at the Faculty House. Here’s an abstract for the talk: For most species, evolutionary immortality can be Read More
A Major Post, Behavior, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Memetic Fitness, Public Outreach, Uncategorized