Posted 26 Nov 2012 / 0
National Public Radio Shots “Give And Take: How The Rule Of Reciprocation Binds Us” I appreciate the far-ranging nature of this piece, and how it applies a basic understanding of reciprocity to larger social phenomena. There is not much here about how genetic and environmental factors modify how reciprocal people choose to behave; while there Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Cooperation, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Reputation, Social Norms, Sociology
Posted 25 Nov 2012 / 0
Freakonomics Radio “You Eat What You Are” This piece delivers a much needed kick in the self-righteous pants to the locavore movement. It systematically disassembles the assumptions of the local food movement, ending by discussing the minimal quantitative ecological benefits of using the “I only eat local” rule. It pulls apart belief from reality, and Read More
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Ecological Footprinting, Economics, Ethics, Food, Greenwashing, Hunger, Hypothesis Testing, Life Cycle Analysis, Philosophy, Population Growth, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Subsistence, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism
Posted 31 Oct 2012 / 0
Slate “The Russian Anarchist Prince Who Challenged Evolution” I really appreciate the fact that Dugatkin uses Kropotkin to bring to light that Darwinian evolution has been — even in the time and work of Darwin — a process that was imagined to involve both competition and cooperation. Only in recent times has evolution become synonymous Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Biography, Coevolution, Competition, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolution, Mutualism, Political Science, Predation, Religion, Taiga (Boreal Forest), Tundra, Web
Posted 29 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “More Gender Diversity Will Mean Better Science” The Chronicle of Higher Education “Why STEM Fields Still Don’t Draw More Women” The Chronicle of Higher Education “Is Biology Just Another Pink-Collar Profession?” The Chronicle of Higher Education “Does This Lab Coat Make Me Look Fat?” One of the most fascinating threads that runs through Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Biology (general), Ethics, Neuroscience, Public Policy, Science (General), Science as a career, Sociology
Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Reinventing Ourselves” This article is — in a word — scary. After dangling a couple of vague promises to engineer our susceptibility to viruses out of our collective genome (7 billion visits to the DNA doctor later), these authors plow enthusiastically into a variety of wild territories: resurrecting Neanderthals and Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Development, Epigenetics, Ethics, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Homo species, Human Evolution
Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Psychopathy’s Double Edge” There are so many fascinating elements to this article and what it says about human behavior. First, there is the fact that most people walk around with a very potent regulatory of behavior, one that suppresses both impulses that would put oneself at risk and drives that Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Gene by Environment Interactions, Human Evolution, Neuroscience, Psychology
Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0
The New York Times “A Rogue Climate Experiment Outrages Scientists“
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Ecology, Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Food, Marine Ecosystems, Polar Marine, Public Policy, Sustainability
Posted 10 Oct 2012 / 0
The Huffington Post “Ayn Rand and Modern Politics” What I really appreciate about this post is its very simple brand of analysis. It asks a simple question and employs a clear methodology to objectively understand a phenomenon (in this case, the appeal of Ayn Rand to conservatives). Talk about a job of social construction: the Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Game Theory, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Social Norms, System Stability, Web
Posted 28 Sep 2012 / 2
PLoS ONE “What Are Punishment and Reputation for?” Once again, a valuable and ingenious experiment over-reaches on the meaning of its finding, and the over-reach bleeds into the popular media. This is a really valuable experiment in that it asks about the scale at which social norms are enforced. It is significant that participants in Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Cooperation, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Punishment, Reciprocity, Reputation, Social Networks, Social Norms
Posted 20 Sep 2012 / 0
Public Library of Science ONE “Evolving Righteousness in a Corrupt World” In the race to build the next over-simplified model of cooperative dynamics, it will be interesting to see how the media runs with this one. Is this a “scientists discover the evolutionary rationale for honorable police” moment? I think it is important to take Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Cooperation, Ethics, Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Punishment, Social Networks, System Stability
