Darwinian Conservatism “Darwinian Natural Right in E. O. Wilson’s New Book” One of the most interesting issues raised by this post has to do with “evolutionary ethics” and that question of whether there is a natural morality. I would caution against confusing this issue with the “naturalistic fallacy”, which to me has to do with Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Ethics, Social Norms, WebMe with Molly and B. Ricardo Brown (coordinator of the Critical and Visual Studies program) at Pratt’s Honors Convocation I am proud to report that a student who I have both taught and mentored, Molly H. Adams, has won top honors for both her exceptional academic work and the production of an exemplary thesis. Along Read More
Anthropogenic Change, Biomes, Conservation Biology, Critical and Visual Studies program, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Mentoring, Pratt InstituteThe Brian Lehrer Show “Inequality and Stability” As I have suggested in previous posts, debt has the potential to destabilize societies.
A Minor Post, Ethics, Political Science, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, System Stability, System StabilityContrails captured by NASA scientist Louis Ngyyen Global carbon emissions continue to increase, threatening future generations with catastrophic climate change. And while most of the world agrees that something needs to be done to curb our carbon emissions, several decades of international talks have provided little progress at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Most famously, the Read More
Altruism, Articles, Climate Change, Cooperation, Economics, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Pollution, Public Policy, Punishment, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainability, WebMartin Nowak has accomplished a lot for a mid-career scientist. His theoretical work exploring how cooperation evolves has illuminated the importance of a great number of evolutionary mechanisms. He has also been unafraid to tackle real-life problems of cooperation, including questions like “why do we get cancer?” and “how did language evolve?”. Nowak likes to Read More
Altruism, Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, History, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Kin Selection, Language Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Mutualism, Punishment, Reciprocity, Religion, Superorganisms, SustainabilityI just watched the video Home, a production of Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his Good Planet Foundation. Composed solely of high-quality panoramic images intensified by a soaring new-age soundtrack, the film provides viewers with a fairly comprehensive overview of the earth’s ecosystems and the challenges to the future health of these ecosystems posed by human industry. Read More
Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Ecology, Ecology Education, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Extinction, Film, Television, & Video, Food, Freshwater Ecosystems, Hunger, Mangrove Forests, Marine Ecosystems, Pollution, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, System Stability, Taiga (Boreal Forest), Temperate Forest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Tundra, Vegetarianism, Water SupplyA downed tree in East River Park in Manhattan’s East Village after Hurricane Irene. Photo and caption text by David Shankbone. The east coast of the United States woke up this Monday morning to begin cleanup following the passing of Hurricane Irene. In preparation for the hurricane, over half a million New York and New Read More
Belief, Climate Change, Ethics, Political Science, Prediction, Sociology, StochasticityOne of the ways that I keep up with my field these days (inasmuch as that is even possible given the pace of innovation and activity) is by using Google Alerts. For those of you who are not familiar with the service, it allows you to receive updates via e-mail every time that a new Read More
Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Political Science, Punishment, Reciprocity, Sociology, WebIf there is a theme running through my diverse interests, it is stability. For those who understand how ecological systems and evolutionary processes work, this should be entirely unsurprising: the living systems that persist today are those that are stable at multiple levels. The interactions between populations in a community must be stable, individual organisms Read More
Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, ReciprocityDavid P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton are unafraid of explaining modern social behavior from an evolutionary perspective. As famous communicators of evolutionary psychology, they see in an understanding of biology the promise of explaining humanity. In their latest column for The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Why We Needed Bin Laden Dead“, Barash and Lipton Read More
Articles, Cooperation, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Nature, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Psychology, Punishment, Sociology