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 24 Nov 2012 / 0
The November 2012 issue of National Geographic features an interesting article entitles “Vikings and Native Americans” that suggests that Viking settlers and Native Americans enjoyed a cooperative relationship. Archaeological evidence suggests that Europeans were depicted positively in Native American artifacts, and the pattern of settlements uncovered in recent digs reveals that Viking and Native American settlements were in close Read More
A Minor Post, Archaeology, Articles, Cooperation, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness
Posted 12 Nov 2012 / 0
National Public Radio Shots “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning” This piece went in a direction that I just did not expect. There is so much focus on the role of rote learning versus problem solving in comparing “Eastern and Western” approaches to education, but I have never heard a clear Read More
A Minor Post, Belief, Cultural Evolution, Development, Fluidity of Knowledge, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Human Nature, Memetic Fitness, Philosophy, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Teaching
Posted 01 Nov 2012 / 2
In an election season when global climate change has been a subject that neither Obama nor Romney seem interested in discussing (see reports by The New Yorker and The Huffington Post), along comes Hurricane Sandy. With the arrival of the second “100 year storm event” to hit the State of New York in as many Read More
A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Belief, Climate Change, Cultural Evolution, Economic sustainability, Environmental Justice, Memetic Fitness, Political Science, Resilience, Reviews, Risk & Uncertainty, Sustainability, Sustainable Transportation, Web
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 25 Oct 2012 / 0
Science Debate dot org “The Top American Science Questions: 2012“
A Minor Post, Astronomy, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Food, Grants & Funding, Health & Medicine, Marine Ecosystems, Political Science, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Science (General), Space Travel, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Web
Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Saving Gaia From the Greens“
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biography, Climate Change, Ecological Modeling, Ecosystem Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Religion, Survival, Sustainability
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
