Posted 21 May 2013 / 0
A colleague of mine, Associate Professor Ágnes Mócsy, just released her first short film, smashing matters: Featuring a really broad array of eminent physics researchers, this film uses the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider as a case study for how funding basic science research leads to social progress. Although I am not predisposed to believing that all basic Read More
A Minor Post, Film, Television, & Video, Grants & Funding, Public Policy, Science in Art & Design
Posted 15 Feb 2013 / 0
Do everyday people have any sense of their place in the world? Human beings live in incredibly complex societies undergirded by convoluted economies and overwhelmingly diverse cultures. Do we have a sense of how these societies came to be, or how they function and persist? For evolutionists, these are pretty vexing scientific questions: most researchers Read More
A Major Post, Behavior, Cooperation, Economic sustainability, Ethics, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Political Science, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Social Diversity
Posted 11 Feb 2013 / 0
World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour Will an hour of darkness give us the time to contemplate both the importance of ecosystem services and how our voracious energy consumption threatens those services? It is certainly worth a try.
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Cooperation, Environmental Justice, Public Policy, Sustainable Energy
Posted 07 Feb 2013 / 0
The New York Times “Tree Power“
A Minor Post, Articles, Climate Change, Closed Loop Systems, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Temperate Rainforest
Posted 26 Jan 2013 / 0
National Geographic “California Ports Go Green” This is a nice infographic showing that changes in policy can have a big impact on the sustainability of commerce. It is amazing how much efficiency improvements can lower ecological impacts.
A Minor Post, Articles, Economics, Information Design, Public Policy, Sustainable Transportation
Posted 26 Jan 2013 / 0
WNYC “NYC’s Top Dogs: Mapping Names & Breeds in the City” WNYC “Dogs of NYC” Data sets like these, even flawed by their incompleteness (only 20% of dogs in New York City are registered) are fascinating. The human relationship with dogs has changed radically as we have urbanized as a species: I would suggest that the dominance Read More
A Minor Post, Canids, Coevolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Geography, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Mutualism, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Web
Posted 17 Jan 2013 / 0
Nature “Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins” & “Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest” This is fascinating, and provides further evidence that even the smartest biofuel production methods are not going to be enough to mitigate our energy demands. In order to really get off of fossil fuels, we need to find Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Climate Change, Grasslands, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy
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 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
