Posted 27 Sep 2019 / 0
The Outline “Why Jeffrey Epstein loved evolutionary psychology and why evolutionary psychologists loved him right back” This is a really great article that highlights how powerful evolutionary biologists align themselves with wealthy capitalists. In the case of Jeffrey Epstein, their interpretations of Darwinian theory provided intellectual cover for abusive behavior.
A Minor Post, Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution
Posted 16 Mar 2013 / 0
College of the Holy Cross “Harvard Scientist to Lecture at Holy Cross on God and Evolution” It is amazing to hear someone like Nowak say “God uses evolution to unfold the living world around us”. This is radical stuff for a theorist to say, as we generally try to understand properties and dynamics of systems Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution, Religion
Posted 03 Nov 2011 / 0
Martin 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, Sustainability
Posted 19 Aug 2011 / 2
Researchers who study cooperation cannot agree on the role that punishment plays in maintaining the widespread social cooperation observed in nature and human societies. As is true in any scientific discipline, the social experiences of scientists studying cooperation influence their hypotheses. And looking at the societies that we live in, it is easy to see Read More
Altruism, Articles, Cooperation, Game Theory, Punishment
Posted 03 Aug 2011 / 0
I just checked out a lecture given by Martin Nowak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was recently posted on the MIT videos site. The video was recently posted on the MIT site, but it is not entirely clear when it actually happened. I suspect it is the same lecture listed here. Nowak recently Read More
Altruism, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Kin Selection, Mathematics, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Talks & Seminars, Web
Posted 13 Oct 2010 / 16
One of the most difficult things about being the only full-time biologist on the Pratt Institute campus is that I do not have the opportunity to discuss serious science in my field with colleagues or guest speakers. To help alleviate this problem, I have my friends who are at serious research institutions on the lookout Read More
Adaptation, Altruism, Articles, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Data Limitation, Evolution, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Sociology, Superorganisms, Talks & Seminars
