I just finished reading James Watson’s 2003 book “DNA”. Throughout the Spring semester I have been working with Mishele Lesser, a graduate MFA student here at Pratt, on an independent study focused on what produces human phenotypes. We both read the book as part of our collaboration. As one of the two people credited with Read More
Books, DNA Barcoding, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Homo species, Human Evolution, PhylogeneticsDavid 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, SociologyTwo recent articles [1, 2] in the New York Times took on the old “Nature versus Nurture debate” in the context of the new “parent wars” spurred by Amy Chua‘s book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother“. Too bad no one told the authors of these articles that the “Nature versus Nurture debate” was over Read More
Articles, Development, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Human Nature, WebRecently, Scientific American‘s “Science Talk” podcast featured a valuable interview with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researcher Kathleen Barnes called “Can It Be Bad to Be Too Clean?: The Hygiene Hypothesis“. In the interview, Dr. Barnes explained the state of contemporary research into the “Hygiene Hypothesis”, which suggests that the reason we are seeing an Read More
Coevolution, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Mismatch theory, Radio & PodcastsToday’s episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross featured a nice interview with Ellen Prager, a marine biologist who just published a book entitled Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans’ Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter. The Fresh Air segment, “Under the Sea, Sex Is Slimy Business“, covered a number of really interesting marine Read More
Marine Ecosystems, Radio & Podcasts, Sex and ReproductionThis week Pratt’s Envirolutions club took its campaign for waste reduction on campus to the annual Green Week celebration. Tabling for two days, the club had two main projects. The first was a continuation of a campaign kicked off earlier in the semester to promote CulinArt’s Green Container program and other sustainable cafeteria initiatives. The Read More
Envirolutions, Food, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable PrattRebecca Solnit’s 2009 book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster is a book about recent human history. But for those interested in human evolution, this history is essential reading. The primary idea of the book is that our dramatic portrayals of how people react to disaster are wrong: rather Read More
Altruism, Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, History, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Mismatch theory, ReciprocityNo one denies that contemporary human beings cooperate extensively with non-kin. This social behavior sets us apart from even our closest primate relatives, who tend to only display strong cooperative behaviors with kin. But explaining this difference is no easy task: modern culture exerts such a strong influence on our behavior that it is easy Read More
Articles, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Kin Selection, Mismatch theoryThe process of cultural evolution fascinates me. It is still a topic that I need to research further, but I think about it often. My Human Evolution course is steeped pretty heavily in the idea that culture as well as biology has evolved in Homo sapiens, and we talk briefly about how culture might evolve. Read More
Cultural Evolution, SpeciationLike many educational institutions, Pratt contracts with an outside vendor to provide its cafeteria services. Our vendor is CulinArt, which operates Pratt’s main cafeteria, the Pie Shop, and a series of smaller food stands across campus. If you want to cater an event on Pratt’s campus, CulinArt also provides these services. Since I joined the Read More
Center for Sustainable Design Studies, Envirolutions, Food, Resource Consumption, Sustainability