Posted 06 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Jeffrey Pang via Wikimedia Commons Neuron “The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity” (Kidd & Hayden 2015) This is a fantastic review of what is known about curiosity and what needs to be learned about curiosity in the near future. I was glad to see the “four questions” approach to curiosity here. Tinbergen’s questions Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Cognitive Ability, MSCI-261, The Evolution of Play, Neuroscience, Play, Psychological Adaptation, Psychology, Teaching
Posted 05 Nov 2015 / 5
Just about a year ago, I got an unusual email. It was from William Ball Provine, a well-known historian of science most famous for his work on the modern evolutionary synthesis. Provine was especially well-known to me as the Ph.D. advisor to Greg Graffin of the punk band Bad Religion; although this is a story Read More
A Major Post, Books, Evolution, Fluidity of Knowledge, Genetic Drift, Genetics, Obituary, Population Genetics
Posted 05 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons The Los Angeles Times “China drops its ‘one-child’ policy, now let’s ban the ‘population bomb’” Great op-ed that makes it really clear that impact is a function of not just the number of people on the earth but also the resources those people consume (affluence) and technologies used to produce Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Carrying Capacity, Cultural Evolution, Memetic Fitness, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Prediction, Public Policy, Web
Posted 02 Nov 2015 / 0
There’s a new paper out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by David W. Lawson and colleagues that looks at whether the cultural practice of polygyny is disadvantageous. It’s a question that should be fascinating to anyone who is interested in sexual conflict or cultural evolution. At first glance, polygyny appears to be Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Mating systems, Memetic Fitness, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and Reproduction, Sexual Conflict
Posted 29 Oct 2015 / 1
The New York Times “China to End One-Child Policy, Allowing Families Two Children” This was a long time coming (see Mara’s Hvistendahl‘s great 2010 piece in Science Magazine for perspective), but the Chinese Communist Party has finally decided to replace its “one child policy” with a “two child policy”. From an evolutionary perspective, there is Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Carrying Capacity, Cultural Evolution, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ethics, Law, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Social Norms
Posted 28 Oct 2015 / 0
Open Book Publishers “Introducing Some Data to the Open Access Debate: OBP’s Business Model” Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3. This is a fascinating model, and one that I will be keeping in mind as I figure out where to land my first book project. Certainly the way that this is set up is far Read More
A Minor Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Public Outreach, Publication
Posted 26 Oct 2015 / 0
I am now about halfway through a one-semester sabbatical. As I have posted about before, the central project of my sabbatical is a popular science book with the working title Breeders, Propagators, & Creators. I have had this idea kicking around in my head for a long time, and being on sabbatical has afforded me Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Public Outreach, Publication, Science as a career
Posted 22 Oct 2015 / 0
Ecology Letters “Extended flowering intervals of bamboos evolved by discrete multiplication” This is a great example of how theory can be used to explain patterns in nature by matching patterns in nature. Masting is a group-level evolved phenomenon: producing seeds in abundance during a single year where every other plant of your species is doing Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Multilevel Selection, Predation
Posted 22 Oct 2015 / 0
Trends in Ecology & Evolution “From Individuals to Groups and Back: The Evolutionary Implications of Group Phenotypic Composition” Man, I wish that this article was written in a more accessible manner, because what it presents is important. There is a critical feedback between how the composition of groups affects individuals and how individuals affect the Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Evolutionary Modeling, Group Selection, Multilevel Selection, Natural Selection, Phenotypic Plasticity, Population Genetics, Social Diversity
Posted 20 Oct 2015 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment “Contagious exploitation of marine resources” This seems like a really great case study for cultural evolution: the authors describe the spread of sea cucumber fishing as an “epidemic”, but what they really mean is that the idea of economically exploiting this marine food source spread rapidly and in a Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Cultural Evolution, Resource Consumption
