Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Fantastic piece on nature/nurture by Patrick F. Clarkin in TVOL

Posted 23 Sep 2017 / 0

There’s a lot that has been written about the nature/nurture dilemma, perhaps because misconceptions about the role that genes and environment play in biological development are so persistent. Patrick F. Clarkin recently published a couple of wonderful short essays on the topic: This View of Life “We Are Not Hard-Wired“ This View of Life “Evolution Read More

A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cultural Evolution, Development, Epigenetics, EvoDevo, Gene by Environment Interactions, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Genetics, Human Evolution, Language Evolution, Phenotypic Plasticity, Psychological Adaptation

Evolution 2014: Day 2

Posted 22 Jun 2014 / 0

About five years ago I developed my Evolution course, which is aimed at my non-majors art and design students. I have not taught this course in more than two years, and as it has sat on the shelf I have been able to get that critical distance necessary to make the course better. So coming Read More

A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Competition, Conferences, Cooperation, Cooperative Breeding, EvoDevo, Evolution Education, Higher Education, Mutualism, Niche Partitioning, Parasitism, Society for the Study of Evolution

Can crocheting help save corals? Can we learn something about developmental genetics in the process?

Posted 14 Aug 2012 / 0

The bit about “hyperbolic geometry” is very interesting, but I wonder what its biological significance is. Why do organisms develop in this manner? Is the act of crocheting these analogous to the developmental process of organisms with hyperbolic geometry? Are the “crochet mutations” analogous to genetic mutations that affect development? The physical nature of this Read More

A Minor Post, EvoDevo, Genetics