Darwinian Conservatism “Darwinian Natural Right in E. O. Wilson’s New Book” One of the most interesting issues raised by this post has to do with “evolutionary ethics” and that question of whether there is a natural morality. I would caution against confusing this issue with the “naturalistic fallacy”, which to me has to do with Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Ethics, Social Norms, WebHuffington Post David Sloan Wilson “The New Atheism and Evolutionary Religious Studies: Clarifying Their Relationship” It might surprise you which discipline is more scientific in their approach!
A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Religion, Social NormsSocial Evolution Forum Peter Turchin “The Dark Side of Cultural Evolution” I love the evolutionary nuance unravelled in this post: both the idea of “staged traits” and the strong assertion that traits are produced by networks of genes are critical subtleties often ignored by evolutionary hypotheses. I am a bit skeptical, however, about the assumption Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Cultural Evolution, Mismatch theorySocial Evolution Forum Robin I.M. Dunbar “Networking Past and Present” Social Evolution Forum Nicholas Baumard “The Evolution of Cooperation: from Networks to Institutions” Social Evolution Forum Herbert Gintis “Commentary on Dunbar and Baumard” Some interesting stuff here: We may no longer live in fission-fusion tribes, but we still move around a lot socially (changing family partnerships, looking Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Punishment, Social NetworksDaily Mail “Did dogs help humans conquer the world? Man’s best friend may be the reason why we flourished over the Neanderthals” The Atlantic “Humanity’s Best Friend: How Dogs May Have Helped Humans Beat the Neanderthals“
A Minor Post, Animal Domestication, Articles, Canids, Homo species, Human EvolutionLife “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life” Over 100 pages and exactly 800 citations later, I am still not sure.
A Minor Post, Articles, EvolutionScientific American Blogs “On selfish genes and human behaviour“
A Minor Post, Evolution, Genetics, Natural Selection, WebAlife 13th Annual Conference
A Minor Post, Conferences, Evolutionary ModelingTrends in Ecology & Evolution “Punishment and cooperation in nature“
A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, PunishmentBreakthrough Journal “Conservation in the Anthropocene” This vision of a conserved future — one in which we integrate human and ecological needs — seems a lot more appealing to me that the previous vision of cordoned-off nature. As a resident of Brooklyn, I do not need more nature preserves upstate to escape to, I need Read More
A Minor Post, Conservation Biology, Extinction
