I just started a new semester of The Evolution of Cooperation, a class that I taught for the first time in the Fall of 2008 and was shelved for a couple of years while I worked on developing other new courses. Now I am excited to get back to the initial framework I laid out Read More
Cooperation, Evolution, Evolution Education, Game Theory, Lesson Ideas, MSCI-463, The Evolution of CooperationIt is kind of amazing how much evolution has found its way into the news of late. National Public Radio usually has pretty good science coverage via Talk of the Nation Science Friday, but lately they have been providing some excellent coverage of important evolutionary concepts that do not always get good press. First, there Read More
Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Human Evolution, Psychological Adaptation, Radio & Podcasts, Religion, ReviewsThe verdant base of the Multnomah Falls I really enjoyed Evolution 2010. It was a very well-organized conference that came off without any hitches. Having been involved in the execution of Evolution 2006 at Stony Brook University, I understand how much work goes into making these meetings happen. Portland State University deserves much credit for Read More
A Major Post, Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionThings always tend to thin out towards the end of a conference, but a bunch of us were up bright and early to kick off a special symposium “Moving towards a science of evolutionary prediction”. After some opening words by session organizer Allen Rodrigo, Hamish Spencer led off with a talk entitled “Evolutionary prediction and Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionEarly in the morning there were no whole sessions that consistently peaked my interest, so I spent my morning bouncing between a variety of talks. Tomas Brodin gave an interesting talk entitled “Can environmental filtering of animal personalities promote speciation?”. Working with frogs that disperse from the mainland to nearby islands outside Umea, Sweden, Brodin Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionI began the second full day of talks at Evolution 2010 presiding over the only education session in the entire meeting, a session which also included my talk for the meeting. It is a bit surprising that our session, which was forced to start at 8 am on a Sunday, was the only one dedicated Read More
A Major Post, Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionI spent the morning of the first full day of Evolution 2010 in a variety of talks, most of which were themed on sociality. Surprisingly, a great number of these talks tackled the difficult and controversial topic of group selection. I think that it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not as easy to Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionSean Carroll got the Evolution 2010 meeting going with the Stephen J. Gould Award lecture on Friday night. His talk was called “Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species”, and basically outlined sections of his new book of the same title. A large and enthusiastic crowd was on hand to Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionAwhile back I read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and more recently I finished David Sloan Wilson’s Darwin’s Cathedral. Both books provide a view on religion from the perspective of a prominent evolutionary biologist, and the contrast between these views tells us a lot about the culture of evolutionary biology as well as the nature Read More
Evolution, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Religion, ReviewsGene Kritsky is a renowned bee biologist, so when I learned that he had written The Quest for the Perfect Hive: A History of Innovation in Bee Culture, I rushed to get ahold of it. I am very interested in species that form superorganisms (bees, wasps, ants, naked mole-rats, humans), and I have been slowly Read More
Animal Domestication, Books, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Reviews, Superorganisms
