Posted 15 Feb 2016 / 0
Urban Wildlife Podcast “Bonus Episode: Pier 53 Skinks” Perpetually behind, I finally checked out the final Urban Wildlife Podcast “Bonus Episode“, posted last October as the final episode of Season 1. This is a great finale to the first season of this offbeat, fun podcast that looks at urban wildlife through the lens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Solely focused Read More
A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Commensalism, Conservation Biology, Ecological Restoration, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Invasive Species, Mutualism, Predation, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Urban Ecology
Posted 15 Jan 2016 / 0
Image courtesy of Nick Gray via Wikimedia Commons The Chronicle of Higher Education “The Vegetarian Lesson” This article by Chad Lavin neatly distills ideas and issues that I have been grappling with for more than half my life. As a current-day ecologist who was a vegetarian more than a decade before I took my first ecology course, Read More
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Behavior, Belief, Cooperation, Food, Parasitism, Political Science, Predation, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Uncategorized
Posted 11 Jan 2016 / 0
Evonomics “A Simple Way to Decrease Income Inequality” I am intrigued by the idea that measurements of economic success impact our economic decisions and therefore our economic outcomes. A persistent obsession with capital has created an economic system that responds to capital. But what if employment condition — “labor” — was the fundamental unit of Read More
A Minor Post, Belief, Cultural Evolution, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ethics, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Norms, Web
Posted 07 Jan 2016 / 0
“exercise is good in principle, but it’s almost never the case that it’s the best thing you could do right now.” -Dan Ariely There’s a really interesting experiment being conducted by behavioral economist Dan Ariely and the new WNYC program Only Human. Called “Stick to It!“, the experiment allows listeners to the show to volunteer to download Read More
A Minor Post, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Nature, Mismatch theory, Psychology, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainable Transportation, Sustainable Urban Design
Posted 03 Dec 2015 / 0
National Public Radio “In Worst Attacks, Terrorists Often Have Fraternal Bonds” This is an interesting — albeit brief — piece on a recent “pattern” that has emerged in terror attacks: teams of attackers are often composed of blood relatives. As a good scientist I have to point out that there’s a danger here of over-generalizing Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Data Limitation, Gene by Environment Interactions, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Genetics, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Mismatch theory, Phenotypic Plasticity, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Resistance Evolution in Parasites, Social Diversity
Posted 30 Nov 2015 / 0
At Paris, two equally-nihilistic cultures clash, but where do the people get a seat at the table? Today crucial climate talks are under way in Paris, France amid massive police presence and an atmosphere of social repression. The message is to “stay off the streets” as the leaders of world (and a few monarchs and businesspeople) meet Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Belief, Climate Change, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Environmental Justice, History, Memetic Fitness, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Why Two Kids Are Too Many” This article has a provocative title that makes you believe that it is going to make a persuasive argument for public policy that encourages smaller families, but it is more like a meandering survey of the very confused landscape of the “baby culture wars”. Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Population Pressure, Public Policy
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Pacific Southwest Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia Commons The Chronicle of Higher Education “Ecomodernists Spark Rhetorical Heat” In my Ecology for Architects course I have students work on an activity that asks them to advocate one of four “extreme” environmental positions: Population bombers; Neo-luddites; Deep ecologists; or Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Environmental Justice, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Risk & Uncertainty, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Transportation, Sustainable Urban Design
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 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
