Why do large-scale complex societies, within which >99% of humanity now lives, recurrently experience periods of social and political breakdown? This question is morbidly fascinating, especially since after we’ve entered the “Turbulent Twenties.” Books on collapse are now a cottage

The brilliant atomic physicist Enrico Fermi was notorious for unnerving PhD candidates during their oral examinations by asking ‘How many piano tuners are there in the city of Chicago?’ The point of the question, besides the psychological effect, was to gauge how well the candidate co

Nine years ago I made one of the most consequential decisions of my life—I switched to the so-called Paleo Diet (“paleo” is a bit misleading, as I explain in the post). Had I not done so, I would certainly have contributed to the rising obesity statistics for the United States. Within

Levels of inequality have changed dramatically during the course of human evolution: from the social hierarchies of our great ape ancestors to egalitarian small-scale societies of hunter-gatherers, and then to large-scale hierarchical societies with great inequities in the distributio

Diabetes expert warns paleo diet is dangerous and increases weight gain! proclaims the press release from University of Melbourne. It says: A new study has revealed following a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet for just eight weeks can lead to rapid weight gain and health complications.

One thing I love about Cultural Evolution is how it makes us look at ordinary things we do every day from a completely new angle. As an example, if you think about it, wearing pants, especially in warmer climates, is a very strange thing. It turns that there is a surprising explanatio

  In the current issue of Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution the anthropologist Sarah Mathew reviews War, Peace, and Human Nature, edited by Douglas Fry. Fry is one of the large group of anthropologists and other social scientists who have be

link to the journal issue Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution Volume 6, Issue 1, 2015 Articles Modeling Strategic Decisions in the Formation of the Early Neo-Assyrian Empire Baudains, Peter; Zamazalová, Silvie; Altaweel, Mark; Wilson, Alan Agricult

Readers of this blog must have wondered where I disappeared to over the last two weeks. Indeed, I was away – traveling in South America (Peru and Chile). I went to Santiago to attend a workshop on modeling innovations, but most of the time I spent in Peru. Together with two friends we

My post The Ultimate Health Food, Revealed! generated a number of comments, some of them quite critical of foie gras and gavage, the process by which ducks and geese are fattened. Fortunately, one reader (Bruce) weighed in on the opposite side and I reproduce his response here, becaus