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

The following reflection on the problems of psychology, anthropology, and a science of human beings has been stimulated by recent responses to a couple of recent articles in Nature (Looking for the Roots of Terrorism  and Psychologists Seek Roots of Terror), by my very able co-worker

As I wrote in a previous blog, the first five weeks of this semester I spent away in Europe. During the first part of the trip I ran five Seshat workshops in Oxford, and then I went to Toulouse. What makes Toulouse and Oxford similar is that they are both homes to some of the earliest

Yesterday’s blog proposed that the most useful approach to understanding the evolution of large-scale complex societies is to view them through the lens of Cultural Evolution. To make this discussion more concrete, let’s look at a particular cultural trait: social trust (more specific

Yesterday we published a guest blog by Joe Brewer, A World without Poverty. It triggered quite an intense discussion, which is a good thing (this is what this Forum is about). However, and somewhat disappointingly to me, most critique focused on ‘poverty,’ instead of ‘a world without.

Bernard Winograd has written an intriguing post, summarizing the findings one must grapple with when thinking about how attitudes can change within a single generation. The rapid change in the USA on gay marriage has caught many people’s attention, coming at a time when many popular b

At the risk of oversimplification, consider a few key findings of researchers into human beliefs and their evolutionary foundations. Human belief systems are rooted in biologically evolved senses of morality. While beliefs about many matters differ widely from culture to culture, ther

In his book, The Social Conquest of Earth, E.O. Wilson repeated three questions originally posed by Paul Gauguin: Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? A question Gauguin did not ask, but which is implied by the other three, is in the title of this post. Where are w

Over the last two weeks I did not have any time left for blogging. First, I have moved from Connecticut to Aarhus, where I will be for the next several months. Or, at least, this is where I will be based – I already have a lot of trips planned, all over Europe. Second, I have already

As I wrote in this blog, in early May I started on a new diet, which is misleadingly (for reasons I will come back to) called the ‘Paleo Diet.’ First, a progress report. Over the 3.5 months I lost 15 pounds, or around a pound per week. Not particularly impressive by the standards of s