Dec 15, 2015

My Resolution: Getting My Stories Straight

Every day teachers build lessons, units, semesters, and school years around a narrative structure. But did you know that these strategies also make sense from an evolutionary perspective as well?

Dec 9, 2015

Star Wars, Christmas, and Constraints on Secular Influence

Why are cultural institutions like Christmas and Star Wars so popular? The answer may provide insight into human nature’s impulse towards supernatural explanation.

Nov 18, 2015

God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human

Read an excerpt from Dominic Johnson's new book 'God is Watching You' where he presents a new theory of the origins and evolution of not only religion, but also human cooperation and society, and explores how fear of supernatural punishment exists within and outside of religious contexts.

Oct 21, 2015

Man Bites Dog: Cultural Evolution According to a Cultural Anthropologist

Aug 4, 2015

Want An Impactful Business? Focus on Design of Culture

Jul 23, 2015

What Small Scale Societies Tell Us About Our Own Child-Bearing Decisions

Jul 13, 2015

Why do Modern People have so few Children?

Jun 15, 2015

Seeing Cultural Evolution In The Patterns Of History

May 18, 2015

The New Science of Intentional Change

May 18, 2015

What Business Cycles Can Teach Us About Evolution

Apr 6, 2015

Change Your Stories, Change Your Reality

Feb 1, 2015

How To Get Credible Knowledge In A Myth-Filled World

Jan 12, 2015

Yes, Darwinian Feminism Is Real. And It's Growing

Dec 26, 2014

Taking Control Of The Planet. It Might Be Our Only Chance

Jul 14, 2014

Why This Book On Genetics And Race Is A Problem

The controversy continues about biological basis for race.

May 5, 2014

Blueprint For The Global Village. Norway Explained.

The unregulated pursuit of self-interest is cancerous at all scales.

Feb 23, 2014

Let’s Start Calling Ourselves Evolutionists!

Dec 4, 2013

On The Origin Of HBES: Sarah Hrdy

An interview with a pioneer anthropologist and primatologistThe latest installment of “On the Origin of HBES: An Oral History,” focuses on Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist and primatologist who has made major contributions to sociobiology and related disciplines.

Oct 27, 2013

Napoleon Chagnon: The Fierce Sociobiologist

Times have changed for the study of human behavior from an evolutionary perspective, thanks in part to his pioneering spirit.

Jun 8, 2013

Fast Life Histories, Not Pathogens, Account For Variation In Human Cognition And Social Behavior

The relationship between risky environments and life history.

Apr 25, 2013

Animal Culture In Monkeys And Whales

We thought humans only have culture. We were wrong.

Mar 1, 2013

Dismantling The Paradigm In The Social Sciences

Joe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economics.

Feb 14, 2013

Wild, Wacky And Complex. That's Evolution

Things that look as though they took ages to design and create just happen.

Feb 6, 2013

Genes Mix Faster Than Stories

Folk tales' 'DNA' shows that people would sooner have sex with strangers than tell their fables.

Feb 1, 2013

Chimps Learn Tool Use by Watching Others

Chimpanzees can learn to use tools more efficiently by watching how others use them.

Jan 30, 2013

Cultural Evolution Changes Bird Song

Thanks to cultural evolution, male Savannah sparrows are changing their tune, partly to attract “the ladies.”

Jan 9, 2013

Networking Ability a Family Trait in Monkeys

Social behaviors have been acted on by natural selection.

Jan 8, 2013

Jays Appear to Mourn Dead Winged Comrades

When a Western scrub jay dies, researchers report, other jays may hold a kind of funeral.

Jan 7, 2013

Bonobos Share With Strangers Before Acquaintances

Building a social network and making new friends as valuable as food.

Jan 6, 2013

Are We Born With a Sense of Fairness?

Does fairness come standard with every newborn, or is it something that we (hopefully) develop as we mature?

Jan 2, 2013

Restless Genes

If an urge to explore rises in us innately, perhaps its foundation lies within our genome.

Dec 20, 2012

Is Orangutan Culture Made of Ideas?

Like humans and chimpanzees, communities of orangutans have different traditions.

Dec 18, 2012

Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion

Life 7,500 years ago included an ability and willingness to help and sustain the chronically ill and handicapped.

Dec 16, 2012

Does History Cycle?

The reason you have ups and downs in dynamical systems is that there are internal feedback loops.

Dec 16, 2012

Human Rites

Rituals bind us, in modern societies and prehistoric tribes alike. But can our loyalties stretch to all of humankind?

Dec 10, 2012

Culture: the Engine of Human Adaptation

Social Learning Leads to Our Greatest Achievements and Worst Errors.

Nov 21, 2012

Why, As People Get Richer, Do They Have Fewer Children?

As people get richer, they have smaller families. Why?

Nov 15, 2012

China’s Biggest Problem? Too Many Men

The current sex-ratio bias could turn out to be catastrophic.

Nov 8, 2012

Early Humans May Have Been Much Smarter Than We Thought

Complex tools dating 71,000 years suggest advanced stoneworking techniques persisted.

Oct 30, 2012

The Russian Anarchist Prince Who Challenged Evolution

Are we cooperative or competitive?

Oct 7, 2012

Adapted, Yes, but for Whom or What?

An alternative propositions that explain how apparent group-level altruism can evolve.

Oct 3, 2012

Did Human Evolution Favor Individualists or Altruists?

Rand's mistake was in essentializing the distinction between "individualist freedom" vs. "collectivist tyranny" and then transporting it into our human past.

Sep 25, 2012

The Pace of Cultural Evolution

Empirically demonstrating the pace of cultural evolution.

Sep 15, 2012

Conflict and ‘Boom-Bust’ Explain Humans’ Rapid Evolution

What explains the extraordinarily fast rate of evolution in the human lineage over the past two million years?

Sep 13, 2012

Twilight of the Elites. Or the Unintended Consequences of Meritocracy

How elite competition can lead to unequal outcomes.

Sep 12, 2012

Science as a (Fragile) Cultural Adaptation

A broad view of cultural evolution reveals science to be very unusual, very recent, and very fragile.

Sep 9, 2012

How Culture Drove Human Evolution

Why we need to stop distinguishing cultural and biological evolution as separate.

Sep 8, 2012

Major Forum Clarifies Nature of Cultural Evolution

Over forty top scientists discuss the topic of cultural evolution.

Sep 8, 2012

Study Demonstrates Evolution of Stereotypes

Stereotypes form and evolve over time through social transmission of information, similar to the way in which languages evolve.

Sep 8, 2012

When Men Stop Seeking Beauty and Women Care Less About Wealth

The more equal men and women became, the less emphasis men placed on youth and beauty, and the less emphasis women put on wealth and power.