Feb 7, 2023

Witch-Hunting: A Lethal Cultural “Virus”?

New research suggests there may have been Darwinian mechanisms behind the evolution of witch-hunting phenomena.

Nov 17, 2022

Ten Thousand Years of the Third Way: A Conversation with Peter Turchin

Our emergence as a species and the last ten thousand years of human history demonstrates how positive cultural change has taken place.

Jul 14, 2022

Pragmatism as the Third Way of Entrepreneurship: A Conversation with Trygve Throntveit

Positive systemic change must be the target of selection. Alternative social practices must be oriented toward the target of selection.

Jan 5, 2022

The Six Legacies of Edward O. Wilson

Edward O. Wilson, who passed away at the age of 92 on December 26, 2021, is widely recognized as a giant of the Arts and Sciences.

Jul 5, 2021

Remembering Richard Lewontin: A Tribute From a Student Who Never Got to Meet Him

We have lost one of the twentieth century’s deepest thinkers whose work will have a lasting impression on biology, science, and humanity as a whole.

Apr 12, 2021

Ronald Fisher Is Not Being ‘Cancelled’, But His Eugenic Advocacy Should Have Consequences

How should we remember scientists that altered our conception of the natural world but who also misused the tools of science to target marginalized populations?

Mar 11, 2021

Greek Democracy as a Major Evolutionary Transition: A Conversation with Josiah Ober

Oct 12, 2020

Evolutionary Biologists Need to Know about Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum

Aug 28, 2019

The Darwinian ‘Struggle for Existence’ is Really About Balance

Darwin made it clear that the term "struggle for existence" was not to be taken literally but should rather be understood in a large and metaphorical sense.

Aug 1, 2019

Morality Regulates Our Social Physiology

Darwin knew humans can’t survive or thrive individually. Indeed the relation between people and groups is akin to that between genes and bodies.

Dec 18, 2018

Was Hamilton a Group Selectionist? A Conversation with Oren Harman

W.D. Hamilton is best known for developing Inclusive Fitness Theory. What is less well known is that Hamilton changed his mind about the relationship between his theory and group selection.

Nov 19, 2018

It Is Unethical To Teach Evolution Without Confronting Racism And Sexism

Evolution educators—even if sticking to E. coli, fruit flies, or sticklebacks—must confront the ways that evolutionary science has promoted or inspired so many racist, sexist, and otherwise harmful beliefs.

Dec 22, 2017

Scientific Historians Find Common Pathway in Complex Social Formations Shared by Every Region around the Globe

Understanding how we got to our modern world is the critical first step in showing us where we are heading; a new article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers new answers to these critical questions, taking a systematic, scientific look at how complex societies from around the world have developed over the last 10,000 years.

Jul 10, 2017

The Evolution of Darwinian Empathy

The Darwinian understanding of empathy consistently built from his initial hypothesis to establish an empirical framework by the mid-1960s.

Apr 27, 2017

This View of History Webinar: A Conversation With Peter Turchin

Peter Turchin discusses his new book "Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth". Ultrasociety chronicles 10,000 years of human history from an evolutionary perspective, shows how warfare paradoxically caused us to become the greatest cooperators on earth, and begins to point the way toward a future without war.

Jan 25, 2017

The Freemasons: Prosocial Groups of the Enlightenment Era. A Conversation with Margaret C. Jacob

How can cooperative forms of governance overcome disruptive self-serving behaviors? The history of Freemasonry may hold the answer.

Jan 10, 2017

Cultural Anthropology and Cultural Evolution: Tear Down This Wall! A Conversation with Robert Paul

Robert Paul is one of a very few cultural anthropologists who is contributing his extensive ethnographic knowledge to the modern study of cultural evolution.

Feb 22, 2016

Was Hitler a Darwinian? No! No! No!

Robert J. Richards examines the widely held view that Darwinian thinking was somehow responsible for the atrocities of the Hitler regime during World War II.

Jul 5, 2015

Truth and Reconciliation for Social Darwinism