Why Do We Get Sick? The New Science of Evolutionary Medicine
If you infect a rabbit with a virus or a bacterium, it’ll start to run a fever. Why? The surprising answer is that fever is not a disease; it’s a…
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Evolutionary Biology
18 posts
The Gene’s Eye View of Evolution: An Interview with J. Arvid Ågren
In this episode of our Two for Tea podcast, editor-in-chief Iona Italia and deputy editor Daniel Sharp talk to evolutionary biologist Arvid Ågren about the selfish gene theory: its history, strengths,…
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Selfish Genery: J. Arvid Ågren’s “The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution”
An Oxford undergraduate once wrote a brilliant answer to an exam question about the logic of natural selection, ending with the statement: “And here I rely heavily on the words…
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The Ants Have Not Read Kant: Pëtr Kropotkin and Mutual Aid
[He is] that beautiful white Christ which seems to be coming out of Russia … [One] of the most perfect lives I have come across in my own experience.—Oscar Wilde…
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Race Is a Spectrum. Sex Is Pretty Damn Binary.
Long ago, on my father’s farm, we had a particularly bumptious, mischievous, even aggressive cow called Arusha. The herdsman, musing one day on her obstreperous behaviour, remarked, “Seems to me,…
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The Lessons of Evolution: A Review of “A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century” by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein
I was worried that Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s new book, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life, would be a shallow self-help…
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What Multilevel Selection Theory Tells Us About Free Speech
I’m guessing that most readers of this essay are unfamiliar with the theory its title refers to. That’s a pity, because multilevel selection (MLS) theory, which was developed to explain…
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The Trick of Evocative Science Writing: “Books Do Furnish a Life” by Richard Dawkins
In his previous essay collection, Science in the Soul, Richard Dawkins ponders why a scientist has never received the Nobel Prize in Literature—the only possible exception, Henri Bergson, was “more…
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God Through Blinkers: “God Through Binoculars” by Danusha Goska
Reading Dr Danusha Goska’s account of her journey from abused child, suicidal teacher and monastery retreatant to acclaimed author, I was caught between disagreement and admiration. Goska is a Catholic…
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Does Darwinism Conflict with Religion?
When my dog chases the ball, does she do so with purpose? Or is she more like a windup toy, going through the motions, along with all the other atoms…
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Sex, Love and Sexual Autism
Sex came first. It arrived before any concept of self or other, before there was care for anyone at all. And certainly before love. Sexual reproduction first evolved 1.2 billion…
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The Why is Not the Same as the How: Levels of Analysis and Scientific Progress in Psychology
The emerald-colored jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) parasitizes the common cockroach with a sophistication that beggars the imagination. Here’s how the morbid scene unfolds. The wasp begins by injecting a venomous…
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An Argument Worth Having: “Outgrowing God” by Richard Dawkins
The Battle for Truth and Reason “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” you might cry, “Richard Dawkins is banging on about God again! Hasn’t he already been there and done that? Why…
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Human Cultural Evolution: A Letter Exchange
In a recent exchange of letters, hosted on the platform Letter.wiki, Massimo Pigliucci and David Sloan Wilson explored the question of whether multi-level selection theory, a school of evolutionary biology,…
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The Ape That Understood the Universe: Book Review
We humans take so much of reality for granted that it is often difficult to recognize which phenomena even require explanation. This is especially true of human behavior, as Steve…
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Why There Will Not Be a Beige Future: Skin Color, Genetics, Race and Racism
There is more in heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in any human philosophy. This is why science is not philosophy. Those who map the skies, observe the…
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The Strange Order of Things by Antonio Damasio: Book Review
Feelings are the mental expressions of homeostasis, while homeostasis, acting under the cover of feeling, is the functional thread that links early life-forms to the extraordinary partnership of bodies and…
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Charles Darwin, Cautious Advocate of Racial Equality and Human Rights
Charles Darwin has long been recognized as one of the world’s greatest scientists and the founder of scientific biology: at the same time, and for the same reason, he has…
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