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Category:

Anthropology

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Articles:

Nov 14, 2023

Why Religious Extremism is Maladaptive

Religious systems that lose their adaptability become dangerous to the societies in which they exist, and to themselves, because they absolutize the relative.

Anthropology
Politics
Religion
Read
Jul 31, 2023

Cultural Evolution, Insight, and Fundamental Theories of Consciousness

Since cultural evolution is fueled by the creative efforts of human minds which, by anyone’s definition, are conscious, it would seem that consciousness plays a central role in cultural evolution.

Anthropology
Culture
Read
Oct 5, 2021

National Parochialism is Ubiquitous Around the World

Anthropology
Read
Sep 15, 2021

Same-Sex Sexual Behavior in Chimpanzees Challenge Our Gendered Biases About Evolution

The big question is, how did we manage to miss these behaviors in chimpanzees for so long?

Anthropology
Gender
Read
Sep 8, 2021

New Funding Opportunities to Address Hot Topics in Cultural Evolution

Researchers of cultural evolution may leverage this understanding to enable them to predict (and potentially intervene) in key domains of great global concern.

Anthropology
Culture
Read
May 25, 2020

Cooperation Through Cultural Group Selection

Cultural forces are far greater than genetic predisposition or geographic proximity in promoting cooperation with nonkin.

Anthropology
Culture
Read
Apr 29, 2020

Did Paleolithic People Suffer From Kidney Disease?

Paleo-type diets by limiting salt and sugar should help limit damage to the blood vessels in the kidneys and other organ systems.

Anthropology
Health
Read
May 10, 2019

Group Selection in Every Way Except Using the Words: A Critique of "The Goodness Paradox" by Richard Wrangham

Wrangham's new book on the evolution of cooperation gets many things right. But he errs in thinking that he can develop his thesis without invoking group selection.

Anthropology
Biology
Read
Apr 25, 2019

The Future of the Ancestral Health Movement

In the scarce environment of our ancestral past, having a preference for highly sweet and fatty foods had real survival and reproductive advantages.

Anthropology
Food for thought
Read
Feb 22, 2019

Functional Frivolity: The Evolution and Development of the Human Brain Through Play

Play is not frivolous but is an adaptation designed to guide proper cognitive development in human children.

Anthropology
Biology
Read
Jan 25, 2019

Fa’asamoa of Tattooing and Football: Conservatism and Adaptation in Samoan Cultural Evolution

Two new books published in 2018 emphasize the role of fa’asamoa in amplifying “sticky” cultural concepts or memes—football and tattooing—in cultural adaptation.

Anthropology
Sports
Read
Nov 28, 2018

Fighting for the Middle Ground: David Sloan Wilson Interviews Holly Dunsworth on the Ethics of Teaching Evolution

In a world that is being ripped apart by polarized views and fake news, scientific discourse might be the last bastion of constructive disagreement based on respect for objective knowledge.

Anthropology
Biology
Gender
Race
Read
Sep 27, 2018

The Obstetrical Dilemma, Dismantled: Human Childbirth is Not a Dilemma

Rather than being evicted from the womb before their heads are too big, a new hypothesis argues that human babies are born when their growth rates become too costly for their mothers’ metabolism to support.

Anthropology
Biology
Gender
Read
Jul 26, 2018

Mismatch: An Interview with Mark van Vugt

Human psychology evolved over millions of years in relatively stable environments in small-scale communities. But, in the modern world, evolutionary mismatch can occur where a trait adapted for one environment is out of place where we live today.

Anthropology
Biology
Read
Dec 6, 2017

Solving Friction with Fiction: Cooperation, Co-ordination, and the Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Storytelling

Storytelling may help to solve problems of co-ordination in hunter-gatherer societies in order to promote cooperation.

Anthropology
Culture
Read
Oct 16, 2017

Learning from Arizona State University about Inter-Disciplinarity: A Conversation with Robert Boyd

Inter-disciplinarity is something that most universities want but might not be able to achieve without organizational change.

Anthropology
Biology
Interview
Read
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.

Anthropology
History
Read
Jan 3, 2017

Addressing the Field Site Concept: A Cognitive Anthropologist’s View

In order for us to understand culture, it is in relation to our environments, both biological—as stressed by evolutionary psychology—and social—as stressed by cultural evolution. A well validated theoretical perspective can generate insights and explanations that lab experiments alone cannot provide.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Jan 2, 2017

Bridging the Gap Between Laboratory and Field

To gain a holistic understanding of social evolution, we need to consider cumulative evidence, completing the puzzle one piece at a time. And to do that, we need to move back and forth between field and lab studies.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Dec 30, 2016

Defining and Implementing Field Sites in Cultural Evolution Science

If field sites are cross-cultural, multi-method, and collaborative across disciplines, however, they can improve the quality of our field, and help us make major steps toward understanding the evolution of human behavior.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Dec 27, 2016

On Field Sites for the Study of Cultural Evolution

How might we create a field site concept for cultural evolution that provides depth and breadth but that is based on new data?

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Nov 10, 2016

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution: A Sociologist’s Perspective

If sociologists come to recognize that sociality and group process underlie the evolution of our species and are inherent in our biology, the use of field sites will become not just a means of framing sociological research but a clarion call for transdisciplinary recognition of the centrality of our discipline.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Oct 19, 2016

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution: An Anthropologist’s View

Cultural evolution research faces many challenges in the years to come. One of the most fundamental, perhaps, is to establish the extent to which cultural evolution is Darwinian.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Oct 19, 2016

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution: Introduction

Together with commentaries by authors with diverse perspectives on field research, we hope to catalyze the formation of field sites for the study of cultural evolution around the world.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
Oct 3, 2016

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution: An Evolutionary Biologist’s View

The human capacity to transmit large amounts of learned information across generations is now properly seen as both a product of genetic evolution and a process of evolution in its own right.

Culture
Anthropology
Read
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We believe that to catalyze rapid, positive cultural change we need to recognize our interconnectedness and continuously improve the relationships we have with ourselves, each other and the planet.

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