Dec 5, 2023

Sacred Values, Social Identities, and Extremist Violence

Research indicates that when sacred values and fused identities combine they create a potent mix.

Nov 30, 2023

Moral Rigidity Evolved to Strengthen Bonds Within Groups

Moral rigidity and its intimate link to in-group boundaries may have evolved so as to make us behave, and be seen, as trustworthy yet cautious team members in social environments mired by intergroup competition.

Nov 28, 2023

Extremist Groups Require the Greatest Trust Among Members

Good signals are those which clearly differentiate membership in one group versus another; even stronger are those which are also costly to express, and therefore hard to fake.

Nov 20, 2023

Terrorism and the Apocalyptic

Apocalyptic ideas motivate much of the most virulent political violence in the world, stirring what can be called the “fundamentalist mindset.”

Nov 16, 2023

The Extremist in Historical Perspective: Lessons from the Era of Anarchist Terrorism

Terrorism is used by those who do not have the means to pursue more conventional or moderate strategies to achieve their goals.

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.

Nov 9, 2023

Why Terrorists Are Misunderstood

Although terrorism is often described as a form of communication, terrorists are rather poor communicators because the violence of terrorism is rarely understood by the public.

Nov 7, 2023

Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of Terrorist Recruiters

The issue of recruitment, as opposed to just radicalization, is an undeniably important and neglected area of study.

Nov 2, 2023

In the Eye of the Beholder: Parochial Altruism, Radicalization, and Extremism

Radicalization is an inherently relational concept. One can only be radical in relation to someone who is not. Similarly, one cannot be extreme without an accepted center norm. But the center is not a fixed state. It shifts and changes across time, place, circumstance, and culture.

Oct 31, 2023

Extremist Violence Has Its Roots in Morality, Not Ideology

The ideology behind extremist violence looks remarkably like the “moral sentiments” of empathy, indignation, and shame that are presumed to confer fitness advantages in human social interactions.

Oct 26, 2023

Conservative Extremists Are Afraid of Threats That Don't Exist

Crucially, the pattern of heightened reactivity and credulity toward potential threats characteristic of the conservative mind is not associated with fearfulness or timidity, but with confidence in the ability to triumph through force.

Oct 24, 2023

What is Radicalization?

Internet social media has proven to be a powerful vehicle for mass radicalization.

Oct 19, 2023

Why Extremism Isn’t the Real Issue

On a global scale, mismatches between ethnic identity and nation-states have caused more death and suffering than any variety of extremism.

Oct 17, 2023

Extremism as Defense

The attempt to solve a problem by destroying its source remains an eternal aspect of the human condition.

Oct 10, 2023

The Virtue of Extremism is its Enhancement of the Ordinary

To better understand extremism, we need to look not only at the evils perpetrated but also at the admirable aspects of ourselves.

Oct 9, 2023

Extremism in Historical and Evolutionary Perspective

A new and important change is occurring in the history of political violence which suggests that insights from genetic as well as cultural evolution may prove fruitful.

Jul 20, 2023

The Nordic Third Way: A Conversation with Nina Witoszek and Atle Midttun

The Nordic nations are identified as exemplars of good governance, which avoid the excesses of both centralized planning and laissez-faire capitalism.

Jun 6, 2023

The Role of the Market in the Third Way of Entrepreneurship: A Conversation with Peter Boettke

Markets have a role to play, but they must be structured so that the cultural evolutionary process is managed to achieve whole-system goals.

May 30, 2023

The Third Way of Entrepreneurship and the Art of Public Policy: A Conversation with David Colander

There are many sectors of the economy where for-benefit corporations are a better structure than either for-profit corporations and not-for-profit corporations as currently structured.

May 25, 2023

Socialism, Capitalism, and the Third Way of National Governance: A Conversation with Geoffrey Hodgson

The failure of laissez-faire and centralized planning, revealing the need for the Third Way of entrepreneurship and all other forms of positive social change, should exist at all scales of governance.

May 23, 2023

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.

May 30, 2022

Reclaiming Our Common Ground of Being Human (Part 3 of 3)

Apr 21, 2022

Reclaiming Our Common Ground of Being Human (Part 2 of 3)

Capitalism, neoliberalism, and state communism have intensified inequalities and increased global impoverishment. How can we do better?

Apr 14, 2022

Reclaiming Our Common Ground of Being Human (Part 1 of 3)

Capitalism, neoliberalism, and state communism have intensified inequalities and increased global impoverishment. How can we do better?

Feb 11, 2022

The Solution To Climate Change Is To Talk About Climate Change

Maintaining optimism in the face of what is an overwhelming climate crisis is absolutely necessary, even vital.

Dec 9, 2021

Evolutionary Mismatch, Partisan Politics, and Climate Change: A Tragedy in Three Acts

Climate change is the quintessential Tragedy of the Commons problem of our time. But there are cultural strategies that may offer solutions.

Oct 28, 2021

Will to Fight for the Future Can’t Be Bought

Only by understanding the psychology of sacred values can we predict the willingness to sacrifice for those values.

Jan 11, 2021

Learning from Evolution about Free Speech

Jun 9, 2020

Black Lives Matter and Intersectional Conflict

Cooperation itself is less important than the terms on which it is established and sustained.

May 1, 2020

Darwinizing the Federalist Papers: Epilogue

This epilogue provides key references for you to deepen your knowledge, including the academic literature, a rapidly expanding genre of books accessible to the general reader, and authoritative online content.

Apr 23, 2020

We Are All Socialists, Globalists, Democrats, Capitalists, Environmentalists, Technologists, and Scientists

Combining these social identities into a UNION can result in a transformation of politics.

Apr 16, 2020

The Crisis of Capitalism

We must evolve a form of capitalism that minimizes harm and maximizes benefit.

Apr 14, 2020

Why Capitalism Fails

Under free-market capitalism, greed becomes good and traditional moral systems become obsolete.

Apr 9, 2020

The Fossil Fuel Industry: The Greatest Threat to Human Wellbeing

Fossil fuel companies have an incentive to prevent policies that would keep them from selling their assets. We should not be surprised, therefore, that these companies have taken steps to prevent such an outcome.

Apr 7, 2020

Why Socialism Fails

Evolutionary theory leads to a conception of socialism—governance for the common good—that works. It also explains why many attempts at socialism in the past and present have not worked.

Apr 2, 2020

How Free-Market Ideology Resulted in the Great Recession

The evolutionary principles of variation and selection are relevant to finance because the practices of banks and related financial institutions are selected by their impact on profits.

Mar 30, 2020

Self-Interest, Rightly Understood, is Social

The checks and balances built into the U.S. Constitution and the invisible hand of the market must be supplemented by the insights of evolutionary theory.

Mar 12, 2020

The Right to Sell Arms

Unlike the industry leaders Adam Smith wrote about, when leaders of the gun industry pursue their “own interest” it does not promote the “interests of society.” It is harming society.

Feb 27, 2020

The Cultural Evolution of Social Pathologies: Introduction to a Series of Essays by Anthony Biglan

The fact that evolutionary selection pressures so often result in social pathologies might be hard to accept, but once faced squarely it can lead to an optimistic point of view.

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.

Jul 25, 2019

The Human Social Organism and a Parliament of Genes

Ten thousand years of cultural evolution has impressively expanded the scale of human cooperation to levels that could not have been imagined by our distant ancestors.

Jul 18, 2019

More Perfect UNIONS Must Regulate Their Parts

Every animal society experiences the same tension between the need to cooperate to achieve collective benefits and the disruptive pursuit of lower-level interests.

Jul 4, 2019

Darwinizing the Federalist Papers: Preamble

The Federalist Papers argued for the creation of a more perfect UNION based on Enlightenment values that predated Darwin. Here we add 200+ years of scientifically refined thought.

Nov 13, 2017

Sexual Bullying and the Power of Norms

What previously was tolerated, if not actually approved, has become inadmissible, like imposing physical harm and theft of property. A norm is being created and enforced, much more strongly than before.

Aug 16, 2017

Addressing White Supremacy, Hate and Inequities in our Global Village

Creating a truly functional, equitable, stable and sustainable nation certainly won’t be easy but a “blueprint,” can be found in our evolutionary past. What will it take? Those with the most power recognizing the realities of white supremacy, finding what’s needed to upscale this blueprint, and having the courage and vision to do so.

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.

Apr 11, 2017

How Noble in Reason: Shakespeare Reveals the Primacy of Emotions in Human Nature

Mar 28, 2017

The Truth about Fake Facts

The invention of fake facts was to compel us to behave for the benefit of our group, even when it might be against our private interests.

Mar 16, 2017

Immigration Bans Handicap Science Globally

As a biologist, I know the importance of genetic diversity in evolution by natural selection. It is precisely because of our diversity as a nation that America leads the world in innovation.

Feb 1, 2017

A Groundhog Day Lesson About Fake News

What can groundhogs teach us about our fake news epidemic?