Ha ha! By NICHOLAS WADE, New York Times As with any other species, human populations are shaped by the usual forces of natural selection, like famine, disease or climate. A new force is now coming into focus. It is one with a surprising implication — that for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently […]
Despite the popularity of cultural evolution as an idea, with cultures as organisms and memes as genes, the actual science has lagged. But by applying the tools of population genetics to Polynesian boat designs, researchers show that cultural evolution might be studied as rigorously as the beaks of finches. “Evolution is a logical way of […]
A troop of chimps has learned how to build a better termite trap. Going back in time, 13,000 year old, blood-stained tools were found in a guy’s back yard in Colorado.
I saw this post by Brandon Keim at Wired Science discussing a paper by evolutionary game theorist Arne Traulsen and his gang at the Max Planck Institute, titled “Exploration dynamics in evolutionary games,” and just HAD to re-post it, mostly because it just seemed like it would push some buttons: “In a paper published Monday […]
