Evolution

Evolution as fitness landscape navigation: Concepts, Measures, and...

Fitness landscapes are mappings between genotypes, phenotypes, and fitness that shape evolution. In recent years, empirical work and theoretical models have greatly advanced our understanding of...

JBS Haldane-A Dialectical Account of Evolution

THIS paper requires a preliminary apology. It is written in Spain, and as the writer is taking a very minor part in the defence of Madrid he is unable to consult many works of reference. Readers to whom practice is as important as theory will excuse any inadequacy in citations.

Evolutionary Political Economy: Content and Methods

In this paper we present the major theoretical and methodological pillars of evolutionary political economy. We proceed in four steps. Aesthetics: In chapter 1 the immediate appeal of evolutionary ...

Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology

‘This Handbook is refreshingly different. While including requisite chapters on subfields within evolutionary psychology, it also includes chapters on evolutionary psychology’s influence on other disciplines (e.g., Anthropology, Criminology), and retrospectives on six foundational studies. And perhaps most innovative, chapters are written by an international collection of up-and-coming scholars who give their take on the current and future state of evolutionary psychology.’ – David F. Bjorklund, Florida Atlantic University, USA

Guest Post - Do we need (r)evolution in peer review? - The Scholarly Kitchen

Whether peer review needs revolution or evolution may be the wrong question. The more pressing one is whether the academic community is prepared to let scientific ideas be published, contested, and refined in public, rather than behind closed doors.

Meaning of Life – Evolution – Reason and Meaning

Below is an excerpt of comments from an astute reader of my  book, The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Transhumanist, and Scientific Perspectives:

Darwin the abolitionist

The theory of evolution is regarded as a triumph of disinterested scientific reason. Yet, on the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species," new research reveals that Darwin was driven to the idea of common descent by a great moral cause

Maximum power in evolution, ecology and economics

Ludwig Boltzmann suggested that natural selection was fundamentally a struggle among organisms for available energy. Alfred Lotka argued that organisms that capture and use more energy than their competition will have a selective advantage in the evolutionary process, i.e. the Darwinian notion of evolution was based on a fundamental, generalized energy principle. He extended this general principle from the energetics of a single organism or species to the energetics of entire energy pathways through ecosystems. Howard Odum and Richard Pinkerton, building on Lotka, extended this concept to ‘The maximum power principle’ and applied it to many biological and physical systems including human economies. We examine this history and how these ideas relate to concepts from other disciplines including philosophy. But there has been considerable confusion in understanding and applying these concepts which we attempt to resolve while providing various examples from routine life and discussing some unresolved issues. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Thermodynamics 2.0: Bridging the natural and social sciences (Part 2)’.

The Ecological Theatre of Selfish Elements

Abstract. Some selfish genetic elements enhance their transmission to the next generation by interfering with and eliminating competing variants within the

Opinion | Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’? (Published 2016)

The biologist William D. Hamilton entertained the notion. So can we.

Fantastically Wrong: What Darwin Really Screwed Up About Evolution

It’s hard to overstate just how brilliant and huge an idea Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was and continues to be. It absolutely rocked Victorian England, to the extent that stuffy old Victorian England could be rocked past people just barely raising their voices in polite protest. But some folks, particularly highly \[…\]

The Scientist Who Scrambled Darwin’s Tree of Life (Published 2018)

How the microbiologist Carl Woese fundamentally changed the way we think about evolution and the origins of life.

Harari vs. Henrich

What science actually says about human evolution

Harari vs. Henrich

What science actually says about human evolution

Survival of the Prettiest (Published 2017)

Darwin’s theory of aesthetics may be the sexiest, most dangerous idea in evolution.