Be Humble, and Proudly, Psychologists Say In their day jobs, research psychologists don’t typically need safety goggles, much less pith helmets or Indiana Jones bullwhips. There’s no rappelling into caves to uncover buried scrolls, no prowling the ocean floor in … Continue reading The habits of lost civilization
Xenophobic one minute, tolerant the next: humans are strange primates Whether they are proposing to build a wall or to exit an international coalition, populist politicians like to pitch themselves as keeping ‘outsiders’ at bay, and it clearly strikes a … Continue reading Group loyalty
The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how much of contemporary life has been shaped, at least in part, by the eugenics movement, … Continue reading The comeback of eugenics
I Was Never Taught Where Humans Came From Here’s what I remember from biology class at my public high school in Texas: We learned everything there is to know about the Krebs cycle. We collected bugs in the heat and … Continue reading Evolution education
Survival of the Friendliest Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values,” wrote poet Robinson Jeffers in 1940. “What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine the fleet limbs of the antelope? What but fear winged the birds, … Continue reading Evolution at work
The Democratization of Trust There’s no argument that trust is the cornerstone of human society and economy. Trust is so basic, in fact, that it’s emergence is often framed in evolutionary terms, notably by Dr. Joyce Berg in her groundbreaking … Continue reading Trust in the digital world
Prof Cass Sunstein on how social change happens, and why it’s so often abrupt & unpredictable It can often feel hopeless to be an activist seeking social change on an obscure issue where most people seem opposed or at best … Continue reading Social change
