Ethology – Razib Khan

December 21, 2011 by Razib Khan 0

Anthroplogy, Behavior Genetics, Dunbar's Number, Ethology, Human Evolution, Social Science

The arc of primate social evolution

A new paper in Nature, Stepwise evolution of stable sociality in primates, was written up in The New York Times with the provocative title, Genes Play Major Role in Primate Social Behavior, Study Finds. As noted in Joan Silk’s article on the paper it should really be phylogenetics play major role in primate social behavior. […]

June 14, 2011 by Razib Khan 0

Altruism, Anthroplogy, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethology, Evolution, Free Rider, Group Selection, Inclusive Fitness, Kin Selection, Punishment, Social Evolution

Band of brothers at war

The fruits of human cooperation
The Pith: Human societies can solve the free rider problem, and generate social structure and complexity at a higher level than that of the band. That implies that much of human prehistory may have been characterized by…

February 8, 2011 by Razib Khan 0

Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Biology, Ethology, Evolutionary Ecology, The Imitation Factor: Evolution Beyond The Gene

The Imitation Factor: Evolution Beyond The Gene

Link to review: The wisdom of Seinfeld.

January 5, 2011 by Razib Khan 0

Behavior, Ethology, Evolution, Human Evolution, Neuroscience, Psychology, The Science of Kissing

Kissing & the science of humanity

I approached Sheril Kirshenbaum’s The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us with some trepidation and excitement. The former is a consequence of my hypochondria and its associated germophobia. I have no aversion to kissing in my own life (apologies for divulging personal information), but I did have some worries about having to […]

March 17, 2010 by Razib 0

anthropology, Behavior, Ethology

Monkeys are more complicated than you’d think

Generous Leaders and Selfish Underdogs: Pro-Sociality in Despotic Macaques:
Actively granting food to a companion is called pro-social behavior and is considered to be part of altruism. Recent findings show that some non-human primates behave pro-socially. However, pro-social behavior is not expected in despotic species, since the steep dominance hierarchy will hamper pro-sociality. We show that […]