Category: Evolution
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Do genes determine intelligence?
Both conservatives and liberals are ignoring the realities of biology
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Do genes determine intelligence?
Both conservatives and liberals are ignoring the realities of biology
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The Human Family Tree, It Turns Out, Is Complicated
How the story of human evolution continues to branch out. The post The Human Family Tree, It Turns Out, Is Complicated appeared first on Nautilus | Science Connected.
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Top 10 human genetics & evolution predictions for the 2020s
The Insight Show Notes — Season 3, Episode 2This week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts) Razib and Spencer make ten predictions about what genetics might discover and do in the 2020s (though they do express some dis…
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Top 10 human genetics & evolution developments of the 2010s
The Insight Show Notes — Season 3, Episode 1: the decade in review in human evolution and geneticsThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts) Razib and Spencer kick-off season 3 with a mega-episode reflecting on te…
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Cultural innovation leads to small populations being successful; small populations just lead to extinction
In a pretty informative piece in Gizmodo, Scientists Say New Research Tracing the Origin of Modern Humans to Botswana Is Deeply Flawed, there is an interesting quote that I would like to follow-up on: That said, Curtis Marean, a professor of archaeology at Arizona State University who wasn’t involved with the new research, is not…
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Of proteins and paleontology
Ostrich eggAncient DNA has transformed our understanding of the biological past. The sequencing of mammoths, moa, and Neanderthal have opened up a window upon evolution which we had previously only perceived through material remains. Whereas 20 years a…
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Evolution and human family
1950s nuclear family in the USAFor many people who grew up in the United States in the years after World War II, it was a time of stability and a return to old verities and values. In those decades one saw the flourishing of the “nuclear family.” Mothe…
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The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 30: Evolution of Family
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 30: Evolution of FamilyThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Podcasts) Razib talks to Dr. Rebecca Sear, a behavioral ecologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medi…
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Population genetics + “deep learning”
Population genetics is many things, but a popular field that gets written up in Wired or the tech-press is usually not one of those things. It emerged out of Mendelian genetics in the early decades of the 20th-century, transforming elegant pedigrees in…
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An evolved mind
Imagine a human. We are a terrestrial, bipedal, and hairless mammal. This is very atypical in comparison to our relatives the apes and monkeys. These physical differences present us with a question: why?Why do humans lack the fur that is generally comm…
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The Insight hits 200,000 downloads!
After a year and a half, and 50+ podcasts over two seasons, The Insight has surpassed 200,000 downloads. We appreciate everyone’s support, especially those who have left positive reviews on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. The Insight is also on Spotify, G…
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The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 20: This View of Life, Completing the Darwinian…
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 20: This View of Life, Completing the Darwinian RevolutionThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Podcasts) we discuss the “evolutionary thinking” with David Sloan Wilson, the Pr…
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The evolution of languages
Map of language families of the world todayThe story in the Bible about the “Tower of Babel” was the explanation that the ancient Hebrews gave for why there was so much linguistic diversity in the world around them. Ancient people were curious and obse…
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The evolution of languages
Map of language families of the world todayThe story in the Bible about the “Tower of Babel” was the explanation that the ancient Hebrews gave for why there was so much linguistic diversity in the world around them. Ancient people were curious and obse…
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Arabia between Africa & Eurasia
Arabia between Africa and EurasiaShanidar cave in Iraq, once occupied by NeanderthalsFor hundreds of thousands of years Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans interacted in the broad zone of territory we now call the “Middle East.” Neanderthal…
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Love, oxytocin and evolution
Gibbons form pair-bondsOn some level, most scientists would say that everything is reducible to material and mechanism. But to say that “everything is due to the swerve of atoms” doesn’t get us much further than the ancient Greeks, who were the first t…
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The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 14: Love & biology
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 14: Love & biologyThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Podcasts)we discuss “love” from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist. More specifically, we had a wide-ranging discus…
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Why Charles Darwin matters
Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809. He was the son of a prosperous and prominent lineage. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a physician and public intellectual. Like his more famous grandson, the elder Darwin was a natural philoso…
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The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 11: Cultural Evolution
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 11: Cultural EvolutionThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Podcasts)we discussed the field of cultural evolution with Richard McElreath of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthrop…