Behavioral Biology
Category archives for Behavioral Biology
Keep an eye on the prey: You’ll find the predator
Posted by Greg Laden on August 10, 2010 In Robert Gardner’s documentary film Dead Birds, the men of a highland New Guinea village guard the perimeter of the territory, watchful for men of the neighboring group who may be intent on sneaking into the gardens to capture and kill an unwitting child or woman in order to avenge a prior death. But they…
Mothers and Others by Hrdy: A Review
Posted by Greg Laden on July 22, 2010 Remember Evolutionary Psychology? The theory? It’s over.
Rape
Posted by Greg Laden on June 30, 2010 June is almost over, and with nary a comment from this blog on rape. But June is the month we normally discuss this important problem. So to comply with that idea, I’m going to point you to a couple of posts from last year. If you’ve not read them, please have a look. Especially read…
Chimpanzee Food Sharing
Posted by Greg Laden on February 10, 2010 Is chimpanzee food sharing an example of food for sex? One of the most important transitions in human evolution may have been the incorporation of regular food sharing into the day to day ecology of our species or our ancestors. Although this has been recognized as potentially significant for some time, it was probably the…
The question every man needs to know the answer to …
Posted by Greg Laden on October 26, 2009 Do Individual Females Differ Intrinsically in Their Propensity to Engage in Extra-Pair Copulations?
Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces
Posted by Greg Laden on October 15, 2009 Constructivism. Determinism. It is all a bunch of hooey. A recent paper published by PLoS (Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces) throws a sopping wet blanket on widely held deterministic models of human behavior. In addition, the work underscores the sometimes spooky cultural differences that can emerge in how people see things, even how…
Americans Who Don’t Identify with a Religion No Longer a Fringe Group
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 You’ve certainly heard of the ARIS 2008 survey from Trinity College. One of the more interesting aspects of the survey is the demonstration that there is a sex difference in patterns of religions identification. Below I give some links where this has been discussed, but I want to note that in many discussions one of…
The meme of honourable death
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2009 The Anglo Boer War (in what is now South Africa from October 11th, 1899 to May 31st, 1902) was a turning point in European style military history. Previously, infantry would operate in large blocks that would move forward, turn and open or close ranks, and winning an infantry engagement would involve getting your columns around…
Caster Semenya’s Gender: What would the science be?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 11, 2009 Well, we don’t know because the necessary detailed information has not been released. I do not personally know the Caster Semenya story, medically or biologically speaking, but there has been a lot of discussion and apparently wild speculation on this, and I may have a thing or two to help clarify.
Does the term “DrugMonkey” give you the warm fuzzies? How about “GoatF$ck@ry”?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 3, 2009 It has been said that the only way to effect real change in important socio-political debates is to be very aggressive and unapologetically rude in making arguments. Civility and politeness are the hobgoblins of the Western Heternormative Colonoracist Patriarchy. I personally feel that there are indeed times and places for such a thing, but I…
Acting for the survival of the species (a falsehood)
Posted by Greg Laden on September 2, 2009 Today’s falsehood is the idea that individual animals act for the benefit of their own species.
The poor and the dark skinned have more babies than the rich and the light skinned
Posted by Greg Laden on August 31, 2009 Good morning and welcome to another installment of “The Falsehoods.” Today’s falsehood is the assertion that the poor have more babies than the rich, or that the poor just have more babies to begin with. In comparison to … whatever.
Natural Selection is Survival Of the Fittest (A Falsehood)
Posted by Greg Laden on August 26, 2009 Let me remind you of what we mean by “falsehood.” A falsehood is not merely a statement that is factually untrue or logically flawed. Rather, it is a statement that when uttered in certain company rings true; It is a statement that sounds right to people; It is a statement that may be made frequently…
The Natural Basis for Inequality of the Sexes
Posted by Greg Laden on July 27, 2009 Is the Natural World a valid source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane areas of thought such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast?1 When it comes to airplanes, you’d better be a servant to the rules of nature (such as gravity) or the airplane…
Sexism in the lab: Perception and reality mingle
Posted by Greg Laden on July 21, 2009 A three part conversation between two women overheard on the University of Minnesota campus.
Mail Order Brides and Hypergyny
Posted by Greg Laden on July 1, 2009 Seymour had a mail order bride and he was very proud. Seymour was a night watchman that I got to know because I was forever lurking around at night, passing through alarmed doors and making a nuisance of myself and, usually, keeping just one step ahead of Seymour, who’s main objective in life was to…
The Science of Lion Prides
Posted by Greg Laden on June 30, 2009 Although the paper addresses Tanzanian lions, this is a photograph of a Namibian lion Starting some years ago, we began to hear about revisions of the standard models of lion behavioral biology coming out of Craig Packer’s research in the Serengeti. One of the most startling findings, first shown (if memory serves) as part of…
Math gender gap is not genetic
Posted by Greg Laden on June 2, 2009 Or to put it more accurately, yet another study seems to show that girls learn from their teachers, parents, and peers that they are not supposed to be good at math. Sterotypes can be fulfilled. Pleas stop doing that, everyone. Here is some press on this story. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers continue to find evidence…
Ultimate Causes, Proximate Mechanisms
Posted by Greg Laden on May 14, 2009 Why does a soldier throw himself on a hand grenade to save the lives of a half-dozen unrelated fellow soldiers? Why does someone run into a burning building they happen to be passing to save a child they don’t know? From a Darwinian perspective these seem to be enigmatic behaviors that would “select against” such…
More emotional intelligence = more orgasms
Posted by Greg Laden on May 12, 2009 According to a study just coming out in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, “variations in emotional intelligence–the ability to identify and manage emotions of one’s self and others–are associated with orgasmic frequency during intercourse and masturbation.”
Burn this book
Posted by Greg Laden on May 3, 2009 … well, not really, you should not burn any book. But don’t just leave this one around for your kids to accidentally read. Source of book. Hat tip
Grasping the function of the human penis
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 Gallup has taken on the task of explaining, in ultimate terms, the evolutionarily designed features of the human penis. He works this as an engineering problem from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, which is always a little bit dangerious, but gallup isn’t quite the arm waiver that a lot of other EP’s are, so he…
A good day for birds.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 25, 2009 This was not an intensive bird watching day. This was a day driving to the cabin, sitting in the cabin writing, looking out the window, driving to run an errand, going to town for dinner, sitting in the cabin looking out the window some more, etc. But the birds insisted on performing. So I thought…
Carbon Dioxide Totally Harmless????
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2009 Educator alert: The best example of the Naturalistic Fallacy EVAH!!!! The money quote is…. “Carbon Dioxide is Natural. It is not harmful. It is part of earth’s life cycle. And yet we are being told we have to reduce this natural substance, and reduce the american standard of living, to create an arbitrary reduction in…
Finches Determine Sex of Offspring
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2009 As you know if you read my blog, Trivers Willard is an important theoretical construct which has been tested numerous times. TW works in some species, not in others, and overall, that should be predictable (accroding to TW). It turns out that finches control the sex of their offspring, and do so in a way…
The curious case of penile vaginal intercourse and depression in women
Posted by Greg Laden on March 6, 2009 I’m starting to worry that the last few Friday Weird Science write-ups by Scicurious (who seems, these days, to be the primary blogger at Neurotopia) have been of papers that I happen to have read. Just so you know: Thousands of papers are published per week across the diverse sciences, and although Scicurious tends to…
Male vs. Female Brains
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 The male and female human brains are different. Some of the better documented differences are similar to differences seen in other mammals. They are hard to find, very small, and may or may not be of great significance. Obviously, some are very important because they probably relate to such things as the ability … or…
Topi or not Topi …
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 Go to any bar and you’ll see a lot of males standing and sitting around not mating. I’ll bet you would have guessed that the reason they are not mating is that no females will mate with them for one reason or another. But there is the distinct possibility that they are very inconspicuously resisting…
Why is There no Birth Control Pill for Men?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2009 Why is there no Birth Control Pill for men? The answer I’d like to propose can be summed up in two closely linked words pilfered from the question itself:
Chimpanzee Food Sharing
Posted by Greg Laden on February 24, 2009 Is chimpanzee food sharing an example of food for sex? One of the most important transitions in human evolution may have been the incorporation of regular food sharing into the day to day ecology of our species or our ancestors. Although this has been recognized as potentially significant for some time, it was probably the…
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