Evolutionary Biology
Category archives for Evolutionary Biology
How Do You Get Sexual Orientation and Gender in Humans?
Posted by Greg Laden on July 8, 2011 Humans appear to have a reasonable amount of diversity in their sexual orientations, in what is often referred to as “gender” and in adult behavior generally. When convenient, people will point to “genes” as the “cause” of any particular subset of th is diversity (or all of it). When convenient, people will point to “culture”…
Driving The Patriarchy: Demonic Males, Feminism, and Genetic Determinism
Posted by Greg Laden on July 7, 2011 Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. “Drives” is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are…
Is the origin of life different from evolution?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2011 I heard it said recently that “Evolution” and “Origin of life” are two separate issues. I know that this is a falsehood, and I’ll discuss in a moment how and why it is not true. But first, I checked around with a few people that I know and love, and found out that some of…
“If You Love Evolution, Tweet About It!” COE # 36
Posted by Greg Laden on June 1, 2011 Welcome to the Thirty Sixth Carnival of Evolution. The world of blog carnivals is in a state of flux and uncertainty these days, with the distinct possibility of a mass extinction just around the corner. One of the oldest, longest running, and most important carnivals, I and the Bird, issued its last issue only a…
Three Academic Books on Bird Migration
Posted by Greg Laden on May 22, 2011 These are the kinds of books you get if you are either a scientists studying bird migration and related issues, or a very serious bird geek. The first two can be obtained at very low prices used, but the third will set you back at least 50 bucks US$ if you want a used copy.…
Falsehoods: Human Universals
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2011 There are human universals. There, I said it. Now give me about a half hour to explain why this is both correct and a Falsehood. But first, some background and definition.
A Creationist Blog Quote Mines Peer Reviewed Research about Protein Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on January 6, 2011 It is difficult to imagine how point mutations, a large number of which are neutral, a certain number of which are deleterious, and a tiny number of which are fitness-enhancing, can add up to the sorts of evolutionary diversity and adaptive elegance we see in real life. However, there are only two possible explanations for…
What is meant by “mosaic evolution” and other matters
Posted by Greg Laden on January 3, 2011 A discussion of misconceptions in evolution … about missing links, or great chains of being, or teleology (the idea that evolution is goal-directed) has got to be the most fun you can have with your pants on. Pursuant to this, let’s sharpen and clarify our evolutionary theory mojo by considering the concept of “mosaic evolution”…
NASA’s new organism, the meaning of life, and Darwin’s Second Theory
Posted by Greg Laden on December 2, 2010 In his highly readable book, One Long Argument, Ernst Mayr breaks down the body of thought often referred to as “Darwin’s Theory” into five separate and distinct theories, the second of which being “common descent.” Darwin’s second evolutionary theory (second by Mayr’s count, not Darwin’s) is really a hypothesis that could be worded this way:…
What is the most important human adaptation?
Posted by Greg Laden on October 22, 2010 Human infants require more care than they should, if we form our expectations based on closely related species (apes, and more generally, Old World simian primates). It has been said that humans are born three months early. This is not accurate. It was thought that our body size predicted a 12 month gestation, and some…
Why do women shop and men hunt?
Posted by Greg Laden on October 12, 2010 Or, when the hunting season is closed, watch teh game (the guys), or when there are no sales, admire each other’s shoes (the gals)? This is, of course, a parody of the sociobiological, or in modern parlance, the “evolutionary psychology” argument linking behaviors that evolved in our species during the long slog known as The…
New Primate Fossil Informs Us of the Ape-Monkey Split During the Oligocene
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2010 The newly reported Saadanius hijazensis may or may not be a “missing link” but in order for this monkey to climb onto the primate family tree, a new branch had to be sprouted. So, not only is Saadanius hijazensis a new species, but it is a member of a new taxonomic Family, Saadaniidae, which in…
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…
Triassic Life on Land: I love this book
Posted by Greg Laden on July 28, 2010 The Triassic is old. This book is new. That is a hard to beat combination.
Mothers and Others by Hrdy: A Review
Posted by Greg Laden on July 22, 2010 Remember Evolutionary Psychology? The theory? It’s over.
The Oystercatcher and the Clam
Posted by Greg Laden on July 10, 2010 One of those really cool and useful “evolution stories” gets verified and illuminated by actual research. And blogging!
Science Pornography: You must be 18 years or older to view this blog post
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2009 It turns out I write academia erotica! I can tell you that the three dimensional visual imagery in the post to which Stephanie refers was a replacement for the actual visual imagery I had in mind when I wrote it. But I couldn’t use that because …
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?
Why giant sea scorpions got so big
Posted by Greg Laden on October 14, 2009 Research on giant sea scorpions (eurypterids) – the largest bugs that ever lived – has shed new light on why eurypterids became so large and eventually died out.
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.
Humans are no longer subject to Natural Selection (A falsehood)
Posted by Greg Laden on August 24, 2009 Another look at falsehoods about evolution.
Falsehoods: Has evolution stopped for humans?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 21, 2009 In my initial
The Falsehoods
Posted by Greg Laden on August 17, 2009 Biology is harder to learn than quantum physics. Why? Because most people think they totally get biology, but everyone knows nobody gets quantum physics. Therefore, any effort to explore quantum physics will result in new learning, but people rarely learn new biology. The bottom line is that our brains are full of biology, which would…
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…
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…
BBC: DNA mutations followed by selection does not lead to new species!?!?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2009 In an BBC article describing a Royal Society paper on the rate of mutation in warm vs. cooler climates, the BBC made this statement: DNA can mutate and change imperceptibly every time a cell divides and makes a copy of itself. But when one of these mutations causes a change that is advantageous for the…
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.”
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…
Where have all the ducklings gone??
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2009 Or, more exactly, where are they all going to go during the next two or three months? I’m sitting here between a large frozen lake and a small “pond” (connected to the lake with a channel) that has patches of open water on it. (The melting on the pond is probably because the bioactivity at…
, which is now available for the 
