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Neurobiology of laughter
Did you hear the one about the prefrontal cortex?
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010301/010301-7....
Origins of the specious
Andrew Brown explains why 'Introducing Evolutionary Psychology', the latest in Icon Books' popular series of comic books on important subjects, has been withdrawn from sale while 10,000 stickers are pasted over the face of Steven Rose.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
The sweet smell of the immune system
Manfred Milinski and Claus Wedekind find evidence for the hypothesis that "perfumes are selected "for self" to amplify in some way body odors that reveal a person's immunogenetics".
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010308/010308-10...
Memes and the Exploitation of Imagination
Online paper by Daniel Dennett.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/memeim...
Has psychology become respectable at last?
The past decade witnessed the surge of "evolutionary psychology". Its most thoughtful exponents, such as Robert Plomin, are confident that economics, education and sociology will all benefit from evolutionary psychology and gene mapping.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
Evolution, Teleology, Intentionality
Online paper by Daniel Dennett.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/evolte...
Darwin's darling
A profile of Helena Cronin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
A bottom-up approach with a clear view of the top
Online paper by G. F. Miller and P. M. Todd.
http://www-abc.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/users/pt...
Get Real
Daniel Dennett responds to his critics.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/getrea...
Genes, culture and human freedom
Like every other organism, humans are shaped by both nature and nurture. But unlike any other organism, we are defined by our ability to transcend both. Article by Kenan Malik.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000...
Men fish for compliments
The menfolk of the Meriam, a people who live on islands off the northeast tip of Australia, spend their time spear-fishing and turtle-hunting, but are they really fishing for compliments?
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010412/010412-1....
Human genome - overview - press releases
Comprehensive information on the first draft of the human genome from Nature.
http://www.nature.com/genomics/human/overv...
The Functions of the Brain: Gall to Ferrier (1808-1886)
An online paper on mind, brain, and adaptation in the nineteenth century. It was published in Isis 59: 251-68, 1968.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
And Darwin created us all...
As two of the world's great Darwinists prepare to debate whether science is killing the soul, Tim Radford asks if natural selection is the key to life, the universe, and everything.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
To Love, Honour and Deceive
Long-term relationships are fundamentally dishonest. And it's all women's fault, new research suggests.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/129660...
You've got a lot to answer for, Charlie Darwin
Is psychology frozen in the Pleistocene era? Hilary and Steven Rose are sure it must have evolved since then.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
The Naturalization of Value Systems in the Human Sciences
This essay first appeared as an Open University Course Unit for 'Science and Belief: from Darwin to Einstein', Block VI: Problems in the Biological and Human Sciences. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1981, pp. 63-110.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Social Power and Self Deception
Social evolution and social influence: selfishness, deception, self-deception. A scholarly paper by Mario F. Heilmann, University of California at Los Angeles.
http://www.a3.com/myself/ravenpap.htm
Darwin's Metaphor and the Philosophy of Science
This was first presented to the Piaget Seminar, University of Geneva, about 1986 and published in Science as Culture (no. 16) 3: 375-403, 1993. It draws out the philosophical implications of 'Darwin's Metaphor' (Cambridge, 1985), in particular, the role of metaphorical and teleological language in Darwin.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Herbert Spencer and Inevitable Progress
Spencer is so grandiose that it is hard to summarize his ideas, yet he was one of the most influential thinkers in nineteenth-century Britain, and his ideas were an inspiration around the world. His version of evolution was utterly generalised in all the ways Darwin tried to be circumspect. The organic analogies which Spencer developed are the foundation-stones for the widespread idea of functionalism across the biomedical and human sciences, extending to architecture, systems theory, cybernetics and information theory. The essay was reprinted in a collection from the journal: G. Marsden, ed., Victorian Values. Longman, 1990.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Intentionality detection and "mindreading": Why does game form matter? PNAS -- McCabe et al. 97 (8): 4404
By around the age of 4 years, children "can work out what people might know, think or believe" based on what they say or do. This is called "mindreading," which builds upon the human ability to infer the intentions of others.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/8/...
The Development of Herbert Spencer's Concept of Evolution
A paper delivered to the Eleventh International Congress of the History of Science, Warsaw, August 1965 and published in Actes du Xle Congres International d'Histoire des Sciences Warsaw: Ossolineum, 1967, vol. 2, pp. 273-78.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
The cognitive skills of Neanderthals
Neanderthals were predators.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/13...
The Darwin Debate
This essay appeared in Marxism Today 26 (no.4), April 1982, pp. 20-22.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Sport and genetics
Stephen Jay Gould and Kipchoge Keino on why athletic achievement isn't in the genes.
http://news.bmn.com/news/story?day=010410&...
Dreams
Matthew Wilson contends that animals do have complex dreams.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/drea...
It's only natural - Red Pepper archive
The bioglogical differences between men and women are no threat to feminism, says Helena Cronin.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/cularch/xcroni...
Animal cognition and animal minds
A paper by Colin Allen.
http://grimpeur.tamu.edu/~colin/Papers/kon...
Gene-Trapping Method Powers Discovery of New Brain-Wiring Signals
Marc Tessier-Lavigne and William C. Skarnes unveil a technique that "enables scientists to identify new genes and to determine which genes are responsible for defects in brain wiring that are observed during development".
http://www.hhmi.org/news/tessier4.html
Palaeoanthropology and politics
Norman Levitt reflects on the Kennewick Man affair.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000...
Bottlenose dolphins and theory of mind
Bottlenose dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror, an advanced intellectual ability observed previously only in humans and apes.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/1...
Steven Pinker: the mind reader
In room 10-250 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the brightest undergraduates in America are filing in for the start of their Thursday afternoon lecture. These students, taking psychology 101, are drawn from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, and all of them, men and women, are dressed in the same baggy, designer-labelled sportswear. They are fresh-faced and polite, chattering about assignments and movies, and seem overwhelmingly confident that life will go well for them.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
Menarche
Any decrease in average menarcheal age during the past 20-30 years has been small (almost certainly less than six months), particularly when compared with the reduction of a year or more that occurred in many European countries between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries.
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7294/1...
In Favor of Animal Consciousness
An excerpt from Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness by Donald R. Griffin, the creator of the field of cognitive ethology.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago...
What if Human Nature Is Historical
This essay moves from pure ideology about changing human nature to using biofeedback as a transitional topic to spelling out the desiderata for treating human nature as a historical project.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Evolutionary theory and the psychology of eating
Online paper by A. W. Logue.
http://darwin.baruch.cuny.edu/faculty/Logu...
For Fathers and Newborns, Natural Law and Odor
Swedish scientists find that babies smell appealing, and speculate on a method to pacify aggressive men.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/sc...
Humans-Who Are We? - Official Web Site
Humans are brimming with unique traits that do not fit the animal mold - according to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1998/6...
The adaptive nature of the human neurocognitive architecture: An alternative model PNAS -- Cerra and Bingham 95 (19): 11290
The model of the human neurocognitive architecture proposed by evolutionary psychologists is based on the presumption that the demands of hunter-gatherer life generated a vast array of cognitive adaptations. Here we present an alternative model.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/19...
Animal Soul
A history of the idea and a critique of reductionism. It appeared in Paul Edwards, ed., 'The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'. N.Y.: Macmillan and London: Collier-Macmillan, 1967, Vol. 1, pp. 122-27.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Sociobiology Sanitized: The Evolutionary Psychology and Genic Selectionism Debates
Socio-political overview of the circumstances leading to the development of Evolutionary Psychology as distinct from Sociobiology, by Val Dusek. This web page is associated with the Science-as-Culture mailing list and journal.
http://human-nature.com/science-as-culture...
Darwin on the Evolution of Morality
Paper presented for the session on the 19th century biology, International Fellows Conference (Center for Philosophy of Science, Univ. of Pittsburgh), May 20-24, Castiglioncello, Italy by Soshichi Uchii, Kyoto University.
http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/D.onM...
Assault on Evolution
Larry Arnhart on the activities of "intelligent design theorists".
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/02...
Association of Ideas
This essay appeared in Philip P. Wiener, ed., 'Dictionary of the History of Ideas'. N.Y.: Scribner's, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 111-18.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Ring-breaker drives dove love
Leonida Fusani and colleagues discover the role of aromatase in courtship behaviour.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010503/010503-2....
Evolution, Biology and Psychology from a Marxist Point of View
This article is largely historical, but the issues remain timely.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Darwinism is Social
This essay appeared on David Kohn, ed., 'The Darwinian Heritage'. Princeton and Nova Pacifica, 1985, pp. 609-638.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Darwinism and the Division of Labour
The founding conference of the British Society for the Social Responsibility in Science in November 1970, was on the theme, 'The Social Impact of Modern Biology'. The conference was attended by a number of eminent scientists, e.g., Nobel Laureates James Watson, Jaques Monod, Maurice Wilkins; David Bohm, Jacob Bronowski, R.G. Edwards (of Steptoe & Edwards, the pioneers of 'test-tube babies'), as well as some radicals, Hilary & Steven Rose, John Beckwith. It was, perhaps, the last moment when radicals and posh scientists were relatively united. The talk was published in The Listener, 17 August 1972, pp. 202-5 and in Science as Culture no. 9: 110-24, 1990.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Stone Age bosses aren't all that bad
Applied to business, as Nigel Nicholson does in his book Managing The Human Animal (Texere, £18.99), Evolutionary Psychology suggests that most organisational practice runs directly against the grain of human programming.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
The Genetic Archaeology of Race | Olson
The study of human genetic variation has become the most contentious area in modern science. A detailed article by Steve Olson.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/04/...
Psychological brain damage
Martin Teicher and colleagues report four types of brain damage caused by psychological abuse.
http://www.psych.org/pnews/01-03-02/abuse....
Malthus on Man - In Animals no Moral Restraint
A paper was presented to a conference on 'Malthus, Medicine and Science' organised by Roy Porter at the Wellcome Institute, London, on 20 March 1998.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
The Evolution of Ethics
A theory concerning the integration of ethics and science using cybernetic theory as a logical foundation.
http://www.evolutionaryethics.com
An altitude problem
People in Tibet and the Andes have evolved different strategies of coping with altitude.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010222/010222-12...
Evolutionary Ethics and Biologically Supportable Morality
A paper by Michael Byron.
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TEth/TEthByro...
Why elephants don't forget
A study of African elephants reveals that dominant females build up a social memory as they get older, helping the herd to survive.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/128553...
NYTimes.com: Exuberance is Rational
Richard Thaler has led a revolution in the study of economics by understanding the strange ways people behave with their money.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/ho...
An Evolutionary Hypothesis For Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Abed, Riadh T and de Pauw, Karel W (1999) An Evolutionary Hypothesis for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Psychological Immune System?. Behavioural Neurology 11:245-250.
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/dis...
How Hardwired Is Human Behavior?
Abstract and electronic delivery of Nigel Nicholson's paper in the Harvard Business Review.
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/j...
"The Mind as the Software of the Brain" by Ned Block
Cognitive scientists often say that the mind is the software of the brain. This chapter is about what this claim means.
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty...
Prediction and Accommodation in Evolutionary Psychology
Ketelaar and Ellis have provided a remarkably clear and succinct statement of Lakatosian philosophy of science and have also argued compellingly that evolutionary theory fills the Lakatosian criteria of a progressivity.
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/forster/papers/...
Darwin and the Genre of Biography
Published in G. Levine, ed., 'One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature'. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987, pp. 203-24.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Behavioral inferences from the Skhul/Qafzeh early modern human hand remains
These results support the inference of significant behavioral differences between Neanderthals and the Skhul/Qafzeh hominids and indicate that a significant shift in human manipulative behaviors was associated with the earliest stages of the emergence of modern humans.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/04158...
Sport and evolutionary psychology
What is the relationship between spatial ability, finger length, and sporting prowess?
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-912...
Darwin: Man and Metaphor
This is the text of a television documentary in the series 'Late Great Victorians', BBC1, 1988. It was also published in Science as Culture no. 5: 71-86, 1989.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Did the Caveman Teach Us to Queue?
Chris Horrie provides a critique of the discipline in this BBC News article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1184388.stm
Domestication's Family Tree
DNA is revealing that taming animals was not a simple process.
http://www.economist.com/science/displaySt...
Behavior and the General Evolutionary Process
Paper by William Baum.
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/dis...
Chimps touched by television
Chimpanzees are moved by fearful or appealing television scenes.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010419/010419-2....
Why we're all getting brighter
Dumbing down? Don't believe it. Scientists have proved we are smarter now than ever before, largely because we watch TV, surf the net, and spend hours chatting to friends.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
Fear makes worms turn friendly
A single gene influences the social behaviour of worms.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010503/010503-1....
Is There a Normal Phase of Synaesthesia in Development?
A paper in Psyche by Simon Baron-Cohen.
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2...
Mozart 'can cut epilepsy'
Music, particularly Mozart, could have a therapeutic effect on epilepsy, say scientists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1251839....
IQ and longevity
Results of an intelligence test, given to all 11-year olds attending Aberdeen schools in 1932, were used to determine survival up to 76 years. Of 2,230 subjects traced, those who died before 1 January 1997 had a significantly lower IQ at age 11 years than those who were alive or untraced. This suggests that high mental ability in late childhood reduces the chances of death up to age 76.
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7290/8...
Individualism and Evolutionary Psychology
Online paper by David Buller.
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/dis...
Men Show Feelings In Lower Left Quadrant Of Face
When it comes to emotions men and women are equally expressive, but men display most of their joy, disgust or other sentiments in the lower left quadrant of their face. Women, on the other hand, show their emotions across their entire countenance.
http://unisci.com/stories/20011/0216014.ht...
Scholarship and the History of the Behavioural Sciences
A paper that first appeared in History of Science 2: 1-51, 1966.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Unconscious
Philip Wong and Howard Shevrin have uncovered neurobiological evidence for the human unconscious state.
http://www.psych.org/pnews/01-03-02/brain....
The Human Limits of Nature
'The Limits of Human Nature' was the title of the London Institute of Contemporary Arts winter lecture series for 1971-72. The distinguished group of contributors, included Alan Ryan, Arthur Koestler, David Bohm, Raymond Williams and John Maynard Smith. This contribution was published in J. Benthall, ed., 'The Limits of Human Nature' (Allen Lane, 1973), pp. 235-74.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Baboon Key to Human Stress
Article describes how the stresses and strains that afflict humans are evident in baboon societies. Also suggests that both species share the long-term health effects.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_te...
Queue here to join the human race
Joseph Henrich and Robert Boyd have developed a mathematical model to measure human co-operation.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-889...
Humans and Other Animals
How much do we share with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field? Article by John Wilson at Christianity Today.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/1...
Science -- Human genome
The special issue on the first draft of the human genome.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol291/i...
Evolutionary Biology and Ideology: Then and Now
A paper contributed to a conference on 'The Social Impact of Modern Biology'. It appeared in Science Studies 1: 177-296, 1971.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Swanson et al. 98 (5): 2509
A new study by Willie J. Swanson and colleagues provides evidence of sperm competition and sexual conflict.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/9...
Ancestors
Meave Leakey discusses her team's recent skull find suggesting a new human ancestor.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...
Darwin, Marx, Freud and the Foundations of the Human Sciences
This is a talk on the grand view of the human sciences, presented to CHEIRON, the European Society for the History of the Behavioural Sciences and reprinted in its Newsletter, Spring 1988, pp. 7-12.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
What Is Satisfying About Satisfying Events? Testing 10 Candidate Psychological Needs
Kennon M. Sheldon and colleagues find out what makes people happiest.
http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp802325....
Genetics
The British Medical Journal publishes a special edition "putting genetics into perspective".
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7293/1...
The Meanings of Darwinism: Then and Now?
Charles Darwin grew up in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and attended Shrewsbury School for seven years. The school held a Millennium Conference on 'Darwinism and Ethics for the Next Millennium' on 16 October 1999. Papers were given by Mary Midgley, Matt Ridley, Colin Tudge and Robert M. Young.
http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers...
Perfect pitch may help babies speak
US researchers say everyone may be born with perfect pitch to help them learn the skills of language.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_te...
Psychology
Frans de Waal claims that psychology is bound to become more Darwinian.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr01/darwin.ht...
Reproductive greontology
The relationship between aging and the risk of producing offspring with gene-influenced illnesses.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...
Functional Origins of Religious Concepts
Essay by cognitive anthropologist Pascal Boyer recounting theory and experimental evidence for the ontological and strategic selection of supernatural concepts.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/bec/pape...
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2006