When it comes to the evolution of humans, a lot depended on the kindness of strangers.

Our species is especially cooperative. We routinely help other people — relatives and strangers alike — even when there’s no immediate reward for us. The concern that humans have for each other is part of the foundation of complex societies, from neighborhoods to nations.

Scientists have long wondered how long ago our so-called prosocial behavior evolved. In a new paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of scientists at Emory University addresses that question with a study on chimpanzees, one of our closest living relatives.

Continue reading “Chimpanzees Clear Some Doubt After Generosity Is Questioned” →

To study evolution, Jason Munshi-South has tracked elephants in central Africa and proboscis monkeys in the wilds of Borneo. But for his most recent expedition, he took the A train.

Dr. Munshi-South and two graduate students, Paolo Cocco and Stephen Harris, climbed out of the 168th Street station lugging backpacks and a plastic crate full of scales, Ziploc bags, clipboards, rulers and tarps. They walked east to the entrance of Highbridge Park, where they met Ellen Pehek, a senior ecologist in the New York City Parks and Recreation Department. The four researchers entered the park, made their way past a basketball game and turned off the paved path into a ravine.

Continue reading “Evolution Right Under Our Noses” →

One of the great strengths of science is that it can fix its own mistakes. “There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong,” the astrophysicist Carl Sagan once said. “That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process.”

If only it were that simple. Scientists can certainly point with pride to many self-corrections, but science is not like an iPhone; it does not instantly auto-correct. As a series of controversies over the past few months have demonstrated, science fixes its mistakes more slowly, more fitfully and with more difficulty than Sagan’s words would suggest. Science runs forward better than it does backward.

Continue reading “It’s Science, but Not Necessarily Right” →