Evolutionary psychologists argue that we can understand the workings of the human mind by investigating how it evolved. Much of their research focuses on the past two million years of hominid evolution, during which our ancestors lived in small bands, eating meat they either scavenged or hunted as well as tubers and other plants they gathered. Living for so long in this arrangement, certain ways of thinking may have been favored by natural selection. Evolutionary psychologists believe that a lot of puzzling features of the human mind make sense if we keep our heritage in mind.
Category: Blog
On Thursday I predicted that pundits would make the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker an opportunity to criticise predictions that humans are causing mass extinctions–while conveniently ignoring evidence that goes against their claims. Today I came across the first case I know of, which appears a short Week-in-Review piece about the woodpeckers in the New York Times. (You have to scroll down a bit to the article.)
Continue reading “Woodpecker Punditry–Predicted and Delivered!”
Thanks to the various readers who have noticed the creationist Google ads that pop up on some of the Loom’s pages. Such are the hazards of letting robots handle ads. I will talk with the good people at Corante about this.
Continue reading “What the Loom Giveth, the Google Ads Taketh Away”
The feud over Homo floresiensis, the little people of Indonesia, centers on whether they were an extinct diminutive species that evolved from some ancient hominid, such as Homo erectus, or whether they were just pygmy humans, perhaps suffering from some disease. The leading skeptic, paleoanthropologist Teuku Jacob, has claimed that there are pygmies living not far from where the fossils were found, on the island of Flores. I came across a short item at Japan Today about a scientific expedition to study the pygmies, which was based on an article in Kompas, an Indonesian publication. The original article is here, and my intrepid brother Ben, expert on Indonesian anthropology (cultural, not paleo-), did an on-the-fly translation for me, which I’ll run below. The team got back from Flores on April 25. While there, they went to a village called Rampasasa, made up of 77 families. About 80% of the people were pygmies. They measured 10 people who were a bit taller, with a height of 155 cm and 2 measuring 160 cm. Homo floresiensis was 130 cm. The researchers claim that these tall villagers got some extra height from having married non-pygmies from surrounding villages.
From time to time, scientists discover that a species that was once thought to have become extinct is actually surviving in some remote place. If the species is a salamander or a lemur, it gets a quick headline and then promptly goes back to its obscure, tenuous existence. But here’s one rediscovered creature that I suspect will get some major press: the Ivory-billed woodpecker is back. Science is publishing a paper in which scientists report several sightings and a video of the magnificent bird, which hadn’t been seen since in the United States since 1944. Here is a report from the AP.
Continue reading “Reports of My Extinction Are Greatly Exaggerated”