On the supposed bottleneck 70,000 years ago 3 May 2008 John Hawks has a very nice post for people with basic math, explaining why a recent press release announced that 70,000 years ago the human species encountered a population bottleneck of 2000 individuals, and why it’s most likely wrong. In the process he explains effective population size. It’s a tad too complex even for an Intermediate Concepts post, but still worth the effort. Larry Moran at his blog has opened a comments thread, as the Hawks blog is comment free (I am unsure if I should be censorial or jealous), and John promises to come back and answer them. Evolution General Science Species and systematics
Evolution When philosophers really embarrass themselves 13 Mar 2008 I have just sat through one of the most teeth clenchingly bad philosophy talks, given on phylogenetics by a philosopher who has never read anything sensible on phylogenetics to phylogenetic systematists. One of the last mentioned leant over to me and asked “Does this guy know anything?” I had to… Read More
Evolution A nice discussion of the problems of Evolutionary Psychology 24 Dec 2008 Here at monkey’s uncle, the blog of James Holland Jones, a Stanford anthropologist. Well worth the read. Basically he attacks the presumption that there was some kind of Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness needed to make the rest of the EP argument. Merry Christmas. Or should I say Happy Holidays, being… Read More
Evolution Supernatural selection: Book review 5 May 2010 I have received a copy of a forthcoming book, Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved by psychologist Matt Rossano. Despite the title, it turns out to be an interesting, although I think ultimately flawed and incomplete, account of religion as a natural process. As I read it, I will do a series… Read More