Evolutionary Process and Normalcy

This is perhaps more of a heuristic extension of natural process to culture and draws together a disparate group of ideas about human tendency (both as products of environment and natural selection and as cultural products and producers). That caveat stated, I wanted to think about modernity and conformity but place it within a [...]

Evolution, Emotion, and Language

In a study on Meerkats in the Kalahari Desert, a team from the University of Zurich found that young meerkats respond to vocalization information about “threat urgency” (via tone) earlier than “threat type” (via variation in vocalization) as compared to older meerkats who can distinguish both pieces of information. The researchers argue this association between [...]

Human Social Life and Negativity Spirals

As primates, humans have a strong evolutionary selection for social groupings. Facial expressions in others, for human and nonhuman primates, evoke a rapid emotive response quite separate from the pre-existing emotional state of the organism. So, emotional states, for better or worse, can be transmitted like infectious disease during human contact.
When you are in a [...]

Time Affluence and Ragged Trousers

Marshall Sahlins described hunter-gatherers as the original affluent human societies. They worked very little (less than 20 hours a week) getting the necessities of life and had tons of leisure time left in the week. No matter how much I try to reinvent the view of the contemporary college student on hunter-gatherers, I fail. They [...]