"If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better." -- Anne Lamott

A recent paper by Sheina Lew-Levy & @dorsaamir.bsky.social highlights the vital role of children in human cultural evolution. @katiemcauliffe.bsky.social and I argue that the same is true in other species. Youngsters are a powerful cultural force! tinyurl.com/2v75zevc @uniexecec.bsky.social

The full treatment (article, commentaries, and our response) can be found here 👇🏼

On a personal note, this was one of my favorite scientific experiences to date; the BBS format remains unrivaled in its ability to stimulate fruitful discussion, and we are immensely grateful to the commentators who took the time to read & respond to our work.

When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!

This is cultural suicide and intellectual vandalism. In an era where humanities-illiterate tech bros have unearned god-like powers, we need historians, philosophers, ethicists, classicists more than ever.

Check out our 🌟new paper🌟 on observational data collection in children through adolescence Such methods can capture complexity & richness of experiences across diverse contexts, something that is missing from a lot of developmental psychology! Open-access: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We conclude by proposing a @manybabies.org -esque "ManyObservations" collaboration. Please get in touch if interested!

We hope this will be useful addition to any developmental psychology researchers and/or educators wanting to understand more about the benefits and approaches within naturalistic observations.

We draw on our recent experience of a naturalistic video observation study of children and adolescents in Scotland, the Republic of Congo, and Chinese-Americans in Seattle USA involving a significant amount of local collaboration and partnership @sheinalew.bsky.social @jing-xu.bsky.social

As part of our ESRC-funded project on age-based imitation, we have produced a methods paper reflecting on naturalistic observations of children and adolescents in diverse contexts, detailing methods, challenges and recommendations doi.org/10.1002/icd....

'It was not a huge surprise to find myself in the Epstein files...' My investigation into the scientists bewitched by money and the dilettante superficiality of Jeffrey Epstein's need to be near clever men. newhumanist.org.uk/articles/a-t...

🚨 In the first publication from our ESRC-funded project on age-based imitation, we asked parents their views on what and how children in four communities should learn from peers and adults. www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Our new commentary is out: "More than the sum of its sexes" — on embodied capital & age-structured labor in forager economies. Big thanks to Venkataraman et al. for their excellent "Man the Hunter" piece that clarifies much. Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?

Thanks to the organisers of @ces2026.bsky.social : @anthrosarah.bsky.social , @zhgarfield.com , @matcharbonneau.bsky.social and @edseabright.bsky.social plus their student helpers for organising an amazing conference

Very proud of my PhD student Alexes Mes for her first archaeology paper where she has developed a novel Bayesian spatiotemporal model for estimating arrival times using 14C dates authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

This is a REALLY useful guide

Coming out in a couple of weeks. 30k new words!

1/ Important retraction news 👇📰 A recent article using “national IQ” data to claim that a country’s “national intelligence” causes economic growth has been retracted @rebeccasear.bsky.social was among those who raised concerns - a good example of the importance of responsibility in science 💪 🧪

Recently we had a paper rejected from a major journal™️. Embedded within some helpful feedback were comments on our null results from a pre-registered experiment. One reviewer was very complimentary, but rejected our paper because the findings were "weak" (1/3)

Little update: I'm blogging again! Follow along to see what I have in store

A great PhD with a great team, highly recommend!

Conference update emails for #HBES2026 and #CESRabat will be sent soon. In the meantime, updated programs are live on both conference websites: airess.fgses-um6p.ma/hbes2026 airess.fgses-um6p.ma/ces2026 Check them out! @ces2026.bsky.social @hbes2026.bsky.social

Our paper on generalized dynamic phylogenetic models is finally out in MEE 🥳 The brainchild of @err-ring.bsky.social, GDPMs open up a vast new space for comparative studies on complex, coevolving traits, greatly aided by @scottclaessens.bsky.social's work on the accompanying R package. Check it out!

My friend @samhforbes.bsky.social doing the most incredible research www.instagram.com/reel/DXT1kiu...

The Cultural Evolution Society is delighted to announce that Mason Youngblood (he/they) @masonyoungblood.bsky.social, Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University, is the recipient of the 2026 CES New Investigator Award. Congratulations Mason on this well-deserved award!!

10. Text analysis isn't my usual gig, so if any experts in this area are bored or need to procrastinate, here's my word cloud #rstats code so far. Suggestions welcome! Once I finalize, we will issue a correction to the original article. \end github.com/grasshopperm...

1. In this paper, we included this word cloud of the top 200 words in the volume Man the Hunter. A reader wondered how could the top 200 words in a book with the title "Man the Hunter" include "woman" but not "man"? Doh! 🧪 #rstats #BioAnth #AcademicSky 🧵

The deadline applications to the CES New Investigator Award has been extended until April 2 - don't miss out getting your application in!

Statement by the Senate of Tel Aviv University

A fresh take on kid innovation in relation to task properties. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thanks to the many co-authors on this piece (shout-outs below) and to a number of colleagues for critical feedback. We looking forward to further constructive engagement on this topic.

One historical contingency that has led to much confusion was Sherwood Washburn's decision to call the famous conference Man the Hunter. This was against the pleading of Richard Lee and others. The conference was progressive in many ways, but the title is stuck in the past.

One common error is to equate Washburn and Lancaster's chapter (The Evolution of Hunting) at the Man the Hunter conference with the entire volume. We show this is a mistake: there was tremendous viewpoint diversity at the conference, and their chapter was not presented at the conference.

We show that this doesn't exist in any unified sense. The history is messy and diverse. Let's get specific on the exact models we're critiquing.

So how should we talk about Man the Hunter? Our primary suggestion is this: Let's avoid critiquing a 'general' Man the Hunter paradigm.

We also review how the study of contemporary hunter-gatherers have added to our knowledge of human evolution. Briefly, HGs have been a critical source of information when considered with care and skepticism. Some great plots here made by @edhagen.net

The scientific study of hunter-gatherers has long been at odds with the vision presented by Dart and Ardrey. There was mutual disdain between these thinkers. Thus, we should not casually conflate them.

There is no basis for equating Dart and Ardrey and the Killer Ape Theory with the Man the Hunter conference of 1966, or with human behavioral ecology, as has been common in the recent literature.

In this paper, we tackle the intellectual history of this concept and its various meanings. We distinguish between popular versions of this idea (Dart and Ardrey and the Killer Ape) and more scientific ones, showing that there was little intellectual interaction between these strands of thought.

I’m happy to announce that our paper "The Meanings and Dividends of Man the Hunter" has now been published in Evolution and Human Behavior. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper out! Using data from 219 BaYaka HGs and 33 plant species, I find that plants used by more people tend to show stronger agreement on their main function. Drop me an email if you don't have access to the paper and would like a PDF copy. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

Priceless interview for all anthropologists and fieldworkers. Thank you, @ilarimakela.bsky.social & RB Lee!! Lee’s discussions on establishing new field sites closely parallel my experiences in the Omo in Ethiopia with the @omovalleyresearchproject.org

We're pleased to announce the call for the 2026 Richerson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research, for a recent PhD dissertation that significantly contributes to the field of CE. Recipients receive a $300 award, a 3-yr CES membership and CES conference registration. forms.gle/p4MqcskCs2Yz...

Evolutionary psychology suggests humans are drawn to features such as facial symmetry, implying universal standards of attractiveness linked to health and fertility. But are these preferences universal? Prof Boothroyd challenges this idea through her research in Nicaraguan communities bit.ly/4r5yrEQ

Looking forward to seeing friends @radicalanthro.bsky.social in London tomorrow