interesting research on the history of music and religion

Delighted to announce the publication of a collaborative effort, co-led by @limorraviv.bsky.social @mpi-nl.bsky.social, showcasing the ways in which researchers have made language evolution an empirical issue: A handbook of experimental approaches to the fascinating problem of language evolution 🧪

New postdoc positions at the (DISI-affiliated) Center for Possible Minds at Indiana University. Looking for scholars interested in interdisciplinary research on the nature of biological, artificial, and collective intelligence. Please share widely! indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/29547

Kostas Kampourakis' "Darwin Mythology" book is a very interesting read. A strong cast of authors deconstruct myths and misunderstandings about Darwin. I particularly appreciated historian Erik Peterson's analysis of why Darwin's dislike of slavery does not equate to a belief in racial equality.

Many think that music evolved to promote social cohesion - but group singing and dancing is extremely rare in some societies. Why is that the case, and what does it mean? Check out the new paper by me, Aniruddh Patel, Kim Hill, and @chrisvonrueden.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My book SHAMANISM: THE TIMELESS RELIGION will be out on May 20, 2025! Shamanism characterized the earliest religions, echoes in often unappreciated ways in the world around us, and will long outlive us. Pre-order it here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730339...

Two new music papers by @dorshilton.bsky.social et al. (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...) and by Steingo & Ghazanfar (doi.org/10.1177/2059...). Together with @manvir.bsky.social and Hill's recent paper (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...), an interesting (partial) push back against musical universals...

How are humans able to make sense of time? Not with special biology but with “time tools”—ideas, practices, and artifacts that render time more concrete. My new paper explores this vast, varied toolkit—one that makes use of knots, nuts, hands, flowers, mountains, shadows, and much more. (link 👇)

My baby daughter is happy & apparently developing normally, yet, according to pediatric growth curves, she has been “wasted,” indicating severe malnourishment. In my new @newyorker.com essay, I argue that universal health benchmarks need to better account for biological variation.

If you're interested in this study by Manvir and Kim be sure to check out our forthcoming comparative study of four cultures (inc. Ache) in which collective music-making is rare: osf.io/preprints/so... Full thread once it's published...

"Considering its common use across nomadic hunter-gatherer societies, and what it represents—as a tool to enable the carrying of more tools—the belt may be a bit of an unsung hero of human history." traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/handy-man

In a new essay from our "Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms" series, @randomwalker.bsky.social & @sayash.bsky.social make the case for thinking of #AI as normal technology, instead of superintelligence. Read here: knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

New episode!! 📣📣 A chat w/ @arikkershenbaum.bsky.social about vocal communication in animals. The tree of life is a noisy place, bursting with howls, grunts, whines, snorts, and songs. What does it all mean? Does any of this hubbub merit the label of "language"? Listen: disi.org/howl-grunt-s...

Introducing my new project… Your Wrong (yourwrong.co.uk). It’s all about the language rules and judgements that appear in different forms of popular culture. Films, series, podcasts, music, books, even graffiti! I’d love your help to find examples!

Where do moralizing religions come from? Useless cognitive by-products?Cultural group selection for complex societies? Our Psych Review paper argues: neither. Let’s rethink their cognitive & evolutionary origins🧵 w/ @manvir.bsky.social @nbaumard @jbaptistandre.bsky.social doi.org/10.1037/rev0...

For those who missed the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social conference in Durham last September, the recorded talks are now freely available to watch here: underline.io/events/456/l...

So exciting to see MacaqueNet out into the world! 🤩 Learn about our global community & database centralizing standardized affiliative & agonistic data from 61 populations across 14 macaque species: doi/10.1111/1365... Explore >600 networks & request data: macaquenet.github.io/database/

Time for fatherhood, courtesy of James Rilling and his new book. #fatherhood #testosterone #oxytocin #dad apple.news/ALmCPtGhtTb2...

📣📣📣 Applications for the 2025 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) are now open!! Are you interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply! More info: disi.org

Enjoyed this one! In which we discuss: - the curse of knowledge & illusion of explanatory depth - why chain-of-thought prompting works (or doesn't) - "Explain Like I'm Five" - the Tower of Pisa thought experiment - representational re-description - learning by writing, talking, & presenting - etc.!

Terrific review by Eva Jablonka of @kevinlala.bsky.social and colleagues new book Evolution Evolving!!!

Has Bluesky replaced X for scientists? Take Nature’s poll www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🌟 POSTDOC ALERT! 🌟 I’m hiring a #postdoc to study #Birdsong #Biomechanics at the Muséum in Paris (@mnhn.fr) 🔧 Key Skills: - #Bioacoustics - Aero-acoustic modelling (COMSOL) 📅 Start: March 2024 (or earlier) I'll be at #SICB2025 – come chat or email me for details!

Major JOB ALERT! I and close colleagues have 4 (!) positions open. So if you're looking for a postdoc or PhD, do read on:

I'm shaken by the news of Frans de Waal's passing. It feels so untimely that he is gone.

🎙️In this week’s episode of Complexity, dive into the science behind collectives. From the patterns that emerge from ant behavior to the dynamic collaboration of immune systems, we’ll delve into the importance of collective structures + their roles. 🐜 💫 www.santafe.edu/culture/podc...

Ever wondered what whale demography can tell us about the evolution of menopause? Wonder no more 👇 Whales make waves in the quest to discover why menopause evolved www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New essay on my Substack: 'On nature, science & culture: Part I' This is the first of a three-part essay on the prospects of a natural science of culture. Parts II and III will go out later this week. thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/on-nature-...

Part II of my Substack essay, 'On nature, science & culture' is now out. The third and final part goes out later this week. thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/on-nature-...

Geography is not destiny: quantitative test of Diamond's axis of orientation hypothesis | "societies that share similar ecologies are more likely to share cultural traits, but Eurasian continent is not smore ecologically homogeneous than other continents" www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The human evolutionary niche in one plot.🧪 Data from these two Davison and @mgurven.bsky.social papers (2021, 2022): * Human uniqueness? Life history diversity... journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... * The importance of elders: Extending Hamilton’s force of selection... www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

New commentary led by @dorshilton.bsky.social: 'Conflicting predictions in the cross-cultural study of music and sociality: Comment on “Musical engagement as a duet of tight synchrony and loose Interpretability” by Tal-Chen Rabinowitch' doi.org/10.1016/j.pl...

Our critique of "The Myth of Man the Hunter" is now up on a preprint server. It has been submitted to PLOS One www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Kudos to this very able and fresh transcription of Bach's Fugue BWV998 to a German baroque 13-course lute. Bach did not write for the lute (contrary to what many think, his works "for the lute" are for the lautenwerk or lute-harpsichord. It's actually tricky to play Bach on the lute.

Strictly speaking explanation isn’t justification but, our concepts being value-laden n metaphorical, it’s not surprising that social science often functions as apologia. Here’s a special issue by Federico Brandmayr on this phenomenon. Featuring work by @unsocialtheory.bsky.social #philsky #philsci

David Depew in Biological Theory on Lewontin and Dobzhansky. 🌱🐋 #histsci

Despite frequent remonstrations, Persephone never accepted that she could not photocopy a whole book in one go.

I gave a talk at the #grambank workshop at the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig a couple of weeks ago. You can see my and all other talks on youtube: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

The cultural basis of cultural evolution: Longitudinal evidence that infant imitation develops by being imitated www.cell.com/current-biol...

The feed on twitter is 90% poison at this point. But this one so far is pretty decent! I'm actually coming across interesting things and the vibe is scholarly-whimsical👌

New paper with @sampassmore.bsky.social and @patrickesavage.bsky.social Looking at the prevalence of group singing in a combined sample of over 8600 audio recordings and ethnographic texts, we find that it is predominant in most societies and best predicted by social context doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

New article with Patrick Savage looking at the most unusual songs in the Global Jukebox. https://journalofcognition.org/articles/10.5334/joc.312