Heritability is a statistical description of sources of trait variation in a specific set of people under a specific set of environmental conditions. It doesn’t show how malleable the trait is, doesn't index an underlying feature of human biology, & can’t say anything about you as an individual.

I guess with race science discourse still percolating, I should re-up my starter pack for people who work on the topic

very excited to read all the interesting arguments for and against atrocities, and about the different, more and less sophisticated ways of thinking about atrocities, in the prestigious publications and platforms read and watched by a society indulging in atrocities without a moment's reflection

Our new review of beluga sociality and culture just dropped at Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology! Some of our key conclusions summarized 🧵 doi.org/10.1007/s002... @marine-valeria.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @raincoast.org

If you work on corvid ecology, behaviour, cognition, or conservation, this might be useful for you 👇 I’ve just published CORVIDATA in Scientific Data 🐦 doi.org/10.1038/s415... (1/4)

If you look at the lit on the just world delusion, or cognitive biases (those that survived the replication crisis) there’s ample evidence that every human deludes themselves to varying degrees to cope with this fucked up reality. There’s no escape short of Buddhist enlightenment. Only coping.

What role(s) can non-human animal culture play in conservation? Much has been written on this topic in recent years, but Dawn Barlow, Taylor Hersh, & I offer some new perspectives: "Integrating space, time, and culture in animal conservation practice" @behavecol.bsky.social tinyurl.com/bdfe9k3j

Little reminder that you can still register for the next talk in our online ROTO Lecture Series! Just click the link and join the talk and discussion on Monday 🤗 rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... #PhilSci #HPBio

Nice thread to balance things out! There are good researchers doing the hard work to treat evolutionary hypotheses of human psychology with the seriousness and rigor they deserve. Testing assumptions and, if necessary, shedding zombie theories is how a field progresses and improves

I am happy to present to you our review „The diversity and evolution of vocal communication in nonavian reptiles“, published @annualreviews.bsky.social Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. Huge thanks to @gabrieljcohen.bsky.social and my other co-authors! Must say, I am a bit proud of Figure 1. ….

We must change this mindset that the essential and most critical work in a field is always the first one. That distorted view has caused a lot of problems in psychological science already. The first work is just that—the start. Every field should be evaluated based on the complete body of evidence.

If you want to know the latest on the government's 'compact' (i.e. extortion) offer to universities, you can use this tracker. Feel free to suggest edits as well. #academia docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

The superpower of books like Sapiens is that they require expertise in like 12 academic fields to debunk. So you get these super detailed takedowns of small sections that look to laypeople like nitpicking.

Violence, scientific DRAMA, and misunderstanding! Who first asked if woodpeckers get headaches, or if rams are immune to brain damage? New Paper! I trace the history of human thought on brain injury in head-hitting animals, and it's a wild ride. 🧪 🏺 A thread - 1/🧵 doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

The academic study of Religion also remains misunderstood as @vox-magica.bsky.social notes—whether because of its common misinterpretation as theological or the sense that it’s arcane +

A lot of the justifications point to the number of Religious Studies majors—but is this really how a dept’s value should be judged? In many RS departments in which I’ve taught, our courses have enormous enrollments & student interest +

Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #ScientificRacism #Antiracism

part of the issue may be that when people say ‘the humanities’, or my personal favorite, ‘the humanities and social sciences’ they could be referring to any of 53982 things that have very little to do with each other

I admit that I do not fully grasp what the knowledge of an ongoing genocide demands of me, but I think if I were not bothered by that question—if I batted it away, like a gnat—it could only be because something essential and irreplaceable had absented itself from my soul.

Happy to share our new paper introducing the Animal Culture Database in Scientific Data: We’re putting together a resource consolidating primary research on cultural behaviors in wild animal populations and how they’re affected by human activity (1/5) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New theme issue in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B @royalsocietypublishing.org: Animal culture: conservation in a changing world Edited by @pbrakes.bsky.social, @lucymaplin.bsky.social, @emma-carroll.bsky.social, Alison L Greggor, Andrew Whiten and @ellengarland.bsky.social doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

“Protecting the living cultural landscapes of animal stone-tool-use sites involves preserving the environments where these behaviors occur and recognizing the intrinsic value of animal cultures” 🏺🧪🐒

Inside me there are two wolves. One of them has a 15 genome edits the other 20 genome edits. Neither of them is a dire wolf.

I cannot imagine an ecologist saying "I'm going to start a genomics project, I don't know anything about DNA but how hard can it be?" You'd ask someone who knew. You'd learn. You should do the same for social science research! Obviously!

We would love feedback on a new NCBI-BLAST service we are launching today: sky-blast.com Under the hood it's the same BLAST executable and databases provided by NCBI, with a replica of the NIH's interface - providing an alternative to the US gov service that's less congested, faster & more reliable

New paper on the demographic drivers of cultural evolution in Great Tit song published today - epic work led by @nilomr.bsky.social with help from @andreaestandia.bsky.social Ella Cole & Sara Keen. Why did we do this, and what did we find? 🧵 follows: 1/n www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

CES offers its full support to the Stand Up For Science rallies in the U.S. on March 7 2025.

Apparently the doi doesn't work for some people, so here's the full link: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... ☺️

Do whales optimize their vocalizations for efficiency, just like human language? 🐋🎶 My latest study in Science Advances (@science.org) suggests they do—following linguistic laws seen in human speech. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Tips for preserving websites:

📣📣📣 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

Vocal communication in corvids: a systematic review. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... In our new paper we review 130 papers and summarise empirical evidence for socioecological factors affecting vocal communication, as well as evidence for vocal learning in different corvid species.

We're on BlueSky now! Hello! We are Common Descent, a podcast about paleontology, evolution, and the history of life on Earth! We release episodes every fortnight! Each one focuses on a topic requested by our audience! commondescentpodcast.com

Have you ever heard the underwater song of a bearded seal, the call of a walrus, the call of a baby crocodile, or the song of a fruit fly? All these sounds (and more) are on "The ‘Voices of Nature. How and Why Animals Communicate’ book website 👇 mathevon0.wixsite.com/soundjourney... #bioacoustics

The team at Mutual Aid L.A. has launched a comprehensive spreadsheet tracking all of the shelters/food kitchens/evac sites/resources for anyone impacted by the Los Angeles fires. Far more comprehensive and in-depth than mine. Please use their list. Stay safe. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Striking images can make scientific ideas accessible to people from all walks of life. But some such pictures do more damage than good, seeding confusion & fueling widespread misconceptions of an essential topic. To illustrate, a thread about two iconic images & (mis)understanding evolution. 1/9

iNatSounds: new dataset from folks @inaturalist.bsky.social & co-authors; looks to be one of the largest public datasets of animal sounds openreview.net/forum?id=QCY... github.com/visipedia/in... #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics

Announcement! The next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social CES conference will be at UM6P in Rabat, Morocco, provisional dates 11-13th May 2026! Hosted by Mathieu Charbonneau, @sarahalami.bsky.social, @zhgarfield.com & @edseabright.bsky.social. Save the dates! culturalevolutionsociety.org/news-and-eve...

As an evolutionary anthropologist who spent some time studying religion, Islam, and violence, listening to this was incredibly cathartic

Wow hi everyone, welcome to Bluesquid I mean Bluesquid I mean Here's a polished-up size comparison chart I made for #Squidtember! Pygmy squid to colossal squid, these guys have the range . . . 🧪🦑🐡

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

If you are abroad and want to help I suggest you #donate to the #LebaneseRedCross. It is literally a simple click away. These people are doing heroic work, are apolitical and do not discriminate. www.redcross.org.lb

Good science does not automatically emerge from the ritual performance of certain actions as long as we keep our beliefs at bay when following the correct procedures. Scientists' minds cannot be excluded from scientific process and it's absurd to imagine that this is what we should strive for. >

If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

#CESDurham2024 One week to go! And during CES, we will be hosting Themed Discussion Sessions, proposals for which go live now. These will be a chance to have the informal conversations had in breaks and evenings that are so useful but not always inclusive @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social

🧪📗 Have you ever opened a pop-science book hoping to find phrases like "necrobestiality" and "like a kinky Dr. Strangelove" only to be disappointed? Well you won't be disappointed by my book*! 1 week until it's out in North America! Spread the word to kith and kin! *(in that specific capacity)

Registration closes for #CES2024 Conference in just THREE DAYS, don't forget to sign up here: pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham...! Facing barriers to attend in person? We're offering on-site childcare at no extra charge, and our conference is fully hybrid if you'd rather join us online! Sign up today!