New article in Hunter Gatherer Research! Foraging societies practice consensus-based politics. We conduct a xc review and argue that it helps to boost collective intelligence. Consensus, cooperation and collective intelligence in foraging societies liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

Happy new year! I wanted to share my new Python package called chatter that streamlines the process of applying AI/ML models to animal communication 🦜🦇🐋🐵👨‍🌾 masonyoungblood.github.io/chatter/

"Why agent-based modeling could happen in economics. Eventually." Good piece by @mikemakowsky.bsky.social economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/12/29/p... I'd argue that the "new era of theory" is already underway, though, led not by economists, but by comp social sci/cultural evolution folks.

My co-authors and I are happy to present our framework "Collective Intelligence as Collective Information Processing (CIP)." Here we propose decomposing different information processing mechanisms to unify disparate phenomena traditionally classified as "collective intelligence."

Goal selection through the lens of subjective functions: arxiv.org/abs/2512.15948 I welcome any feedback on these preliminary ideas.

🎉🍾 very excited to see this out before 2025 ends doi.org/10.1111/2041... with Will Hoppitt in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. This paper is an overview of our new R package STbayes, a user-friendly toolkit for performing Bayesian NBDA analyses. @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

1/ In a recent @britishacademy.bsky.social video @rebeccasear.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social takes a clear-eyed look at the 21st‑century rise of eugenics - an ideology that should have been left behind, yet is now re‑emerging in a number of troubling ways ⚠️🧬 🧪 Watch the full talk here 🎥👇

This week, we talk to @hugoreasoning.bsky.social about all things "epistemic". Are we gullible and prone to misinformation? Are we vigilant in favor of our interests? Enjoy the wide-ranging conversation! www.podbean.com/eas/pb-wphps... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e... youtu.be/nf42LNg6y-A

𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀: 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆 Discusses how more standard network models miss key points of brain complexity. And some more radical points at the end. Wrote paper having in mind younger researchers more open to new ideas :-) #neuroskyence doi.org/10.1016/j.pl...

Oleg Sobchuk @sobchuk.bsky.social @cudanlab.bsky.social "Evolution of Literature and the Arts." www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLnZ...

This will be screened, along with a Q and A with the director and Hrdy herself, at the 2026 HBES meeting at UM6P in Rabat! Deadline for applying: January 15th @hbes2026.bsky.social

God bless Szamado. He's completely correct and has been soldiering away at this for years - but the complexity of the topic is just slightly too high to outcompete Zahavi's (misleading) golf analogy. academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

In a new Review for @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social -- and my first first-authored paper! -- @manvir.bsky.social and I argue that experience shapes the emergence and evolution of seemingly extraordinary beliefs. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

On a roll with papers this week. PNAS paper with @michealdebarra.bsky.social giving some evidence to the idea that people turn to the supernatural because of uncertainty about causal processes. BONUS of curing whooping cough with donkeys and warts with snails 🐌

📣 Very happy to announce a new BBS target article with Nick Chater in which we propose a new theory of cultural evolution, highlighting the importance of bottom-up social interaction in explaining the emergence of cultural complexity 🧵 1/8 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

1/ 🎙️ New paper by Dr Aiyana Willard argues it’s time to retire HADD = “we’re hardwired to see agents EVERYWHERE” and replace it with something that *actually* fits the evidence 🪦➡️📚 @brunelpsy.bsky.social 🔗 Read it 👇

🧵 1/ Excited to share this work from CCEs Francisco Gómez Jiménez, whose research explores gender diversity across cultures 🌍 Francisco introduces the muxes of the Istmo Zapotec community in Oaxaca, Mexico - a remarkable example of longstanding, culturally grounded gender diversity 🏳️‍🌈 🎥👇

Wow! I have to say that this is where the @elife.bsky.social model really shines. Super interesting paper that makes a very strong claim. Reviewers feel interpretation goes beyond what the results show. Paper published with both sides. We all benefit much more than just a publish or reject. Bravo!

Only 4 days left!

The deadline has been extended - there is still time to get your abstracts in to join us in Morocco!

The submission deadline for #CESRabat has been extended to 30 November @ces2026.bsky.social @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social

🚨Only 2 days left to apply

🎉 New preprint: Bayesian Competence Inference guides Knowledge Attribution and Information search If someone knows that Venus is the only planet in the Solar System that rotates clockwise, will they also know what Earth’s only natural satellite is? What about which planets have no moons at all?

How “intelligent” is a slime mold? When it solves mazes, it might not be thinking:it’s obeying physics. Our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social shows how it follows a least action principle,letting physics do the job arxiv.org/pdf/2511.08531 @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @docteur-drey.bsky.social

Oops…“Principal components (PC) axes identified by a PCA are not necessarily the most informative biologically. Nevertheless, paleoanthropologists frequently interpret proximity in PC space as indicative of morphological and thus evolutionary affinity or relatedness” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨 New paper on ArXiv: “Uncertainty quantification and posterior sampling for network reconstruction” TL;DR; We present an efficient method to sample the entire ensemble of possible network reconstructions that are compatible with an indirect observation, e.g. a dynamics. Short thread: 1/N

Is #innovation born or made? Why do some places keep innovating while others fall behind? Is innovation the product of cities—or of deeper laws? Our new paper in npj Complexity explores these questions through the lens of a century of US patent data.🧵👇 nature.com/articles/s44...

Spoiler alert: it's better to have a good theoretical understanding and design appropriate statistical models than it is to throw zillions of superficially "okay, fine" models at a poorly specified (and often deliberately vague) target. A bit of good thinking >>> lots of poor thinking. Shocking!

Paper in Language and Cognition with @marktorrance.bsky.social and @seriousstats.bsky.social We show that semantic contrast shapes timing of pre-planning in speech and writing. doi.org/10.1017/lang... If you're into how context shapes how we plan language, check it out!

UPDATE! 🎉 Cognitations has been awarded a Workshop Event Grant by @ehbea.bsky.social This amazing grant will help us record new episodes with leading international experts in evolution, anthro & cog sci. Stay tuned in to hear from @manvir.bsky.social, @dansperber.bsky.social & many more!!!

I haven’t read all the articles in this special issue on bases in numeration systems yet, but the ones I have read are excellent. royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/cur...

Vincent Knight, Owen Campbell, Marc Harper, T. J. Gaffney, Nikoleta E. Glynatsi Reviving, reproducing, and revisiting Axelrod's second tournament https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15438

How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone? Our new preprint, led by @anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837

Agreed! It was one of my 5 recommended books on cultural evolution here: shepherd.com/best-books/c...

It was cool to see that Mokyr got the Nobel in economics. @antonhowes.bsky.social has a nice write up here: www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-inv...

🚨New Preprint: We develop a novel task that probes counterfactual thinking without using counterfactual language, and that teases apart genuine counterfactual thinking from related forms of thinking. Using this task, we find that the ability for counterfactual thinking emerges around 5 years of age.

Swipe up to try a new variant on Conway's Game of Life. And another. And another. This is how artificial-life researchers spread the joy after the #ALIFE2025 conference! They say it's like TikTok, but I wouldn't know.... ⚙️🧫 rulehunt.org?rulesetHex=7... #cellularautomata #gameoflife

The Innovation Game: How Arcade Genres Evolve, Imitate, and Collapse www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20... @blaividiella.bsky.social @andrejpaleo.bsky.social

⚠️Paper Alert!⚠️ Excited to share this paper with @roccoro.bsky.social where we examined whether ceramic technology in Saharan Africa was the result of a single or multiple episodes of innovation & diffusion rdcu.be/eJi3g

🧵 1/ New paper from CCEs @rebeccasear.bsky.social led by @hggaddy.bsky.social with @anthrolog.bsky.social challenging some common assumptions about polygyny (there are many…) it's open access 🔓 🧪 @brunelpsy.bsky.social

🌟 New preprint 🌟, by @olivia.science and me: 📝 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025). *Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists*. doi.org/10.31234/osf... 🧪

For me this is a hard red line in psychological science. If you advocate the use of "silicon samples" you do not understand what it is we're supposed to be doing (and likely don't understand LLMs, or are a grifter). Luckily I haven't seen much of this among people I'd consider my peer group.

A paper by Josh Rule from my lab providing some formal tools for how to think about innateness -- and trying to pinpoint exactly why Fodor's claims that everything is innate is nonsense. arxiv.org/abs/2505.18277

What influences whether people have fun with a task? Our paper “Leveling up fun: learning progress, expectations and success influence enjoyment in video games” with @thecharleywu.bsky.social and @ericschulz.bsky.social now in Scientific Reports! rdcu.be/eI069 Paper summary below 1/4

My first PhD project is out there. Thank you to my advisor @psmaldino.bsky.social and to mentor, co-author and friend @babeheim.bsky.social for encouraging and helping build this exciting and insightful collaboration. Onwards!

New preprint! "Weapon and Poison: Framing Disinformation in European Commission Speeches, 2016–2024" osf.io/preprints/so...

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And most of the time the rest of us wish you said nothing at all.

#HBES2026 abstract submissions are live! More exciting details to come soon. Arrive early for @ces2026.bsky.social @humbehevosoc.bsky.social

How to quantify the impact of AI on long-run cultural evolution? Published today, I give it a go! 400+ years of strategic dynamics in the game of Go (Baduk/Weiqi), from feudalism to AlphaGo!