This week, we talk to Sara Mathew about the psychology of killing, PTSD, and the relationship between our evolved psychology and cultural evolution. youtu.be/mgDerXD0djI www.podbean.com/eas/pb-qypm9... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

My first PhD paper is published! 🎉 We compared how wild bonobo and chimpanzee infants (0-5.5y) become independent from their mothers. Here is the open-access link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... 🧵(1/5)

Work (also) with me! Two years postdoc in the @weaponisedpasts.bsky.social project, based in Edinburgh. Will do transmission chain experiments to understand the spread of heritage-based hostility, online and elsewhere. More info ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Congratulations to Hanna Kokko for receiving this year’s ASAB medal! Hanna has done extraordinary work and we are so pleased to honour her at #ASABWinter2025

In this blog post, Guest Editor @rachkendal.bsky.social discusses their #PhilTransB issue, 'Transforming cultural evolution research and its application to global futures': royalsociety.org/blog/2025/12...

Each semester I go in my classroom and I try to figure out what we would use to block the doors, if it would be safe to crawl out the windows, where we could hide if there was a mass shooter in campus. It’s such an indictment of this country how we have normalized these preventable tragedies.

A new PNAS paper finds that polarization increased immediately after the invention of smartphones and the advent of social media, which both appeared around the same year, 2008. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"misinformation is widespread in biological systems spanning levels of organization, and [...] is probably an inevitable property that inherits from fundamental constraints on biological communication systems, rather than a pathology" royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

🚨New article on gender differences (Rajasekhar et al 2025): 'self-reported empathy appears to be related to social desirability and broader social attitudes, which suggests that a range of cultural and social factors might contribute to gender differences in empathy'. 🧪 dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Thanks to Adeela Shafi, @drtwymanghoshal.bsky.social, Acheampong Charles Afriyie, Samuel Copland & Omar El Masri for their hard work in bringing together this excellent collection of articles.

Innovations in Decolonising the Curriculum: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. – a new book about how to decolonize the curriculum, by Adeela ahmed Shafi et al. www.emerald.com/books/edited... Here is our chapter:

New special issues in Philosophical Transactions B highlight advances in cultural evolution and why they matter for challenges like inequality, cooperation, conservation, and education. 🔹 Transforming cultural evolution research and its application to global futures 🖇️👇

Don’t forget to submit your #EHBEA2026 abstract before Dec 15! See you in beautiful Leiden in April! @ehbea2026.bsky.social @ehbea.bsky.social

This new issue of #PhilTransB expands the field of cultural #evolution and shows why it matters for today’s biggest challenges. It highlights research funded by the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social's Transformation Fund, which focused on #DEI: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

Super proud of this paper with @apvelilla.bsky.social and @babeheim.bsky.social, now out in Psych Review. Non-paywalled version (preprint) here: osf.io/preprints/so...

End of quarter vibes.

"This Issue stems from the Cultural Evolution Society Transformation Fund, designed to bridge the social & natural sciences, promote equity, diversity & inclusion & support work with policy relevance. This diversification of the CE field strengthens its capacity to positively shape global futures"

Was great to contribute to this conversation about advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in the evolutionary behavioral sciences. Still a LONG way to go, but I'm optimistic things are moving in the right direction. royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Excited to get this paper published! 🌟 We argue that men exaggerate patriarchal beliefs in an effort to signal conformity to others, which in turn fuels misperceptions about peers - making patriarchal norms resistant to change. royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Today sees the publication of the Theme Issue featuring the CES Transformation Fund grant scheme. Enjoy! royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3... @durhamdcerc.bsky.social @durhamanthropology.bsky.social @cultevolfunding.bsky.social @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social

Theme Issue alert! Featuring awardees and the grant team of the CES Transformation Fund grant scheme, including DCERC members @rachkendal.bsky.social, @sheinalew.bsky.social, @amandinevisine.bsky.social, and @sarahewright.bsky.social

We are hiring a postdoc in the evolveD lab (evolvedlab.net) at Rutgers University. The remit is broad. We are looking for innovation, passion, and ethical collaboration. Please share the ad and email/ DM w/ Qs. We will start reviewing applications January 5.

The Department of Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Southampton is seeking candidates to apply for fully funded PhD positions through the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (SCDTP; @scdtp.bsky.social). 🗓️ Deadline for 2026/27 entry: 16 January 2026, 16:00 GMT More info ⬇️

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 🐌

<dusts off the ol' blog> to say something about "celebrating science" in the age of AI & current political context. EVEN THOUGH I HAD OTHER THINGS I WANTED TO DO THIS HOLIDAY WEEKEND. mammalssuck.blogspot.com/2025/11/if-y...

Working my way slowly through the @manymindspod.bsky.social back catalogue. This one with @iyadrahwan.bsky.social is really good on a cultural evolution analysis of machine / digital culture podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

🚨 AWARD DEADLINE 🚨 If you are, or know someone, doing really cool research as an early-career researcher…EHBEA is calling for SELF-nominations on their New Investigator Award. Deadline? December 19th, 2025 More information below 👇

Retraction Watch has covered the problem of the “national IQ” database. Should be noted I’m far from alone in working to remove these publications. The spreadsheet of pubs which use NIQ - linked to in the article - was started by @kohngregory.bsky.social; a project also worked on by Cathryn Townsend

Many of you are aware that NSF has terminated DDRIs for anthropologists and archaeologists. This is obviously a blow to these fields. It means we need to be proactive in revising expectations and training programs. This sort of thing reminds us again how important it is to be able to pivot.

🚨 DEADLINE 🚨 EHBEA is searching for people who wants to help in the development of the evolutionary human sciences 👀 Do you feel like it? Then apply for PRESIDENT and/or SECRETARY for 2026-2029! Deadline? December 16/12/2025 More information?👇 👇 👇

'The manosphere’s enthusiasm for evolution goes beyond appropriation and selective interpretation of existing research' New paper by LouisBachaud et al | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core - www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Not all sexual swellings signal fertility. Some signal strategy. In our new Current Biology paper, we show how gelada females “fake it” during male takeovers—and why it works. authors.elsevier.com/a/1m7%7E93QW...

This really is a wonderful listen! Shared with all my students this week. @bscelza.bsky.social speaks so eloquently about, not only her trailblazing work, but the merits of human behavioral ecology and the challenges faced by evolutionary social scientists tackling sex and gender. Check it out!

Shuster et al (2025) on the gendering of plant reproduction processes: "The durability of gender stereotypes in describing plant reproduction reflects deeper tensions in the communication of information by the scientific community." 🧪 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

📣 New BBS preprint out now! 📣 "Models casting egalitarian societies as crucibles of equality perpetuate the factually uninformed notion that foragers are somehow more noble. Critiques portray egalitarianism as romantic fantasy. Neither characterization is wholly justified." doi.org/10.1017/S014...

Many thanks to my wonderful coauthor @chrisvonrueden.bsky.social for being ever insightful and incisive. I've wanted to work with him for years and it has been a joy and a pleasure. Also note that an this early online uncorrected proof - Baylor University does not have a UK campus ☺️

This week we talk to @bscelza.bsky.social about Polygamy and the state of the evolutionary behavioral sciences. youtu.be/F2rz-vuczX0 www.podbean.com/eas/pb-9i7eb... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Science People: We at NSF are still recovering/catching up/getting our lives together. But the agency posted these FAQs about post-shutdown resumption of operations which might answer a lot of Qs for you: www.nsf.gov/resumption-o...

This is such a cool study. A parasitic ant queen tricks worker ants into murdering their own queen, so the parasite can take over the colony.

In 2008, after killing many of their neighbors, Ngogo chimpanzees expanded their territory. Female fertility then doubled, and infant mortality plummeted. Adaptive violence in our ape cousins, documented in this new paper. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

N-IUSSP: The kinship gap. When just a few years of difference make a difference www.niussp.org/fertility-an... #demography #populationstudies

Brunel's press release about our (@hggaddy.bsky.social @anthrolog.bsky.social) recent publication, showing that high levels of polygyny don't necessarily lock men out of the marriage market www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Come and do a PhD at Exeter with me and Chico Camargo (Computer Science) on human-genAI coevolution "Leveraging Natural Language Processing for Data-Driven Agent-Based Modelling of Online Cultural Dynamics" www.exeter.ac.uk/v8media/recr... More details here: www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

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

🚨 🐍 Our new paper on the consequences men face when countering patriarchal norms in rural Tanzania 🐍.🚨 We carried out focus groups and detailed interviews with a whopping 172 women and men about their perceptions of men who support women's empowerment... 📝 1/5

The influence of race science is spreading in the evolutionary behavioural sciences. This new paper means members of a race science network have now been published in Evolutionary Psychological Science, Evolutionary Behavioral Science, Evolutionary Psychology & Adaptive Human Behavior & Physiology

So, lots of people picking up Kevin's post to declare all Evolutionary Psychology/ists misogynistic pervs. And I get why but look: I trained in Evo Psych. I trained in Behavioural Ecology too which maybe helps but I came into academia an enthusiastic researcher of sexual selection. 1/

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

Curious about using census microdata in your research? 📊 Join us for a webinar on IPUMS International, the world’s leading repository of harmonized census data. 🗓️ 12 Nov 2025 | 🕒 15:15–16:30 UK | 💻 Zoom Register: forms.gle/oqTDNU4Zpn2s... Hosted by the LSE Historical Economic Demography Group.

Looking forward to this!