Nature-Nurture
Category archives for Nature-Nurture
Does Our Paleolithic Past Shape Our Modern Survival Instinct?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 15, 2016 
The latest National Geographic Roundtable Question: Survivor-style television has grown increasingly popular over the years and done a great job of illustrating our brain’s fascinating built-in survival instinct. What role do you think our ancestral instincts play today in helping us survive, thrive and accomplish our goals? How much of our ancestral survival instincts are…
Tales of the Ex-Apes
Posted by Greg Laden on September 2, 2015 
Jonathan Marks’ new book is called “Tales of the Ex-Apes: How We Think about Human Evolution” I’ve got to tell you that when I first saw the title of this book, the letters played in my head a bit. Tails of the Ex-Apes. That would be funny because apes don’t have tails. Or Tales of…
Driving The Patriarchy: Demonic Males, Feminism, and Genetic Determinism
Posted by Greg Laden on July 7, 2011 Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. “Drives” is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are…
Falsehoods: Human Universals
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2011 There are human universals. There, I said it. Now give me about a half hour to explain why this is both correct and a Falsehood. But first, some background and definition.
Why do women shop and men hunt?
Posted by Greg Laden on October 12, 2010 Or, when the hunting season is closed, watch teh game (the guys), or when there are no sales, admire each other’s shoes (the gals)? This is, of course, a parody of the sociobiological, or in modern parlance, the “evolutionary psychology” argument linking behaviors that evolved in our species during the long slog known as The…
A good day for birds.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 25, 2009 This was not an intensive bird watching day. This was a day driving to the cabin, sitting in the cabin writing, looking out the window, driving to run an errand, going to town for dinner, sitting in the cabin looking out the window some more, etc. But the birds insisted on performing. So I thought…
Race, Gender, IQ and Nature
Posted by Greg Laden on February 18, 2009 Nature, the publishing group, not the Mother, has taken Darwin’s 200th as an opportunity to play the race card (which always sells copy) and went ahead and published two opposing views on this question: “Should scientists study race and IQ? The answers are Yes, argued by Stephen Cici and Wendy Williams of the Dept of…
Snow, Loons, Eagles, Otters bloody with fish
Posted by Greg Laden on October 26, 2008 The lake is icy-green and in the distance almost blends into the sky through a fast moving fog bank. The bald eagles (a pair and one offspring) are up to something in the back, one of them making swings over the bay and then back into the yard where they are vocalizing quite a bit.…
Study Suggests Increased Rate of Human Adaptive Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on October 24, 2008 There is a new paper, just coming out in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that explores the idea that humans have undergone an increased rate of evolution over the last several tens of thousands of years. By an increased rate of evolution, the authors mean an increased rate of adaptive change in the…
What I had for brunch: A Trip to Bitch Lake
Posted by Greg Laden on August 25, 2008 They say Lake Itasca is the source of the Mississippi. This is why there is a big state park surrounding the lake, a park that preserves some beautiful old forest despite the best efforts of 19th century lumberjacks to cut it down. Amanda next to the tallest white pine tree in Minnesota I’ve been to…