Nathan Bailey: UC Riverside Department of BiologySame-sex mating behavior has been extensively documented in non-human animals, but we still know relatively little about its evolutionary impact. What evidence exists that same-sex sexual behavior can be adaptive? Do the genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying same-sex mating help explain its ultimate cause and maintenance in populations? How […]

Robert Boyd: UCLA Department of AnthropologyIn this talk I explain how culturally heritable differences in wealth between social groups can arise and be maintained even when the only adaptive learning process driving cultural evolution increases individuals' economic gains. The key assumptions are that human populations are structured into groups and that cultural learning is more […]

David Sloan Wilson: SUNY Binghamton Department of Biological Sciences & Department of AnthropologyEvolutionary theory is rapidly expanding beyond the biological sciences to include all human-related subjects in academia. Since evolution is fundamentally about organisms in relation to their environment, basic scientific research needs to focus on people from all walks of life, as they go […]

Daniel Nettle: Newcastle University Centre for Behaviour and EvolutionEven in the most developed countries, many people do not accept the theory of evolution as true. Whilst there are cultural and ideological reasons for this, part of the issue is that evolutionary ideas appear to violate certain intuitive beliefs. Even more interestingly, recent research has shown […]