Latest Past Events

Alison Gopnik – Causal maps and Bayes nets: Causal inference and theory formation in children, scientists and computers

Alison Gopnik: UC Berkeley Department of PsychologyHow do we accurately infer the causal structure of the world around us? Thirty years of developmental research has shown that human children form and revise intuitive theories of everyday physics, biology and psychology. These theories are similar to the formal theories of science. Recent work in philosophy of […]

Stacey Rucas – Allies and Rivals: The Complex world of women’s social dynamics among the Tsimane of Bolivia

Stacey Rucas: California Polytechnic State University Department of Social SciencesThis research examines the complexity of women's social behaviors with other women through various modes of evolutionary inquiry and methods. Results indicate that women engage in alternating forms of competitive and cooperative behaviors across the lifecourse in their quest for reproductively limiting resources. Data presented will […]

Carl Lipo – Resolution of the Cultural Phylogenies of Monumental Statues on Easter Island

Carl Lipo: CSU Long Beach Department of AnthropologyThe monumental statues (moai) of Easter Island represent substantial investment in cultural elaboration by the prehistoric islanders. Constructing explanations of these features requires generating measurements of temporal and spatial statue variability. Using a method based in cultural transmission, cladistics and occurrence seriation I present the results of analysis […]