Heritability is a statistical description of sources of trait variation in a specific set of people under a specific set of environmental conditions. It doesn’t show how malleable the trait is, doesn't index an underlying feature of human biology, & can’t say anything about you as an individual.
I guess with race science discourse still percolating, I should re-up my starter pack for people who work on the topic
very excited to read all the interesting arguments for and against atrocities, and about the different, more and less sophisticated ways of thinking about atrocities, in the prestigious publications and platforms read and watched by a society indulging in atrocities without a moment's reflection
A white beluga surfacing in greenish-brown waters. Overlaid is the title of a new review published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology: Beluga Societies: the social and cultural lives of an enigmatic odontocete.
Our new review of beluga sociality and culture just dropped at Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology! Some of our key conclusions summarized 🧵
doi.org/10.1007/s002...
@marine-valeria.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @raincoast.org
If you work on corvid ecology, behaviour, cognition, or conservation, this might be useful for you 👇
I’ve just published CORVIDATA in Scientific Data 🐦
doi.org/10.1038/s415... (1/4)
If you look at the lit on the just world delusion, or cognitive biases (those that survived the replication crisis) there’s ample evidence that every human deludes themselves to varying degrees to cope with this fucked up reality. There’s no escape short of Buddhist enlightenment. Only coping.
What role(s) can non-human animal culture play in conservation? Much has been written on this topic in recent years, but Dawn Barlow, Taylor Hersh, & I offer some new perspectives: "Integrating space, time, and culture in animal conservation practice" @behavecol.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/bdfe9k3j
Little reminder that you can still register for the next talk in our online ROTO Lecture Series!
Just click the link and join the talk and discussion on Monday 🤗
rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture...
#PhilSci #HPBio
Nice thread to balance things out! There are good researchers doing the hard work to treat evolutionary hypotheses of human psychology with the seriousness and rigor they deserve. Testing assumptions and, if necessary, shedding zombie theories is how a field progresses and improves
I am happy to present to you our review „The diversity and evolution of vocal communication in nonavian reptiles“, published @annualreviews.bsky.social Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. Huge thanks to @gabrieljcohen.bsky.social and my other co-authors! Must say, I am a bit proud of Figure 1. ….
We must change this mindset that the essential and most critical work in a field is always the first one. That distorted view has caused a lot of problems in psychological science already. The first work is just that—the start. Every field should be evaluated based on the complete body of evidence.
If you want to know the latest on the government's 'compact' (i.e. extortion) offer to universities, you can use this tracker. Feel free to suggest edits as well. #academia
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
The superpower of books like Sapiens is that they require expertise in like 12 academic fields to debunk. So you get these super detailed takedowns of small sections that look to laypeople like nitpicking.
Graphical abstract for A history of human thought on brain injury in head-hitting animals. Humans have hypothesized about headbutting for centuries. Biological misunderstanding has often been the cause of "invulnerability" theories. An accumulation of biological misinterpretation has led to the belief that animals are immune, despite evidence that headbutting causes brain injury.
Violence, scientific DRAMA, and misunderstanding!
Who first asked if woodpeckers get headaches, or if rams are immune to brain damage?
New Paper! I trace the history of human thought on brain injury in head-hitting animals, and it's a wild ride. 🧪 🏺
A thread - 1/🧵
doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
There are also misconceptions about what religious-studies courses teach. “I get multiple reactions to what I do,” said Shaily Patel, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech. “One is, Oh you’re teaching people theology, which is not what I do. The other is, That’s not a thing that’s worth learning about, because people perceive religion to be esoteric.”
The academic study of Religion also remains misunderstood as @vox-magica.bsky.social notes—whether because of its common misinterpretation as theological or the sense that it’s arcane +
“Counting majors does not reflect the value religious studies brings to a college, its proponents and practitioners say. Courses in religion are popular among undergraduates because they learn, often for the first time, about religion as something to study rather than to practice. Now that is more important than ever, some in the discipline say.”
A lot of the justifications point to the number of Religious Studies majors—but is this really how a dept’s value should be judged? In many RS departments in which I’ve taught, our courses have enormous enrollments & student interest +
Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#ScientificRacism #Antiracism
part of the issue may be that when people say ‘the humanities’, or my personal favorite, ‘the humanities and social sciences’ they could be referring to any of 53982 things that have very little to do with each other
I admit that I do not fully grasp what the knowledge of an ongoing genocide demands of me, but I think if I were not bothered by that question—if I batted it away, like a gnat—it could only be because something essential and irreplaceable had absented itself from my soul.
This is still early stages and we’re seeking feedback from animal behavior researchers on how to make future versions most useful for comparative research. Please take a look and get in touch! (5/5)
Current version has 133 behaviors for 62 species, mostly mammals + birds. Our focus now is expanding this sample, filling out missing data, and standardizing/quantifying variables (4/5)
Web app for the database: datadiversitylab.github.io/ACDB/
(3/5)
This includes taxonomic info and IUCN status; descriptions of behaviors, how they’re socially transmitted, and category (e.g. communication, foraging, migration, etc…); and a map of populations and behaviors (2/5)
Happy to share our new paper introducing the Animal Culture Database in Scientific Data: We’re putting together a resource consolidating primary research on cultural behaviors in wild animal populations and how they’re affected by human activity (1/5) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New theme issue in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B @royalsocietypublishing.org:
Animal culture: conservation in a changing world
Edited by @pbrakes.bsky.social, @lucymaplin.bsky.social, @emma-carroll.bsky.social, Alison L Greggor, Andrew Whiten and @ellengarland.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1098/rstb...
“Protecting the living cultural landscapes of animal stone-tool-use sites involves preserving the environments where these behaviors occur and recognizing the intrinsic value of animal cultures” 🏺🧪🐒
Inside me there are two wolves. One of them has a 15 genome edits the other 20 genome edits. Neither of them is a dire wolf.
I cannot imagine an ecologist saying "I'm going to start a genomics project, I don't know anything about DNA but how hard can it be?" You'd ask someone who knew. You'd learn.
You should do the same for social science research! Obviously!
We would love feedback on a new NCBI-BLAST service we are launching today: sky-blast.com
Under the hood it's the same BLAST executable and databases provided by NCBI, with a replica of the NIH's interface - providing an alternative to the US gov service that's less congested, faster & more reliable