This View of Life

TVOL's first podcast with Michele Gelfand explored an axis of cultural variation from "tight" (strong norms, strongly enforced) to "loose" (tolerant of individual differences). In this new podcast, we explore the distinctive blend of tightness and looseness needed to adapt to the pandemic. Related Material Michele's book: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World Institutional and Cultural Factors Predicting Infection Rates and Mortality of COVID-19. (OSF pre-print). Contributors: Michele Gelfand, Joshua Conrad Jackson, Xinyue Pan, Dana Nau, Chi Yue Chiu --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

Evolution education is often considered solely the domain of the biology classroom, with evolutionary explanations centered largely on genetic change over generations. In this TVOL Podcast, David Sloan Wilson talks with education researchers Susan Hanisch and Dustin Eirdosh about emerging approaches in evolution education that challenge this view and embrace an interdisciplinary conceptualization of evolutionary change more suitable to understanding the human condition. By drawing on perspectives in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Cultural Evolution Science, and Contextual Behavioral Science, Hanisch and Eirdosh have advanced a collection of teaching tools and materials that can be used across subject areas in general education to help students understand the evolutionary change dynamics within our species, our communities, and ourselves. Discussing core conceptual challenges in current gene-centric evolution education provides a window into the opportunities created by focusing the human traits at the center of our everyday experience. Bios Susan Hanisch and Dustin Eirdosh are the co-founders of the non-profit organization Global ESD (www.GlobalESD.org) and education researchers in the Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Dustin and Susi work across the disciplines of education and human sciences to advance interdisciplinary teaching materials and teacher development supports to understand global sustainability issues through the lens of evolution and human behavior. EEO Article: Can the science of Prosocial be a part of evolution education? Hanisch & Eirdosh Preprints: Conceptual clarification of evolution as an interdisciplinary science Educational potential of teaching evolution as an interdisciplinary science Causal mapping as a teaching tool for reflecting on causation in human evolution Other articles mentioned in the Podcast: Regardless of students' belief systems (creationist, theistic, non-theistic) students tend to view evolution has having negative personal and social implications. Brem, S. K., Ranney, M., & Schindel, J. (2003). Perceived consequences of evolution: College students perceive negative personal and social impact in evolutionary theory.Science Education,87(2), 181-206. A biology teacher encourages students to "boo" other students for any reference to "need" in evolutionary explanations as opposed to helping students resolve the role of behavioral responses to need in evolutionary processes (see Hanisch & Eirdosh preprint: Causal mapping as a teaching tool for reflecting on causation in human evolution) Bravo, P., & Cofré, H. (2016). Developing biology teachers' pedagogical content knowledge through learning study: the case of teaching human evolution. International Journal of Science Education,38(16), 2500-2527. -- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

Max Beilby and Mark van Vugt discuss the science of evolutionary mismatch how it can help us understand human behavior in modern novel environments such as the workplace. Mark van Vugt is a professor in Evolutionary and Organizational Psychology at VU Amsterdam and is also a research associate at the University of Oxford. His latest book is, "Mismatch: How Our Stone Age Brain Deceives Us Every Day (and What We Can Do About It)". Max Beilby is is a professional organizational psychologist as well as a member of the Human Behavior & Evolution Society and the Association for Business Psychology. Both Mark and Max have written extensively for This View of Life Magazine and are members of TVOL's Business Action Group which is focused on understanding and improving business from an evolutionary perspective. -- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

In 1992, the evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby predicted, "Just as one can now flip open Gray's Anatomy to any page and find an intricately detailed depiction of some part of our evolved species-typical morphology, we anticipate that in 50 or 100 years one will be able to pick up an equivalent reference work for psychology and find in it detailed information-processing descriptions of the multitude of evolved species-typical adaptations of the human mind..." Finding it unnecessary to wait until 2042 or 2092, Niruban Balachandran first proposed and published a classification table of human evolved psychological adaptations in 2011. He then teamed up with Daniel Glass in 2012 to co-found and co-publish a research paper announcing PsychTable.org, an open-science taxonomy devoted to uncovering the richness and complexity of our evolved human behavior. In addition to these two peer-reviewed research papers, Niruban and Daniel have also written a This View of Life article to accompany this podcast episode. The PsychTable team is crowdfunding $10,000 in order to hire the highly experienced web designers and developers needed to create a robust and intuitive web interface. Interested TVOL readers can help support PsychTable by donating here. --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

The idea that nature, left to itself, reaches some sort of harmonious balance is still widespread in the lay public and some public policy circles. "This View of Life" leads to a different conclusion; that "niceness" can evolve, but only when special conditions are met. Otherwise, evolution results in organisms that impose suffering on each other. David explores this theme for primate societies with the pre-eminent primatologist and evolutionary behavioral ecologist, Joan Silk. --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

What is Dugnad? It is a uniquely Norwegian word that identifies an important aspect of its culture of cooperation. David Sloan Wilson talks with Carsta Simon and Hilde Mobekk on their recently published article titled Dugnad: A Fact and Narrative of Norwegian Prosocial Behavior, published in Perspectives on Behavior Science and available open access for a limited time period. Carsta and Hilde's study of Dugnad emerged from the Evolution Institute's Norway Project, which examines Norway as a case study of cultural evolution leading to a high quality of life at the national scale. A book length account of the Norway project titled Sustainable Modernity: The Nordic Model and Beyond, is published by Routledge Press and is permanently open access. Both the article and the book illustrate a distinctive approach that involves asking four questions about any particular product of evolution, whether genetic or cultural, concerning its function, history, mechanism, and development. Carsta Simon is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Agder in southern Norway. Hilde Mobekk is a PhD fellow in Behavior Analysis at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University. Both are trained in Behavior Analysis, which makes them especially well qualified to comment on the "mechanism" and "development" questions concerning Dugnad as an enduring product of cultural evolution. Other Related Materials (pdfs available upon request) "Why Norwegians Don't have Their Pigs in the Forest: Illuminating Nordic 'Co-Operation" - Carsta Simon [Open Access] "The ontogenetic evolution of verbal behavior" - Carsta Simon [Open Access] "Selection as a domain-general evolutionary process" - Carsta Simon and Dag O. Hessen "Group selection in behavioral evolution", Rachlin H --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

Peter Gray, the first psychologist to write an introductory psychology textbook from an evolutionary perspective, experienced a family crisis when his son started to rebel against public school. Finding alternative schooling for his son led Peter to champion a new paradigm for child development and education from an evolutionary perspective. He joins David to discuss this journey and more, including how children learn by imitating "real" people, how graduate school is like hunter-gatherer education, and whether we need creativity more than ever. Links from the Show 00:52- Peter's blog on Psychology Today 00:58- Peter's book, Free To Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life 11:57- The Sudbury Valley School (website) Also see these related TVOL articles: "Mismatch Between Our Biologically Evolved Educative Instincts and Culturally Evolved Schools" by Peter Gray "Free To Learn: Does The Hunter-Gatherer Style Of Education Work?" by Gabrielle Principe And explore the Evolution Institute's East Tampa Academy project, where we are taking the best of what science tells us about how young minds learn to create a high-quality, tuition-free school for children at risk of academic failure. --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

One of the high points of David's professional life has been to work with Elliott Sober, Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. Elliott has made foundational contributions to many topics in evolutionary science, including his and David's collaboration on multilevel selection (MLS) theory. In this conversation, they discuss the roots of MLS theory and more, including the subtlety of Darwin, what Bret Weinstein misses about group selection, the problem of the averaging fallacy, and path dependency in scholarship. Links from the Episode 1:05- Upcoming Debate with David Sloan Wilson (video) and also see "What Bret Weinstein Gets Wrong About Group Selection" (TVOL article) 1:42- Elliott Sober's 1993 book, The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus1:50-1:57- "Reviving the Superorganism" (Wilson & Sober 1989), "Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences" (Wilson & Sober 1994), and their book, Unto Others (1998). 2:12- Elliott Sober's 2010 book, Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards? Philosophical Essays on Darwin's Theory 22:58- "Altruism in Mendelian Populations Derived from Sibling Groups: The Haystack Model Revisited" (Wilson 1987) 31:20- Michael Gilpin's 1975 book, Group Selection in Predator-Prey Communities Also see "The Mathematics of Kindness" (TVOL article) --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

Phrases such as "social constructivism" and "relativism" signal the importance of symbolic meaning systems in human life. Taken to extremes, they have been used to undermine the authority of science and even to deny the existence of objective knowledge, paving the way for today's epidemic of "fake news". Against this background, evolutionary science can establish a sensible middle ground that recognizes the importance of symbolic thought in human cultural evolution and provides a disciplined way to scientifically understand it. Lynette Shaw holds a PhD in Sociology and is Assistant Professor of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan. She joins David to discuss "this view of social constructivism" and more, including the micro to macro link of culture, the social construction of digital currencies, automatic sense making, human symbolic thought as niche construction, and the need for common ground between different academic disciplines. Links from the Episode 1:30: "Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship" --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book

Most people think of cultural differences in terms of race, class, nationality, or religion. Michele Gelfand introduces the concept of 'tight" and "loose", which cuts across all of those other categories. Michele is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park and joins David to discuss cultural diversity from an evolutionary perspective and more, including why the working class cares more about following the rules, the fractal nature of social norms, gamma wave synchrony in response to threat, and the strengths and limits of a tight-loose axis approach. Links from the Episode 00:56- Michele's book, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World 04:00- "On the nature of religious diversity: a cultural ecosystem approach" 22:26- Michele's response to David and Harvey Whitehouse's TVOL article, "Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution" --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book