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Eric Michael Johnson has a Master's degree in Evolutionary Anthropology focusing on great ape behavioral ecology. He is currently a doctoral student in the history of science at University of British Columbia looking at the interplay between evolutionary biology and politics. Follow on Twitter @ericmjohnson.
The Primate Diaries
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The Primate Diaries in Exile
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- August 17, 2009
- 11:00 AM
- 1,795 views
Those Cheating Testicles, or Who's Your Baby?
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Benjamin Franklin once quipped, "Where there's marriage without love there will be love without marriage." His affairs are well known in American history, however this founding father may have been stating a truth extending to evolutionary history as well.
Christopher Ryan (author of the forthcoming Sex at Dawn) offers some thoughts on the role of novelty in the sex lives of our favorite primate. He suggests that men are drawn to variety in sexual partners while women are drawn to variety in technique:
When researchers decided to look at this issue to develop a Sexual Boredom Scale, they found that for men, sexual boredom was correlated with variety in partners (or lack thereof), while for women, it was more related to variety in activity. In other words, women were more likely to be satisfied by changes in the sexual what, while men (gay or straight) were more likely to respond to a changes in the sexual whom. It's a simple, unavoidable truth almost everyone knows to be true, but few dare to discuss: variety and change are the necessary spice of the sex life of the male of our species. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Kingan, S., Tatar, M., & Rand, D. (2003) Reduced Polymorphism in the Chimpanzee Semen Coagulating Protein, Semenogelin I. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 57(2), 159-169. DOI: 10.1007/s00239-002-2463-0
Dorus, S., Evans, P., Wyckoff, G., Choi, S., & Lahn, B. (2004) Rate of molecular evolution of the seminal protein gene SEMG2 correlates with levels of female promiscuity. Nature Genetics, 36(12), 1326-1329. DOI: 10.1038/ng1471
- September 21, 2009
- 01:00 PM
- 1,738 views
The Sacrifice of Admetus: How the Evolution of Altruism Reveals our Noblest Qualities
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Heracles battles Death for generosity's sake / Frederic Lord Leighton (1869-71)
Whereas great scientific theories stand the test of time when they accurately predict the natural world through repeated empirical trials, great literature transcends the ages when it speaks to universal qualities of human experience. Such inspirational works can also, without the authors realizing at the time, reveal the sublime beauty and tragedy of our evolutionary drama. Few classical authors have tapped into this zeitgeist of biological experience as the Greek tragedian Euripides. The conflict between male and female reproductive strategy and the horrific choice of maternal infanticide is powerfully presented in the story of Medea (which waited some 2,400 years before being elucidated as an adaptive strategy in primates by the incomparable Sarah Hrdy). Electra chronicles the bitter feud between parent and child that would later be revealed as encompassing a biological reality by Robert Trivers in Parent-Offspring Conflict Theory. And Helen, the haunting tale of Helen of Troy's fateful decision, evokes the evolutionary importance of female mate choice revealed through Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Felix Warneken, Brian Hare, Alicia P. Melis, Daniel Hanus, & Michael Tomasello. (2007) Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children. PLoS Biology, 5(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050184
Claudia Rutte, & Michael Taborsky. (2007) Generalized Reciprocity in Rats. PLoS Biology, 5(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050196
- July 7, 2009
- 03:01 AM
- 1,701 views
The Struggle for Coexistence
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
A cancer cell may eventually kill its host when an error in transcription causes it to multiply despite the signals not to from its external environment. Likewise, evolutionary theory has long assumed, following the work of Thomas Malthus, that all species attempt to maximize their reproductive success and grow their range exponentially. This overpopulation results in a "struggle for existence" over the remaining resources and, if gone unchecked, may result in a massive plunge in population or even extinction. As a result, there comes a point where the selfish pursuits of the individual and the survival of the group as a whole comes into conflict. Human beings have shown that we're particularly adept at increasing our population growth despite the clear damage to the environment which sustains us; a tendency that may be on a collision course with reality in the near future.... Read more »
Xavier, J., Martinez‐Garcia, E., & Foster, K. (2009) Social Evolution of Spatial Patterns in Bacterial Biofilms: When Conflict Drives Disorder. The American Naturalist, 174(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1086/599297
- July 8, 2009
- 03:50 PM
- 1,678 views
Brooding Angelmakers
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Offspring Abandonment in the Ancient and Natural World
In the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex the great kingdom of Thebes is condemned following a case of mistaken identity (and a little patricide). The sordid tale begins when the infant prince is abandoned by his parents (see right) after learning of a prophecy that his son will one day murder his father, marry his mother and assume the throne. His ankles pierced with a spike, young Oedipus is sent to be abandoned atop mount Cithaeron. While this tale sets up a beautiful tragedy it also hints at a common reality in both the ancient and natural world. Before the scientific breakthroughs of contraception and abortion, such abandonment was commonplace throughout human history.
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
SZENTIRMAI, I., SZÉKELY, T., & KOMDEUR, J. (2007) Sexual conflict over care: antagonistic effects of clutch desertion on reproductive success of male and female penduline tits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 20(5), 1739-1744. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01392.x
- October 12, 2009
- 03:24 PM
- 1,564 views
Why Do Women Experience Menopause?
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Whether they're referred to as hot flashes, power surges or personal summers, the experience of menopause is not fun. But could it be the result of human evolution?
One of the most fascinating areas of research in evolutionary studies is the question of reproductive senescence. Why do women go through menopause? Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest evolutionary relatives who we share 99% of our DNA with, are reproductive throughout their lifespans but human women can spend the last third of their lives infertile. Why?
Biologist Virpi Lummaa, whose recent work on evolutionary theory and birth control I wrote about earlier, has conducted numerous highly regarded studies verifying the role of natural selection in human populations. According to her research, menopause may in fact have helped our ancestors survive. However, the reasons for this may be a surprise. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Lahdenperä, M., Lummaa, V., Helle, S., Tremblay, M., & Russell, A. (2004) Fitness benefits of prolonged post-reproductive lifespan in women. Nature, 428(6979), 178-181. DOI: 10.1038/nature02367
- July 17, 2009
- 01:53 PM
- 1,546 views
Adoption in Non-Human Primates
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
How genes for altruism can benefit strangers as well as kin
The generosity of adoption has long been considered a unique human hallmark.
Image: Shadows of Forgotten AncestorsFor decades it was conventional dogma that humans were the only species that used tools. "Man the Toolmaker" was our celebrated designation. The hominin fossil Homo habilis (or "handy" man) was even defined within our genera primarily because the skeleton was associated with stone implements. However, when Jane Goodall discovered chimpanzees using modified sticks at Gombe to "fish" for termites, Louis Leakey famously cabled her that:
Now we must redefine man, redefine tool - or accept chimpanzees as human.
By now people should stop insisting on singling out specific human behaviors and declaring them to be unique in the natural world. Invariably, whatever special attributes humans possess, other primates do in some form as well. For many years it's been argued that humans are the only primates that will adopt unrelated individuals to care for as their own. This has been conventional wisdom because it doesn't make intuitive sense according to the rigid definition of biological fitness. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Cäsar, C., & Young, R. (2007) A case of adoption in a wild group of black-fronted titi monkeys (Callicebus nigrifrons). Primates, 49(2), 146-148. DOI: 10.1007/s10329-007-0066-x
- August 7, 2009
- 05:05 PM
- 1,536 views
Why Chimpanzees Make Bad Suicide Bombers
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
The Evolution of Spite is the Evil Twin of Altruism
Someone walks into a crowded restaurant, looks about the diners calmly, and blows themselves up as well as everyone nearby. Why? This is a scenario that forces us to explain the dark side of human nature. Why do humans have a capacity for such hate that they'll take their own lives in order to destroy others?
A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on chimpanzee behavior suggests that humans may be alone in this way: a dubious distinction to say the least. In a review published in the Chicago Tribune the researchers suggest:
"Spitefulness may be a peculiarly human trait," said Keith Jensen, a Canadian evolutionary biologist who has been looking to see whether human concepts like fairness and punishment are present in the social organization of another highly socialized species. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Jensen, K., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2007) Chimpanzees are vengeful but not spiteful. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(32), 13046-13050. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0705555104
- May 27, 2010
- 12:25 PM
- 1,509 views
Prestigious Chimps and the Emergence of Cultural Innovation
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
A new study in PLoS ONE by Victoria Horner, Darby Proctor, Kristin E. Bonnie, Andrew Whiten, and Frans de Waal suggests that prestige is an important factor in other primates besides humans. By employing a simple behavioral experiment these researchers demonstrated that chimpanzees, when given a choice between two nearly identical tasks, will choose the one they previously witnessed a high-ranking member of the troop perform. ... Read more »
Horner, V., Proctor, D., Bonnie, K., Whiten, A., & de Waal, F. (2010) Prestige Affects Cultural Learning in Chimpanzees. PLoS ONE, 5(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010625
- October 21, 2009
- 11:10 PM
- 1,457 views
Male Chauvinist Chimps or the Meat Market of Public Opinion?
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Female chimpanzee with her infant requests meat after a successful hunt.
Image: David Bygott / Tree of Life Web Project
Owen Lovejoy's recent paper about Ardipithecus ramidus and human origins (see my detailed critique here) bases its argument on the male provisioning observed in chimpanzees. However, what went unacknowledged in his theory was the inherent gender bias it represented. A perfect example of this was observed in April with the release of the very study on provisioning behavior that Lovejoy used as the basis for his idea.
From the press introductions alone, you would have thought you were in a 19th-century gentleman's club enjoying cigars and brandy. "There's nothing like a prime rib dinner to boost a guy's chances of getting lucky," boasted ScienceNOW as he cleaned his monacle. The Daily Mail agreed with a harrumph, "As every Romeo knows, laying on a delicious dinner for two is one of the best seduction ploys." Chuckling along with a wink and a nudge, MSNBC added, "A savory meat dinner goes a long way, as in all the way." Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Gomes, C., & Boesch, C. (2009) Wild Chimpanzees Exchange Meat for Sex on a Long-Term Basis. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005116
- July 14, 2009
- 10:05 PM
- 1,449 views
Darwin's Connection to Nazi Eugenics Exposed
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
On this day 76 years ago (July 14, 1933) a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring). Any German was a target if they were found to be suffering from a range of perceived hereditary ailments, such as congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism. Official pronouncements insisted that these individuals were a drain on the German people, both biologically and financially (see right). The law passed on this day ultimately led to an estimated 400,000 people being involuntarily sterilized in pursuit of this national goal of "racial hygiene," to eliminate handicapped descendants.
Creationists are fond of laying the blame for Nazi eugenics on Charles Darwin. They insist that his materialist argument that humans evolved from animals and his conception of natural selection inspired the Nazis in implement a widespread policy of artificial selection within the Fatherland. However, their claims are as baseless as was the so-called "science" that the Nazis employed. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Richards, R. (2007) Ernst Haeckel's Alleged Anti-Semitism and Contributions to Nazi Biology. Biological Theory, 2(1), 97-103. DOI: 10.1162/biot.2007.2.1.97
- October 28, 2009
- 05:00 PM
- 1,449 views
Eye of the Beholder
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
As a species we are consumed by love. Ask yourself, how many cultural productions (films, stories, songs, dances, arts) do not have love, the loss of love or the absence of love as their central theme? Would you be satisfied with what was left over? That fact that love has so much power over us is just one reason why evolutionary research is so fascinating.
A well-worn trope of human culture is mens obsession with female infidelity. Othello. Madame Bovary. Desperate Housewives. These are just three Western examples of this concern that are paralleled in nearly every society throughout time. Such powerful and universal human emotions suggest a biological commonality that can be revealed through a scientific lens. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
LAENG, B., & FALKENBERG, L. (2007) Women's pupillary responses to sexually significant others during the hormonal cycle. Hormones and Behavior, 52(4), 520-530. DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2007.07.013
- January 28, 2010
- 11:05 AM
- 1,420 views
How Can Haiti Be Sustainable?
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
As I wrote yesterday in my piece for The Huffington Post, the history of Western financial involvement in Haiti has been one of growing the nation's textile industry despite the fact that 70% of Haiti's annual income comes from agriculture. By emphasizing programs such as HOPE and HOPE II, the United States has increased the profits of American companies, but the livelihood of Haitian workers has decreased at nearly the same rate.
[A] 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service found that "assessments of the effectiveness of Hope I, however, were disappointing." Since 2004 Haitian exports to the United States increased by 32% while, during the same period, the Haitian minimum wage declined by 36%. Haiti's current trade imbalance is enormous and the country relies exclusively on foreign sources for basic commodities such as food and oil.
Another critical element has been the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in tying development loans with privatization of the nation's infrastructure and eliminating subsidies to agriculture. As a result, the heavily subsidized American farmers are able to sell their products in Haiti more cheaply than local farmers. One unintended consequence has been that, in order to make ends meet, local farmers have continued to erode Haiti's already decimated forest land. Today it is estimated that Haiti's once lush forests have been reduced to a mere 3% of what they had once been when Columbus first arrived to the island. What can be done to reverse this trend while, at the same time, allowing the already impoverished Haitian farmers to improve their conditions? Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
DOLISCA, F., MCDANIEL, J., SHANNON, D., & JOLLY, C. (2009) Modeling farm households for estimating the efficiency of policy instruments on sustainable land use in Haiti. Land Use Policy, 26(1), 130-138. DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2008.01.007
- July 19, 2010
- 12:00 AM
- 1,419 views
Scientific Ethics and the Myth of Stalin's Ape-Man Superwarriors
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries in Exile
Why the Soviets would fund a human-chimp hybridization program in the first place and what can be learned from this sordid tale of ethical misconduct is an important topic and fascinating in its own right. Ivanov represents a scientist, widely respected in his field, whose dedication to find out if something could be done blinded him to ask whether it should be done. It also reminds us of the role that politics can play in the development of scientific research even if the scientists directly involved are not political themselves.... Read more »
Rossiianov, K. (2003) Beyond Species: Il’ya Ivanov and His Experiments on Cross-Breeding Humans with Anthropoid Apes. Science in Context, 15(02). DOI: 10.1017/S0269889702000455
RICHARDS, M. (2008) Artificial insemination and eugenics: celibate motherhood, eutelegenesis and germinal choice. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 211-221. DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.005
- November 9, 2009
- 11:30 AM
- 1,401 views
Reciprocity and the Anthropology of Organ Transplants
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Reciprocity is an intrinsic feature of human beings as well as most species of ape. Chimpanzees and bonobos regularly engage in granting gifts of food and expect a return on their generosity (those who don't reciprocate are less likely to receive such gifts in the future) (de Waal and Brosnan 2006). This "tit-for-tat" basis of exchange exists in all human societies and becomes ritualized based on the cultural norms that are present. One of the most well known descriptions of reciprocity among indigenous societies is that of the Kula among the Trobriand Islanders near Papua New Guinea that was documented by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski.
The Kula was a ritualized gift exchange in which a shell necklace or armband is given to a member of a neighboring tribe, at which time the receiver reciprocates by offering the other item in return. This exchange is then repeated between societies around the archipelago connecting thousands of individuals. Each person has therefore been the receiver from one direction and the giver in another. This ritualized obligation cemented lifelong connections between neighboring tribes and served as a basis for economic cooperation between peoples. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Margaret Lock. (2002) Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death. California Series in Public Anthropology, no. 1. . info:/
- January 11, 2010
- 11:00 AM
- 1,398 views
Deconstructing Social Darwinism, Part III
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
In Quentin Skinner's celebrated history The Foundations of Modern Political Thought he writes that:
If the history of political theory were to be written essentially as a history of ideologies, one outcome might be a clearer understanding of the links between political theory and practice.
In Part II of this series I highlighted how a common objection to the political theory of social Darwinism is that it was a misapplication of Darwin's science to already existing ideas. A second objection is that there is no core theoretical framework that would make the theory a coherent set of principles. A political theory only possesses utility if its general principles exist independent of the thing to be explained. Without this the theory is a mere amalgamation of tenuously related ideas that do not form a unified structure.
If social Darwinism is a valid political theory, it would stand to reason that some basic predictions could be made about someone's political practice given the theory they follow. For example, as the cognitive scientist George Lakoff has so brilliantly described in his book Moral Politics, liberals and conservatives follow recognizable patterns in their support for social policies based on the political theories they adopt (see my post The Nature of Partisan Politics for a full discussion). However, as I mentioned in Part I, the "social Darwinism" of Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Spencer contradicted each other on two of the fundamental tenets of the theory. An important guideline for political history (and one that is required in science) is that if a theory doesn't explain a given phenomenon it is effectively useless.
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Crook, P. (1998) Social Darwinism and British “new imperialism”: Second thoughts. The European Legacy, 3(1), 1-16. DOI: 10.1080/10848779808579860
- December 1, 2009
- 10:15 AM
- 1,346 views
Misconceptions About the Battle in Seattle
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
There are two fundamental misconceptions surrounding the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle ten years ago this week. One is that the protests represented a "riot" and that the majority of protesters were violent. The second is that the protests were counter-productive and actually hurt the cause of reform that would benefit poor countries trying to have their voices heard. Both of these are wrong and, in fact, are just the opposite. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Edelman, M. (2009) Peasant–farmer movements, third world peoples, and the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, 1999. Dialectical Anthropology, 33(2), 109-128. DOI: 10.1007/s10624-009-9109-6
- October 26, 2009
- 05:25 PM
- 1,341 views
Republican Losers Have Lower Testosterone
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
In a new understanding of the term power grab, researchers have shown that the supporters of a political candidate literally have their power taken from them after they lose an election. In a new study by Steven J. Stanton and colleagues in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, researchers asked 163 Republican and Democratic voters (57 of whom were men) to provide saliva samples both before and after the 2008 election between John McCain and Barack Obama. What the researchers determined was that Republican men showed significant reductions in testosterone after they learned that their candidate had lost the election. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Stanton, S., Beehner, J., Saini, E., Kuhn, C., & LaBar, K. (2009) Dominance, Politics, and Physiology: Voters' Testosterone Changes on the Night of the 2008 United States Presidential Election. PLoS ONE, 4(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007543
- March 9, 2010
- 04:39 PM
- 1,333 views
Darwin and Spencer in the Middle East
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
It is a common argument by those who are opposed to evolution's implication for religious belief to label Darwin as a social Darwinist and a racist. Adrian Desmond and James Moore's book Darwin's Sacred Cause has gone a long way towards dispelling any claims that Darwin sought to justify black inferiority (in fact, as they show, it was just the opposite). However, the claim that Darwin inspired social Darwinism is a persistent argument and those that proffer it will stoop to any level in order to discredit him. As I pointed out in my series Deconstructing Social Darwinism, the political theory is incredibly inconsistent but the central tenets were formed by Herbert Spencer, not Darwin. Darwin himself largely eschewed politics and economics and felt that Spencer had misconstrued his ideas for his own political ends. However, despite how frequently this fact has been presented the erroneous argument continues to appear over and over again.
Religious fundamentalists such as Jonathan Wells or Harun Yahya (whose book blaming Darwin for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, hemorrhoids, long lines at Starbucks and other terrible evils can be seen in the image above) are well known for this line of thought. However, the latest attempt to label Darwin with this brush is Richard Weikart, an historian at California State University, Stanislaus in his article Was Darwin or Spencer the father of laissez-faire social Darwinism? in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
Weikart's argument is very poorly constructed, as you would expect of someone who works for the Intelligent Design think tank The Discovery Institute and who wrote a book blaming Darwin for Hitler's ideas on eugenics and genocide (a book so powerfully argued that it took a single blog post to refute it). Rather than point out the poor scholarship in his own article I thought it would be more illuminating to look at a case study that offers a novel way of determining whose ideas were interpreted as social Darwinian and whose were viewed as neutral science. I recently discovered such a case study in the form of a PhD dissertation by an historian of Middle Eastern science Marwa Elshakry. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Elshakry, Marwa. (2003) Darwin's Legacy in the Arab East: Science, Religion and Politics, 1870-1914. Princeton University D.Phil. Thesis. info:/
- October 11, 2009
- 06:00 AM
- 1,329 views
Does Taking Birth Control Alter Women's Sexual Choices?
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
In the classic film Casablanca, the drama hinges on Ilsa's choice between two men: her kind and supportive husband or her rugged and passionate ex-lover. In a moment of abandon, Ilsa returns to her lover's arms only to later change her mind and choose the more stable life she would have with her long-term partner. But what if something as simple as a pill had caused Ilsa to feel differently and make the opposite choice?
In a new paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution biologists Alexandra Alvergne and Virpi Lummaa at the University of Sheffield in England raise the possibility that taking the birth control pill could affect a woman's choice of who she chooses to have sex with as well as her choice of a long-term partner. Could modern reproductive technology cause women in Ilsa's position to make a choice they might later regret? Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Alvergne, A., & Lummaa, V. (2009) Does the contraceptive pill alter mate choice in humans?. Trends in Ecology . DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2009.08.003
- October 15, 2009
- 09:33 AM
- 1,283 views
Science Got Ardi Wrong or: The Enigma of Ardipithecus
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
There may need to be a significant revision in the recent description of one of humanity's oldest ancestors. Ardipithecus ramidus (or "Ardi" for short), the 4.4 million year old hominid fossil discovery, has been a godsend to paleoanthropologists (pun intended). But one of the key researchers has made what could be a serious error in his interpretation.
Christopher Ryan, who writes for Psychology Today at his blog Sex at Dawn (also the title of his forthcoming book) has discovered evidence that could undermine Owen Lovejoy's argument about human sexual evolution ever since Ardi:
In a nutshell, Lovejoy argues that the evidence he and his colleagues presented indicates an absence of sperm competition in the human line and shows male provisioning of females that eventually led to the modern nuclear family. Simple enough. But to make this all-too-familiar argument, Lovejoy misleads, misunderstands, and mis-states his own findings to the point where, if this were a graduate-school paper, his professor would demand a re-write. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Lovejoy, C. (2009) Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus. Science, 326(5949), 74-74. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175834
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