natural selection Archives

A four-model approach to understanding our evolutionary psychology

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Our psychology evolved in hunter-gatherer societies before the end of the last ice age.

Dr James Walter, Emeritus Adjunct Professor at Loyola University Chicago, USA, summarises research in evolutionary psychology focused on the natural selection effects of negative social behaviors that occurred in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic Ages. To this aim, four main factors are considered: natural selection, comparisons with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, the social behaviors of modern hunter-gatherer societies, […]

Developing our nature: When and how human aggression and other psychological traits evolved

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Dr James Walter, Emeritus Adjunctive Professor at Loyola University Chicago, USA, and PhD student Aasma Khan summarise research conducted by Professor Richard Wrangham and peers on the evolution of human aggression and other psychological traits. Two approaches are used: comparing aggression in different species, and investigating hunter-gatherer cultures. Walter and Khan outline the relationship between aggression and language evolution and […]

Rethinking the Tree of Life with new tools

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Dr Sung-Hou Kim has applied a new way of thinking to an old model, the Tree of Life, which dates back to Darwin.

Professor Sung-Hou Kim and his colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, have applied a new way of thinking to the Tree of Life, a concept that has been around since Darwin’s time. Drawing from their collective expertise, they applied an Information Theory-based non-alignment method to compare whole-proteome sequences, the protein sequences coded by all genes of each organism. Their […]

A butterfly’s point of view: Contest or sex recognition?

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For many years it was thought that when butterflies chase other males, this is a form of contest behaviour over territory. However, Dr Tsuyoshi Takeuchi from Osaka Prefecture University and his team sought to interrogate the literature to see if a more simple and more likely option could be provided. Their ‘Erroneous Courtship Model’ states that the male butterflies are […]