Malcolm Gladwell times two...

As I've said several times before, Malcolm Gladwell is my favorite science journalist. So I was happy to discover (via Mind Hacks) that New York Magazine has published a lengthy profile of Gladwell which focuses on his upcoming book Outliers.

Also, Gladwell has a new article, entitled "The Uses of Adversity", out in the New Yorker. As usual, fascinating and highly recommended.

Evolutionary Perspectives on War

New Scientist magazine has a report on a very interesting-looking recent University of Oregon conference entitled "Evolutionary Perspectives on War: An Interdisciplinary Conference" (pdf). I must say, I'm deeply sorry to have missed it - several of the papers presented looks fascinating:

• Steve Frost ("Evidence for coalitional aggression in the hominid fossil record"),
• Steven LeBlanc ("Recent hunter-gatherer warfare as a model for our evolutionary past"),
• Samuel Bowles ("Was Warfare among Ancestral Foragers Sufficiently Common to Affect the Course of Human Evolution?"),
• Joshua Duntley ("Evolutionary psychology of war"), and
• Napoleon Chagnon ("Human conflicts and warfare in history: An evolutionary assessment").
  

Some of the most interesting bits from the New Scientist piece:

Now a new theory is emerging that challenges the prevailing view that warfare is a product of human culture and thus a relatively recent phenomenon. For the first time, anthropologists, archaeologists, primatologists, psychologists and political scientists are approaching a consensus. Not only is war as ancient as humankind, they say, but it has played an integral role in our evolution.

The theory helps explain the evolution of familiar aspects of warlike behaviour such as gang warfare. And even suggests the cooperative skills we've had to develop to be effective warriors have turned into the modern ability to work towards a common goal.

...

If group violence has been around for a long time in human society then we ought to have evolved psychological adaptations to a warlike lifestyle. Several participants presented the strongest evidence yet that males - whose larger and more muscular bodies make them better suited for fighting - have evolved a tendency towards aggression outside the group but cooperation within it. "There is something ineluctably male about coalitional aggression - men bonding with men to engage in aggression against other men," says Rose McDermott, a political scientist at Stanford University in California.

Civil rights for atheists

Some people, apparently, think that civil rights don't extend to atheist Americans. Incredible and depressing. (Click for a higher-res version).

Science is awesome

So I blogged about an unconfirmed direct picture of a planet around a sun-like star a while ago, but now it seems we have the real deal. The image is below and, as usual, Phil Plait has the details. Wow.

Skeptics' Circle #99

The 99th edition of the Skeptics' Circle is out at Ferret's Cage. Highlights: Pooflingers Anonymous on Kent Hovind's son's silliness, Greta Christina on religious faith, The Bronze Blog on the definition of woo, and Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes on yet more silliness from Answers in Genesis.

A great edition, check it out!

2008 Bad Faith Awards

The New Humanist is running a poll in its 2008 Bad Faith Award. You get to vote on who you think is the "most scurrilous enemy of reason". The contenders include Sarah Palin, Rowan Williams, Ann Coulter and Adnan Oktar (who I discussed here). I think it's a pretty close call between Oktar and Palin but I ended up voting for the latter. Go have your say...

(Via Richarddawkins.net)

Encephalon #58

The 58th edition of Encephalon is out at Highlight Health. Posts to check out: Sajid Surve at Brain Blogger on Hitler and propaganda; The Mouse Trap on religion and intelligence; Mind Hacks on psychopathy and The Neurocritic on empathy in boys with aggressive conduct disorder.

Oh, and I'm hosting the next edition - so please email your contributions to encephalon.host{at}gmail.com.

My Blogaversary

Today, November 3rd is my first blogaversary! My very first post, "Welcome...", now makes for rather odd reading - things didn't turn out how I expected at all. After starting, I soon realized that I'm powerless in the face of my wide interests, so my blog didn't become the narrowly-focused academic-fest I had envisaged. And, honestly, I think that's for the better... Anyway, I've learned a tremendous amount, had a tremendous amount of fun and, despite a few hiccups along the way, it's been a great year. Thanks to all my readers for, well, reading - I doubt I'd keep it up without at least something of an audience (small as it is)...