Arvid Ågren

We are happy to announce that the Internal Conflicts and Organismal Adaptation STN has funding available to support several small travel grants for early-career researchers to enable them to visit another laboratory. What is this for? This funding is intended to enable early-career researchers – PhD students, postdocs, and junior research fellows – to visit another laboratory. In so doing, they can learn a new method or approach and/or initiate novel collaborations in the form of manuscripts, grants, or fellowship proposals. We envision that these visits are short stays (a week up to a month) but longer stays are also permitted. Who can apply? Early-career researchers, i.e. PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and up to junior research fellows (i.e., those in tenure-track positions but not tenured yet). Priority will be given to ESEB members and to trips that reflect novel collaborations (i.e., between people who have not previously collaborated, defined by co-authorship). ESEB membership is cheap (€40 annually, €20 for students) and discounts are available for residents of low to upper-middle economy countries (see ESEB website for details). Membership also comes with additional benefits such as reduced fees for conference attendance. What can be requested? Applicants can request funding to support a short research visit at another institution. The maximum amount of support that can be requested is €1.000, to be used for travel and accommodation. The provided funding cannot be used to cover research costs, wages, and/or stipends. ESEB policy states that we should minimize the environmental impact of e.g. travel; therefore, we will only support travel by airplane if the distance travelled exceeds 500 km and the travel time with alternative forms of transport would be more than 6 hours. How to apply: Download the application form and fill it out. Obtain two short letters of support, one from your supervisor/line manager and one from the host research group explai…

Are you an early career researcher who want to visit another lab to collaborate on a project on internal conflicts?

Apply for our ECR Research Visit Grant!

Deadline is April 30.

We are happy to announce that the Internal Conflicts and Organismal Adaptation STN has funding available to support several small travel grants for early-career researchers to enable them to visit another laboratory. What is this for? This funding is intended to enable early-career researchers – PhD students, postdocs, and junior research fellows – to visit another laboratory. In so doing, they can learn a new method or approach and/or initiate novel collaborations in the form of manuscripts, grants, or fellowship proposals. We envision that these visits are short stays (a week up to a month) but longer stays are also permitted. Who can apply? Early-career researchers, i.e. PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and up to junior research fellows (i.e., those in tenure-track positions but not tenured yet). Priority will be given to ESEB members and to trips that reflect novel collaborations (i.e., between people who have not previously collaborated, defined by co-authorship). ESEB membership is cheap (€40 annually, €20 for students) and discounts are available for residents of low to upper-middle economy countries (see ESEB website for details). Membership also comes with additional benefits such as reduced fees for conference attendance. What can be requested? Applicants can request funding to support a short research visit at another institution. The maximum amount of support that can be requested is €1.000, to be used for travel and accommodation. The provided funding cannot be used to cover research costs, wages, and/or stipends. ESEB policy states that we should minimize the environmental impact of e.g. travel; therefore, we will only support travel by airplane if the distance travelled exceeds 500 km and the travel time with alternative forms of transport would be more than 6 hours. How to apply: Download the application form and fill it out. Obtain two short letters of support, one from your supervisor/line manager and one from the host research group explai…

Are you an early career researcher who want to visit another lab to collaborate on a project on internal conflicts?

Apply for our ECR Research Visit Grant!

Deadline is April 30.

Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Is a ‘selfish gene’ making a Utah family have twice as many boys as girls? Genealogy study claims first conclusive case of sex ‘distortion’ in humans — but not all researchers are convinced.

Nature News on the tantalising possibility of the first documented sex-ratio distorter in humans.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

pp. 477-478 in Watching

Morris was no football man.

Yet in 1977 he became director of Oxford United.

He worked hard to understand this new culture, including by joining the drinking games.

Yeah. Reading the foreword itself it’s not obvious that Mourinho actually read the book.

The answer is Desmond Morris, whose The Soccer Tribe has had a (rather tame) foreword by José Mourinho added to it.

Thursday trivia:

Which evolutionary biologist has written a book with a foreword by José Mourinho?

Wonderful!

It's really full of gems

I know! I was surprised by that part too.

In their defence, Lewontin had never heard of Tinbergen's four questions.

davidsloanwilson.world/online-conte...

From his wonderful “A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford 1900-1960” (2023, p. xv)

“These sorts of things are entirely and eminently effable. And I should be very grateful if you’d try to eff a few of them for your essay next week.”

Nikhil Krishnan encounters Oxford philosophy for the fist time.

As always, if you're interested in reviewing a book for BioScience, please reach out!

There Is Grandeur in the Math of Life In the preface to The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, a foundational text of population genetics, Fisher (1930) speculated about differences between

Another great book review in BioScience.

This time by Nick Bailey who discusses Noah Rosenberg's"Mathematical Properties of Population-Genetic Statistics: Quadratic Forms Most Beautiful" from @princetonupress.bsky.social.

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

From:

Cohen MP. 2022. George C. Williams and Evolutionary Literacy. Palgrave MacMillan, p. 8

George Williams in 1962.

Agreed. When you’re baking a cake, you’re allowed to pick the best cherries.

Yeah I wonder how thought out it is.

He was very taken by Popper as a grad student, for example

Me too! Feels like the perfect person for it.

Could be.

In The Extended Phenotype he also describes papers no genetic conflicts as having the ’flavour of post-revolutionary science’ in that they assume, but not explicitly state, a gene’s-eye view of evolution.

Join us tomorrow for an evolutionary medicine special of internal conflicts!

In this book Dawkins attempts to present an exposition of evolutionary theory which is ac- cessible and appealing to the general public on the one hand and painstakingly rigorous and en- lightening to the genetical expert on the other. If evolution in natural populations followed the paradigm developed by R. A. Fisher, he might have succeeded.

Yeah quite the zinger. But the review is so short that you can't really use it for much.

Others are better to introduce debates like what-is-a-gene (Stent), adaptationism (Lewontin), or metaphors (Midgley).

I also like Mike Wade's in Evolution (attached) for the Fisher vs Wright connection.

It's an interesting thread by @philipcball.bsky.social.

Also check out @monoclemind.bsky.social's great point about sub-field competition within biology, and the role in plays in debates like this
bsky.app/profile/mono...

In the genre of critical reviews of The Selfish Gene, the most underrated may be Stent’s.

Much attention goes to Lewontin’s Nature review and to Midgley’s long critique (which wasn't, in fact, a traditional book review, but a reply to J. L. Mackie).

Dawkins later responded in the same journal.

Now nicely formatted!

Going through old issues of Nature, it often reads more like a local newspaper than a scientific journal.

From the February 18 1972 issue.

#1. Richard Dawkins & Rowan Williams - God vs Science. What is behind the poetry of reality? Podcast Episode · Uncommon Ground with Justin Brierley · 02/10/2026 · 1h 49m

Dan Dennett said that you should re-express your opponent’s view so fairly that they say “Thanks, I wish I’d put it that way.”

Few embody that spirit better than the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Here in conversation with Richard Dawkins.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/u...