Tim Waring

I’ve got an idea! Let’s prevent intelligent young people from building lives of curiosity. That will surely help our ability to innovate as a nation.

We also looked at the relationship between behaviors and identified 3 distinct strategies, with maximization being the most popular strategy early on. Interestingly, this bottom-up approach also seemed to capture the underlying subsistence structure, which we recover quite nicely here. (4/5)

I took a quiz on the solar system in second grade. What does the moon orbit? The earth. What does the earth orbit? The sun. Does the sun orbit anything. Yes, I wrote knowing it orbits the galactic center. I got the question wrong. That was some injustice right there.

New paper with @jordantkemp.bsky.social and Luis Bettencourt is now on arXiv: “Spatial Selection and the Multiscale Dynamics of Urban Change”. We use the Price equation and Chicago data to show how fine-scale spatial sorting shapes macro growth trends. Read it here: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.06165

IC2S2 2026 registration is open!
Explore the 2026 conference here ➡️ ic2s2-2026.org

✔️ Submissions open December 15th
✔️ Keynotes will be announced between now and February
✔️ Full program of selected talks and tutorials will be available in late April

The Importance of Biological Theory - Biological Theory Biological Theory -

I am happy to share this article, entitled "The importance of Biological Theory". It is my inaugural editorial as the new Editor-in-Chief of @biologicaltheory.bsky.social . In these complex and challenging times, theory is more important now than ever. Enjoy!

doi.org/10.1007/s137...

This results in what is commonly called Vavilovian mimicry, after Vavilov, the botanist who first proposed it. You'll also sometimes see these plants referred to as secondary crops.

Some of these mimics eventually became intentionally cultivated crops in their own right.

Looking for #culturalevolution methods advice. We will run a survey to estimate the degree and nature of #sociallearning in a local population (a US country).

Are there any standard survey instruments or social psychology scales for this?

I can find only partly relevant stuff. Please help!

@brunelcce.bsky.social @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @hcelab.bsky.social @durhamdcerc.bsky.social @ecdi.bsky.social @rmcelreath.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social @culturologies.co @masonyoungblood.bsky.social @helenamiton.bsky.social @aiyanakoka.bsky.social @michael.muthukrishna.com @alexmesoudi.com

Looking for #culturalevolution methods advice. We will run a survey to estimate the degree and nature of #sociallearning in a local population (a US country).

Are there any standard survey instruments or social psychology scales for this?

I can find only partly relevant stuff. Please help!

German soccer federation official wants World Cup boycott considered because of Trump A German soccer federation executive committee member says it’s time to consider a World Cup boycott because of the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump.

A German soccer federation executive committee member says it's time to consider a World Cup boycott because of the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Maybe Greenland could invade us instead?

Great idea.

All businesses should post this.

Deutsche Bank here with the good stuff.
Game on.

The individual isn't what it used to be Tim Waring thinks human evolution is shifting from genetic and individual to cultural and collective

This post reminds me of the Q&A I did recently with @twaring.bsky.social about an evolutionary transition in humans, though I don't recall discussing artifacts in our chat.

Would language count as an artifact? I'm thinking about oral histories etc. that passed down knowledge long before texts.

Decision-making in Structured Groups: from animal societies to human governance This collection hopes stimulate new dialogues and translational efforts, to fully capture the rich diversity of ways collectives solve complex problems in ...

Our collection on Decision-making in structured groups in npj Complexity is open and accepting manuscripts through May!

It's a broad call, covering anything from animal societies to human social systems of all sorts.

Learn more:
www.nature.com/collections/...

YouTube video by Cultural Evolution Society Transmissions Episode 2 with Dr Sarah Matthew

Excited for the new Transmissions episode on ASU's Sarah Mathew on how human warfare evolved, and her fieldwork in Kenya.

Watch here:
youtu.be/eUqEcxf5uBQ?...

New Episodes monthly! Created by @ferylbadiani.bsky.social and @ahnisnaahsi.bsky.social

CC: @arizonastateuni.bsky.social

Paper Roundup December 2025: computing billiards, an impossible atmosphere, and Roman constructions Papers on big questions at the frontiers of science, curated by hand each month

This month's paper roundup is live!

This time around we've got 2D billiards that can compute, an atmosphere that shouldn't exist, a Roman construction site, and more.

Check it out here: www.reviewertoo.com/paper-roundu... 🧪

Rep. Suozzi Confronts Deplorable Jan 6 Rioters, Minneapolis Mayor Tells ICE To ‘Get The F**k Out,’ and Rep. Kelly Leads Charge To Impeach Kristi Noem Fighting back on every front

Rep. Suozzi Confronts Deplorable Jan 6 Rioters, Minneapolis Mayor Tells ICE To “Get The F**k Out,” and Rep. Kelly Leads Charge To Impeach Kristi Noem

Some 15 years ago my colleague Parry Clarke said to me, "Dude stop complaining and write your own stats book!" So I did. It definitely changed my life, and I'm glad it has had a positive impact on others.

4.5 Degrees

Just in case you need a visual: xkcd.com/1379/

Wikipedia is truly one of the greatest things on the Internet. It is absolutely incredible, and must be preserved at all costs.

It’s like using the papyrus font for the Avatar logo.

Remember the 1920s when nobody was left-handed

I am ecstatic about the implications that large models have on the viability of generative grammar and the linguistic turn, and yet I am able to maintain a critical perspective on the tech industry. It's not that hard.

Cultural Evolution (Methods) paper alert 🚨

The Nautilus Winter Reading List 2025 The Nautilus Winter Reading List 2025: Ten books we loved to start your new year off right.

Thanks, @nautil.us for including my book Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer in your top 10 must reads to ring in the new year!

nautil.us/the-nautilus...

STbayes: An R package for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission A critical consequence of joining social groups is the possibility of social transmission of information related to novel behaviours or resources. Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) has emerg...

🎉🍾 very excited to see this out before 2025 ends doi.org/10.1111/2041... with Will Hoppitt in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. This paper is an overview of our new R package STbayes, a user-friendly toolkit for performing Bayesian NBDA analyses. @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

Different pictures of Van Dyke throughout the years

Happy 100th birthday to Dick Van Dyke!