Rebecca Sear

We're pleased to announce the call for the 2026 Richerson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research, for a recent PhD dissertation that significantly contributes to the field of CE.

Recipients receive a $300 award, a 3-yr CES membership and CES conference registration.

forms.gle/p4MqcskCs2Yz...

Thank you, Anna!

My Beautiful Bullshitty Baby:

Episode 2 of our blog series on methods renovations. Diving into my Science and Critical Thinking module - layout, rationale, & the first few weeks.

willgervais.com/blog/2026/2/...

Read! Share! Tell us what you think!
#psychscisky 🧪 #philsci #methodology #teaching

Applications for the 2026 New Investigator Award are open!

This award recognises outstanding ECR scholars who have contributed to the field of cultural evolution. The recipient is given the opportunity to give a plenary at a CES conference.

Apply here until March 25: forms.gle/GycUhdFj7q6U...

UK to invoke ‘emergency brake’ to ban student visa applications from four countries Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan will be affected by the move

If you know your British including British colonial history, you might be a bit appalled.

"Temporary shock or lasting scar?"
By 2024 nearly all high-income countries remained below their pre-pandemic life expectancy trends. We identify four distinct mortality shock patterns since 2020. Full analysis in our preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Declining fertility in Europe: Why Turkey is leading the drop Turkey’s total fertility rate fell from 2.11 to 1.51 between 2013 and 2023. Beyond long-term structural and cultural changes, experts point to economic instability and institutional constraints as key...

I contributed to a @euronews.com article by @servetyanatma.bsky.social exploring the fertility decline Turkey has been experiencing and why the story behind it is more complex than it seems.

www.euronews.com/health/2026/...

Happening today! The link to attend has just been emailed out to all who had signed up - if you've not received it please check your spam/ junk filter

New estimates of education-specific fertility show significant variation across 36 Sub-Saharan countries, with divergent fertility trends. The new flexible model demonstrates differences between UN and Demographic and Health Surveys data. www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...

Can we all just agree that if your evolutionary theory of humans posits we all evolved to have the social values of 1950s American it’s probably wrong? Thanks.

Paperback cover of Father Time: How Nurturing Is Natural for Men by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

Now in #paperback, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's Father Time is a sweeping account of male nurturing, explaining how and why men are biologically transformed when they care for babies.

Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

#Evolution #Biology #Anthropology

Erasing critical scholarship: How attacks on academic freedom undermine democracy - Susanne Täuber, 2026 Building on a number of case studies, this essay examines the role of university management for ensuring academic freedom in the European context. The emerging ...

"academic freedom is granted to those who do not need its protection. At the same time, academics who challenge, criticize and debate power differentials and inequality practices are increasingly being silenced, deprived of their livelihoods and intellectually erased from public discourse"

Calories don't count on Saints' Days 😉

Come work with us! And get in touch with any questions you might have about the position, our labs or living/working in Germany #PostdocWanted

Fertility postponement is not a universal correlate of fertility decline - N-IUSSP Worldwide, the path leading to delayed fertility is more complex than it may appear at first sight. Thomas Spoorenberg and Vegard Skirbekk offer a few keys to better interpret current ... Read more

"Remarkably, South-Eastern Asia shows stable timing patterns despite total fertility declining from well above replacement in 1950 to below replacement today" www.niussp.org/fertility-an...

Problematizing Reproduction: A Feminist Critique of China’s Population Policy Shift Abstract. This study employs a poststructuralist discourse analysis to examine how China’s three-child policy redefines reproduction as a political and mor

"findings reveal a shift from coercive control to moralized persuasion, illustrating how the state continues to govern women’s bodies as instruments of national rejuvenation" doi.org/10.1093/sp/j...

Theory What is a cognitive scientific theory?

some resources for cognitive scientists — especially for junior scholars who ask me wonderful questions and want to learn more — on theorising and metatheorising olivia.science/theory/ (not 100% finished & more to come, but all my work is freely available here: olivia.science#publications as usual)

The power of powerful others: health locus of control and vaccination behavior in rural Namibian pastoralists - BMC Global and Public Health Background Who we believe controls our health, whether it is ourselves, chance, or powerful others, shapes how we make healthcare decisions. The health locus of control (HLC) framework has been key to...

New paper examining the health locus of control concept on vaccine beliefs in NW Namibia. We find that external HLC dominates, but market integration shifts beliefs towards internal HLC, and internal HLC associated with lower interest in vaccination and lower perceptions of vaccine safety.

Happy #StDavidsDay from Wales, where my mum’s local pub is serving St David’s Day trifle (in the colours of the Welsh flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 with welshcakes) 😋

DEADLINE EXTENSION 🤩

In case you need of some time to finish up your application for a Student or Early Career Researcher Grant, we are happy to announce that we are extending the time for submission until MARCH 7th!

Use this time to polish your application, and good luck!

More information 👇

And yes that matters in this case because the *content* of your viewpoint matters (contra the Heterodox crowd). The viewpoint "we're all superior beings & should be able to do what we like to inferiors" has very different consequences for the world than "everyone should have equal chance to succeed"

Epstein, eugenics, and the far right Long after race science fell into public disgrace, Epstein was working to revive its core assumptions – and connecting biological hierarchy to far-right politics. As Dr Annabel Sowemimo uncovers...

On Epstein's "ecosystem of influence", among whose members there appears to be no "viewpoint diversity" at all:

"When ideas about inherited superiority are discussed in Harvard offices and at prestigious science festivals rather than fringe rallies, they acquire a dangerous sheen of credibility"

Tempted to write a paper claiming the earth is flat and try to get it published in a geology journal. It would add about as much value to scientific discourse as this piece

If you start by defining gender in biological terms, it's hardly surprising your conclusion is that gender is "biologically real". How disappointing that this was published in Human Nature 😢

"‘gender’ refers to the behavioral, psychological, and social traits that tend to differ between males and females as a result of evolved adaptations to reproductive and survival challenges faced by our ancestors"

I had an absolutely wonderful time chatting with Tanay and Jay about how our understandings of attraction and mate choice have evolved (hah!) over the last 30 years, and pitching my argument that visual experience is central to our ideas of beauty.

Thanks so much @cognitations.bsky.social

Humans by DK: 9798217139477 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Humans – who are we? Physically, Homo sapiens is unremarkable in the animal world – a hairless ape. But somehow, in combination, our characteristics make us remarkable. With our dexterity and brain....

Have just seen that "Humans: The Evolution of a Species" has been formally announced. Not yet seen the whole book, but I did the sections on Inequality; Conflict; Sociality & Food, and my promise to the reader is that the Sociality section is daringly (and very mildly) critical of Dunbar's number.

Private money cannot replace public funding of science Who should pay for American science? In the current political climate, many are looking to the private sector to compensate for cuts in public funding. At the Harvard School of Public Health—particula...

“Some have even argued that private funding is superior, maintaining that it is more flexible, less prone to groupthink, and reduces the “burden” on taxpayers. But can the private sector really replace public funding? History suggests not”

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How to change research culture with participatory workshops - Nature Human Behaviour Changing research culture begins with the kind of engaged, collaborative, critical reflection that can spark collective action. This Comment outlines how to design participatory workshops as an effect...

Changing research culture with participatory workshops. This is a nice resource for those of us who like to bring people together to address challenging issues in the field, including academic culture:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Practical Information | EHBEA2026

🏨 Important accommodation update for #EHBEA2026!

Some of our hotel deals have booking deadlines ⏳ Please check the latest details on our practical information page: www.ehbea2026.com/practical-in...

Don’t wait too long to book your room in Leiden! 🛏️🌷