Completing Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: A TVOL conversation with Kevin Laland

by David Sloan Wilson & Kevin N Laland

These are exciting times for the study of cultural evolution, with important books appearing regularly. One of these is Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind, by Kevin N Laland, which won the British Psychological Society’s prize for the best academic book of 2017. Kevin has been featured several times on TVOL as a leading

The philosophy of social evolution

by Jonathan Birch

To coincide with the publication of his latest book, The Philosophy of Social Evolution, philosopher Jonathan Birch is this week’s guest blogger on The Brains Blog. Read his series of posts below. Part 1. Altruism in nature Part 2. Relatedness and altruism Part 3. Relatedness, time and bacteria Part 4. The social organism

What functional ectopic compound eyes can teach us about the role of context in development and evolution

by Eduardo Zattara & Armin Moczek

Organisms are mosaics of diverse traits. Some of these, such as eyes, limbs, or light producing organs, attain a remarkable level of complexity: each is comprised of a large number of component parts that relate to each other through often intricate and precise interactions, most if not all of these being required for the trait