Chimpanzee culture has been well studied for several decades now. However, studies of great ape culture and cultural variation have just begun. This early research produced interesting results with implications for our evolutionary history.
Read MoreThe Real Culture Wars
When we think of culture, we tend to think about material products of human civilization and/or variation of traditions, rituals, and beliefs between different human populations. And of course, these are products of human culture. But does culture distinguish humans from all other animals? Are any other animals cultural? If so, what makes humans so different?
Read MoreThe Importance of Evolutionary Anthropology
As an evolutionary anthropologist, I am constantly confronted with the public perception that anthropology has no practical utility. Throughout America and Canada, there is a disturbingly negative perception of anthropological inquiry. However, the perspective that anthropology has no practical utility is ill informed, narrow-minded, and dangerous for the future growth of the global economy, as well as various aspects of social development.
Read MoreThinking About "The Long Now"
Does our society have a short attention span? The Long Now Foundation thinks so, but they are trying to change it. They have plans to construct The Clock of the Long Now, a clock designed to operate on a scale of 10,000 years. The Long Now Foundation hopes that this construction will become an iconic symbol that becomes embedded in popular consciousness, making long-term thinking more automatic and common.
Read MoreWhat Is Happiness?
What is happiness? Academically, the concept of happiness has confused me for several years now. So over the past few months I have been familiarizing myself with the “happiness literature” to attempt to find out what scientists know about what makes us happy, and why.
Read MoreGlobal Religiosity
A recent global religiosity and atheism survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center. The results indicate that overall religious belief is declining and atheism is growing. However, most humans on the planet still adhere to a religion and that belief seems to be dependent on a number of predictable variables.
Read MoreWelcome to the South
During a research trip in the south I encountered a culture I had read and heard about, but had never directly experienced. As a result I did experience a degree of culture shock. Throughout the experience I spoke with a few different people about some sensitive issues and had to encounter my own bias regarding many culturally sensitive issues.
Read MoreThe Decline of Violence
Steven Pinker is a world-renowned psychologist and cognitive scientist. In The Better Angels of Our Nature Pinker explores the history of human violence to attempt to understand if we have become more or less violent. He approaches this topic from a multi-disciplinary perspective incorporating data from history, anthropology, biology, psychology, and more. His conclusions are surprising and have deep implications for the future of our species.
Read MoreThe 'Othering' Process
It is a natural tendency for humans to 'other' i.e. to believe that the group (race, religion, ethnicity, culture, gender, country, sexual orientation, species etc.) that they are a part of is inherently the ‘right’ way to be human or to exist. For important evolutionary reasons this tendency is still ubiquitous today. However, it is also the root cause of violence, wars, discrimination and marginalization. Is there someway to stop ourselves from othering either consciously or subconsciously? Or will we have to deal with this part of our psychology forever?
Read MoreA Historically Contingent Discrimination
Over the past few decades western society has made great strides to eradicate discriminatory practices and policies directed towards non-heterosexuals. However, we have to understand why this was even necessary in the first place. Why did people throughout the western world discriminate against non-heterosexuals? Is it inherently human to discriminate against those who are different? Or is this behaviour culturally dependent? Understanding the answers to these questions can better contextualize the currently LGBT rights movement.
Read MoreSharing a Divided World
During my undergraduate career I was fully immersed in a four-field approach to anthropological learning. During this experience I found that there is severe division between the four fields that is detrimental to the subject as a whole. In the future anthropologists need to be open to greater collaboration and integration. That will make anthropological undergraduate training less confusing and foster more collaboration at all levels of academia.
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