All Posts

Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone with attractive looks, only to decide that the “chemistry” is just not there? Or, perhaps you’ve met someone with less than striking looks, only to find them irresistible? You may be surprised to learn that sexual selection operates for humans as it does with other species and, while attraction is obviously complicated, whether or not we find ourselves attracted to someone really does come down – at least in part – to chemis

Since I can remember, I have marveled at – and been occasionally stunned by – the astonishingly broadscale rejections of sound science. Even after learning about psychological constructs such as belief perseverance (hanging on to one’s beliefs even when shown evidence to the contrary) and confirmation bias (formulating a conclusion that resonates with one’s personal biases, and then looking for supporting evidence), I don’t get it. Seriously. I really don’t get it. The emerge

Reflections on science, society, and our shared humanity for Martin Luther King Jr. Day On the rare occasion when I am asked for my ID, my usual reaction is to laugh a bit while forking over my driver’s license, and sometimes I’ll throw in the comment, “I’m happy to confirm that I am wildly in excess of 21!” It seems likely at this point in my life that the majority of stuff I will learn in my lifetime has already entered my head. So, I’m surprised sometimes, when I learn som

When you hear the phrase “the scientific method,”  you may picture a tidy flowchart taped to a lab bench: observation → hypothesis → experiment → conclusion → instant truth. If science actually worked like that, scientists would be out of a job by lunch. In reality, science is not a recipe – it’s more like cooking while the stove is on fire and someone keeps yelling, “Are you sure that’s what you meant to test?”  Science is a body of knowledge, and as anyone who has ever take

We humans are pretty egocentric animals, and we like to pat ourselves on our backs regularly for being such remarkable creatures. Some would say that we are special by virtue of our creation by an omnipotent being – but, our origins is a topic best left for another day. No matter what, we really are just animals though, a fact that I am reminded of virtually every day by observations of human attributes (behavioral posturing and tribalism, scores of physical faults and quirks

So, a naturalist, a field biologist, and an ecologist walk into a bar… When I was a boy, we lived in a small town in Kansas at a time when we could roam around the neighborhood freely (well, within some limits: my parents wanted to know generally where we were) and play outdoor games such as “kick the can” and “stickball.” Often, we would spend time on the grade school playground and if enough kids showed up, we’d play “workup.” I’m aware that such comments put me squarely in