Gavrilets and the Role of Social Norms
Sergey Gavrilets has coauthored a recent paper in PNAS called “Collective action and the evolution of social norm internalization.” Following social norms can sometimes be costly for individuals if norms require sacrifice for the good of the group. The study sheds light on the power of norms and the origins of cooperation. Read the NIMBioS press release about the article, here.
Gavrilets on NPR
Sergey Gavrilets is co-organizing a workshop on warfare this week at NIMBioS, called “Evolutionary approaches to the understanding of decentralized warfare.“He was recently interviewed on NPR because of the workshop. Gavrilets’s research on warfare has attracted other media attention in the past, including Huffington Post, Popular Mechanics, and Nature.
His interview was featured in Tennessee Today.
Molecular Ecology Cover Article for Gavrilets
Sergey Gavrilets and collaborators have a new paper out in Molecular Ecology that made the cover of the journal. Congratulations!
“The genomic signature of parallel adaptation from shared genetic variation” Mol Ecol 23(16):3944-3956.
The abstract can be viewed at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.12720/abstract.
The Biology of Same-Sex Attraction
Sergey Gavrilets and two colleagues published a study in the Quarterly Review of Biology on the biology of same-sex attraction, that has sparked considerable coverage in both scientific and popular media. Publications and websites as diverse as Time, US News & World Report, Popular Science, Cosmos, and the New York Daily News have reported the findings.
Read the UT Quest story that summarizes the study, or read the full article (citation below).
Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development. William R. Rice, Urban Friberg and Sergey Gavrilets. The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 87, No. 4 (December 2012), pp. 343-368. Article DOI: 10.1086/668167
Gavrilets Paper in Nature Communications
Sergey Gavrilets recently had paper on “altruistic bullies” come out in Nature Communications:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140326/ncomms4526/full/ncomms4526.html
The work has been discussed in Time Magazine: “Science Proves It: Greed Is Good”
http://time.com/41680/greed-is-good-science-proves/
and in Science Daily: “Altruistic side of aggressive greed”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326092600.htm
as well as in several international venues. Congrats Sergey!
Complex Societies in PNAS
Sergey Gavrilets has a new open-access paper in PNAS, which is getting a great deal of media attention in places like Nature (links below). The paper is entitled, “War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies.”
Significance: How did human societies evolve from small groups, integrated by face-to-face cooperation, to huge anonymous societies of today? Why is there so much variation in the ability of different human populations to construct viable states? We developed a model that uses cultural evolution mechanisms to predict where and when the largest-scale complex societies should have arisen in human history. The model was simulated within a realistic landscape of the Afroeurasian landmass, and its predictions were tested against real data. Overall, the model did an excellent job predicting empirical patterns. Our results suggest a possible explanation as to why a long history of statehood is positively correlated with political stability, institutional quality, and income per capita.
Press Coverage:
| Austrian Tribune | Nature |
| The Conversation | Pacific Standard |
| El Mundo | Popular Mechanics |
| Huffington Post | Science World Report |
| Los Angeles Times | Smithsonian |
| National Monitor | Wired |
Gavrilets’ work on monogamy featured in Slate
UTK Distinguished Professor Sergey Gavrilets’ work on the evolution of monogamy, published in PNAS, has been featured in an article in the online magazine Slate. In his model, low-ranked males begin providing resources to females, who begin selecting them rather than higher-ranked males. Such behavior then becomes optimal for males higher and higher up the hierarchy.
Gavrilets’ work on monogamy featured in Slate
UTK Distinguished Professor Sergey Gavrilets’ work on the evolution of monogamy, published in PNAS, has been featured in an article in the online magazine Slate. In his model, low-ranked males begin providing resources to females, who begin selecting them rather than higher-ranked males. Such behavior then becomes optimal for males higher and higher up the hierarchy.
Evolution and Bullying
UTK Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics Sergey Gavrilets recently published a paper in PNAS on the evolutionary origins of egalitarianism. It shows why individuals may be selected for interfering in a conflict between a bully and a victim on the side of the victim.
Abstract:
The evolutionary emergence of the egalitarian syndrome is one of the most intriguing unsolved puzzles related to the origins of modern humans. Standard explanations and models for cooperation and altruism—reciprocity, kin and group selection, and punishment—are not directly applicable to the emergence of egalitarian behavior in hierarchically organized groups that characterized the social life of our ancestors. Here I study an evolutionary model of group-living individuals competing for resources and reproductive success. In the model, the differences in fighting abilities lead to the emergence of hierarchies where stronger individuals take away resources from weaker individuals and, as a result, have higher reproductive success. First, I show that the logic of within-group competition implies under rather general conditions that each individual benefits if the transfer of the resource from a weaker group member to a stronger one is prevented. This effect is especially strong in small groups. Then I demonstrate that this effect can result in the evolution of a particular, genetically controlled psychology causing individuals to interfere in a bully–victim conflict on the side of the victim. A necessary condition is a high efficiency of coalitions in conflicts against the bullies. The egalitarian drive leads to a dramatic reduction in within-group inequality. Simultaneously it creates the conditions for the emergence of inequity aversion, empathy, compassion, and egalitarian moral values via the internalization of behavioral rules imposed by natural selection. It also promotes widespread cooperation via coalition formation.
It has also garnered widespread press coverage:
Los Angeles Times: Evolution stands up to bullies
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-stop-bullying-20120813,0,7921942.story?track=rss
Health: Fight the Power: Standing Up to Bullies Benefits Us All
http://news.health.com/2012/08/13/standing-up-to-bullies-benefits-society-study-suggests/
Knoxville New Sentinel: Science and bullying: Why we are programmed to help others
Tennessee Today: UT, NIMBioS Study Finds Bullies Squelched When Bystanders Intervene
http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2012/08/13/ut-nimbios-study-bullies-squelched/
Decoded Science "Egalitarian Drives as a Response to Bullying"
https://evolution-institute.org/egalitarian-drives-as-a-response-to-bullying/
Discover Magazine: Against the Übermensch
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/08/against-the-ubermensch/
Examiner.com: Bullying intervention is genetically evolutionary 'right thing to do’
http://www.examiner.com/article/bullying-intervention-is-genetically-evolutionary-right-thing-to-do
United Press International: Fighting bullies pushed evolution
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/08/14/Study-Fighting-bullies-pushed-evolution/UPI-73181344980881/?spt=hs&or=sn
Piteå-Tidningen (Sweden): Thus arose the sense of equality
French Tribune: Standing against Bullying is in Genes
Folha de S. Paulo (Brasil): O altruísmo egoísta
http://teoriadetudo.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2012/08/14/o-altruismo-egoista/
Korea Herald: Fighting bullies pushed evolution
http://view.koreaherald.com/kh/view.php?ud=20120815000175&cpv=0
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http://www.ria.ru/science/20120813/722911416.htm
bigmir.net (Ukrain): ??????? ?????????????? ????????? ? ???????? ? ???? ???????? – ?????????
http://techno.bigmir.net/discovery/1523403-Chyvstvo-spravedlivosti-razvilos-y-cheloveka-v-hode-evolucii—matematik
http://techno.bigmir.net/discovery/1523403-Chyvstvo-spravedlivosti-razvilos-y-cheloveka-v-hode-evolucii—matematik