Blog

Category: Evolution

  • Leapfrogging Towards A Better World

    One concern that people who care about the environment typically have is that developed nations tend to create massive harm to the planet and life on it. That concern is often hard to argue with. A valid concern has led some — let us call them the shitty wing of environmentalism represented by Paul Ehrlich…

  • Working In the Doughnut

    Kate Raworth has a popular book on sustainability and economics. In it, she argues that economics needs an overhaul. It is an admirably ambitious book with some flaws but with excellent parts to more than makeup for them. What does Raworth say about working in the doughnut? How To Understand Working In the Doughnut Raworth…

  • Signaling And Selection

    As I have discussed before there seems a lot to learn about social interactions, and that includes markets, from biology. Scientists in that area have long thought about problems that concern markets. For example, how can selection work to change a population? Or how can you interpret messages when those sending the messages have an…

  • In Praise Of Redundant Capacity

    I think evolutionary thinking has a lot to offer strategic discussions. We shouldn’t be too simple and expect perfect matchings from biology. Still, good ideas can carry over neatly to give things to consider. Here I examine a piece in the Harvard Business Review that looks at firm strategy in unpredictable times. I want to…

  • Signaling And Education

    Why do people pursue academic courses that in no way set them up with the skills needed for their future careers? One obvious answer might be because they enjoy the topic they study. Education is a good thing in itself. I’m all for that. Yet, that seems to be far from a complete explanation. Maybe…

  • Adaptive Market Hypothesis: Evolution And Financial Markets

    Andrew Lo has a number of interesting works attempting to link evolutionary thinking and financial markets. See here for his 2006 piece in the Harvard Business Review, entitled Survival of the Richest. Lo shows how evolutionary thinking can be applied to financial markets and explains the idea of the Adaptive Market Hypothesis. Irrationality And Financial…

  • Weird Versus Non-WEIRD

    Joe Henrich’s book on the WEIRDest people in the world is ambitious and packed with ideas and data. To be honest it isn’t my sort of thing but you have to admire what he has done. He is looking at the psychology of weird versus non-weird people. Weird being western, educated, industrialized, rich & democratic.…

  • Progress Exists And Is A Good Thing

    Matt Ridley is an interesting writer. A popular science/ideas writer he gives you his thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. I do admire his willingness to adopt an overarching narrative. To be honest, at times it can seem a bit too much for my tastes. His libertarian-esque views tend to see him damning a…

  • Virtue Signaling And Balancing Reasonable Perspectives

    Geoffrey Miller‘s Virtue Signaling is a compilation of some of his work. All pieces are relatively popular and accessible. In addition to sexual selection this tackles problems related to virtue signaling and balancing reasonable perspectives in speech. The Coddling of the American Mind was a clearly written thesis. Miller’s book is a little different to…

  • The Problem Of Understanding Others

    A second post on Gad Saad’s, The Parasitic Mind. I’m not sure this was his central aim but he did make me think about the problem of understanding others. Is Society Really Collapsing? I really wanted to know why he thinks society is collapsing. I have never known why people think this. It is not…

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