Although scientists do not know whether humans and chimps inherited their capacity for lethal aggression from a common ancestor or whether it arose in both species through convergent evolution, “lethal aggression is related to power asymmetries where members of one group can kill others with low cost. >>Read More

A number of battles have played out at the state level: Indiana, for example, recently tried and failed to join Tennessee, Louisiana and Kentucky in passing a law challenging evolution; other states have passed resolutions slamming the scientific consensus on climate change. >>Read More

A new study, employing a database of 20,000 twins from various countries, populations and periods, has confirmed and elaborated on those findings. It announced what it called “definitive evidence that genetic heritability has some role in the formation of political ideology,” >>Read More

Why in the American system were the people who opposed the death penalty almost always the ones who believed that rich people should pay more in taxes? Why are those concerned with Net neutrality the same people obsessed with local produce? >>Read More

Social Darwinism emerged as a movement in the late 19th-century, and has had waves of popularity ever since, but its central ideas owe more to the thought of a luminary of that time, Herbert Spencer, whose writings are (to understate) no longer widely read. >>Read More

The human mind is tuned for signs of people operating together as a team. So we say things like "Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons" or "Iran deserves to be annihilated." In fact, according to this paper, the more we see people as part of a coherent group, the more harshly we judge their actions. >>Read More

Knowing how to send and interpret signals is an essential part of both diplomacy and war. Political scientists have recognized that costly signals – gestures and actions that involve significant cost or risk – are central to politics and diplomacy since modeling doyen James Fearon built his Ph.D. thesis around the concept in the 1990s. >>Read More