“From hominins to humans: how sapiens became behaviourally modern”
Hypothesized Hope
THIS POST IS PART OF OUR ANTHROPOCENE BIOSPHERE PROJECT–A SERIES OF POSTS ON ERLE ELLIS’ ‘ECOLOGY IN AN ANTHROPOGENIC BIOSPHERE‘ (ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS, 85/3 (2015))
In preparation for Erle Ellis’ visit to OU’s campus in April, I’ve spent some time considering topics I hope we can address during his visit. Continue reading
“A Paleolithic Reciprocation Crisis: Symbols, Signals, and Norms”
Rethinking conservation in the Anthropocene
THIS POST IS PART OF OUR ANTHROPOCENE BIOSPHERE PROJECT–A SERIES OF POSTS ON ERLE ELLIS’ ‘ECOLOGY IN AN ANTHROPOGENIC BIOSPHERE‘ (ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS, 85/3 (2015))
We know that humans are a dominant force shaping the planet, but there’s a debate over whether this really constitutes a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene. For now, let’s leave this debate aside and focus on a practical question: Continue reading
“Beyond DNA: integrating inclusive inheritance into an extended theory of evolution”
“The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System”
Setting conservation priorities and moving species in a complicated Anthropocene
THIS POST IS PART OF OUR ANTHROPOCENE BIOSPHERE PROJECT–A SERIES OF POSTS ON ERLE ELLIS’ ‘ECOLOGY IN AN ANTHROPOGENIC BIOSPHERE‘ (ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS, 85/3 (2015))
The anthropogenic biosphere calls for a new perspective on preserving nature. In his paper for the centennial of the Ecological Society of America, Erle Ellis argues that in order to sustain humanity, we will need to Continue reading
“The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language”
The effect of humans on the landscape in Oklahoma: Where is the water? And the effect of spatial data resolution
THIS POST IS PART OF OUR ANTHROPOCENE BIOSPHERE PROJECT–A SERIES OF POSTS ON ERLE ELLIS’ ‘ECOLOGY IN AN ANTHROPOGENIC BIOSPHERE‘ (ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS, 85/3 (2015))
Ellis (2015) discusses in detail the idea that to be able to understand long-term ecological patterns and processes it is now necessary to understand human sociocultural processes first. To visualize the direct influence of Continue reading
The Anthropocene Biosphere
I’m excited to announce a special project on the blog—a semester-long discussion of Erle Ellis’ 2015 paper ‘Ecology in an Anthropogenic Biosphere’ (Ecological Monographs, 85: 287–331. doi:10.1890/14-2274.1 ). In this paper Ellis proposes Continue reading
“Efforts to monitor and characterize the recent increasing seismicity in central Oklahoma”
Environmental Under-determinism, Part 2
In my post last week I voiced the concern that rejecting the dualist separation between nature and society might lead to an implausible environmental determinism. To put it reductively, if nature and society are not two separate things, but only one thing with two separate names, it seems as if Continue reading
Environmental Under-determinism, Part 1
A few weeks ago I mentioned my interest in what I think of as “environmental under-determinism;” in this post I’ll explore the idea a bit further. It is an attempt to frame a broad understanding of the relationship between human societies and their environmental settings. In this post I will suggest a motivation for this understanding: Continue reading
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