“When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal”

CITATION:
Zalasiewicz, J., et al., 2015. Quaternary International, 383, pp. 196-203.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
We evaluate the boundary of the Anthropocene geological time interval as an epoch, since it is useful to have a consistent temporal definition for this increasingly used unit, whether the presently informal term is eventually formalized or not. Continue reading

“From hominins to humans: how sapiens became behaviourally modern”

CITATION:
K. Sterelny. 2011. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, vol. 366, pp. 809–822.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This paper contributes to a debate in the palaeoarchaeological community about the major time-lag between the origin of anatomically modern humans and the appearance of Continue reading

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”

CITATION:
K. Sterelny. 2014. Biological Theory, vol. 9, pp 65-77.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Within paleoanthropology, the origin of behavioral modernity is a famous problem. Very large-brained hominins have lived for around half a million years, yet social lives resembling those known from the ethnographic record appeared perhaps 100,000 years ago. Why did it take 400,000 years for humans to start acting like humans? Continue reading

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”

CITATION:
E. Danchin et al. 2011. Nature Reviews Genetics, vol. 12, pp. 475-486.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Many biologists are calling for an ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ that would ‘modernize the modern synthesis’ of evolution. Biological information is typically considered as being transmitted across generations by the DNA sequence alone, but accumulating evidence indicates that Continue reading

“The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System”

CITATION:
P. Falkowski et al. 2000. Science, vol. 290, pp. 291-296.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Motivated by the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 due to human activities since the Industrial Revolution, several international scientific research programs have analyzed the role of Continue reading

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”

CITATION:
Steven Pinker. 2010. PNAS, vol. 107, suppl. 2, pp. 8993–8999.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Although Darwin insisted that human intelligence could be fully explained by the theory of evolution, the codiscoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that abstract intelligence was of no use to ancestral humans and could only be explained by Continue reading

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”

CITATION:
D. E. McNamara et al. 2015. The Leading Edge, June 2015, pp. 628-639.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
The sharp increase in seismicity over a broad region of central Oklahoma has raised concerns regarding the source of the activity and its potential hazard to local communities and energy-industry infrastructure. Efforts to Continue reading

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

“Early warning of climate tipping points”

CITATION:
Timothy M. Lenton. 2011. Nature Climate Change 1, pp. 201-209.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
A climate ‘tipping point’ occurs when a small change in forcing triggers a strongly nonlinear response in the internal dynamics of part of the climate system, qualitatively changing its future state. Human-induced climate change could Continue reading

“Species-specific responses of Late Quartenary megafauna to climate and humans”

CITATION:
E.D. Lorenzen, et al. 2011. Nature 479, pp. 359–364.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Despite decades of research, the roles of climate and humans in driving the dramatic extinctions of large-bodied mammals during the Late Quaternary period remain contentious. Here we use ancient DNA, species distribution models and the human fossil record to Continue reading

“Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought”

CITATION:
Colin P. Kelly et al. 2015. PNAS, Vol. 112, No. 11, pp. 3241-326.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to Continue reading