Adrian Viliami Bell

We're hiring a TT Assistant/Associate Prof in evo/bio anthropology! Seeking applicants w/ research programs that focus on living people, who can contribute to grad education in biological, medical, evolutionary, or cultural evolutionary anth. Please share! buff.ly/489MeCu

Research from our very own Dr. Sara Grineski, School of Environment, Society, & Sustainability, explores the impact of airborne dust from Great Salt Lake Playa on lower income communities! attheu.utah.edu/health-medicin…

Rob Boyd and Pete Richerson have made arguably the most significant augmentation to Darwinian evolution since Mendelian genetics. They identified and modelled a second stream of inheritance that's shaped our species: culture. I was surprised to learn they'd never done a joint interview before. Was an honour to be able to bring them together in San Francisco last week. Topics in the timestamps below. Links in the tweet below. Enjoy! Timestamps: (0:00:49) - How likely is it that cumulative cultural evolution actually began with australopithecines? (0:20:26) - By when was cumulative cultural evolution achieved among Homo? (0:23:31) - Rob and Pete explain (1) cultural evolution, (2) cumulative cultural evolution, and (3) gene-culture coevolution. (0:31:57) - "Culture, not natural selection, has been the main force shaping human genetic evolution for the last 1-2 million years." How do we know this? (0:37:00) - Examples of gene-culture coevolution. (0:43:05) - The chaotic climate of the Pleistocene (2.6 million - 11,700 years ago). (0:48:26) - How did Pete and Rob discover the climate was so variable in the Pleistocene? (0:51:51) - Culture was an adaptation to Pleistocene climate variation. (0:58:52) - How Pete and Rob came up with their explanation for how cultural brains evolved (an adaptation to climate variation). (1:02:16) - Increasing climate variation may actually have been driving brain size increases on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. (1:08:14) - Earth's climate variation was probably driven by its orbital perturbations, caused by Jupiter's gravitational pull. (1:13:34) - How contingent was the evolution of cultural brains? (1:22:46) - Has human brain size been shrinking over the last 10,000 years? (1:27:50) - Will technologies that obviate natural birth mean that human brain size (relieved of the constraint of the birth canal) resume their trend of large increases, or has cumulative culture reduced the selection pressure on brain size? (1:34:18) - How cultural evolution explains the fertility crisis. (1:43:19) - Which specific force of cultural evolution is the biggest cause of declining fertility? (2:02:13) - If global population peaks and then shrinks, say by mid century, how do we sustain a technologically advanced civilisation? (2:09:10) - Does Rob and Pete's understanding of how human intelligence evolved give them any unique insights into how artificial intelligence might be grown? (2:14:57) - How do Rob and Pete think about their partnership, and what makes scientific dyads so productive?

Registration to attend #CES2024Durham ONLINE is now live! The deadline for online attendance registration is 30th August 9 pm BST @CulturalEvolSoc @underlineio See our website for more info or register below pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/c…

Programme out!

Time is running short to register for #CES2024 Conference! Register here pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/c… by 20th July at 4pm UTC/GMT to ensure you don't miss out! See our programme below and visit our website for a refresher on our 5 awesome keynotes here! ces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk/programme/

The University of Canberra's Centre for Environmental Governance (CEG) together with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) Social Systems program are offering four scholarships for Oceania-based researchers and practitioners. Deadline is May 15th.

Recently Published: Why cultural distance can promote – or impede – group-beneficial outcomes | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core - bit.ly/49QPtPp By Bret Alexander Beheim and Adrian Viliami Bell #AcademicTwitter #Cultural_diversity #Anthropology

A new center at the U aims to elevate research about Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities. attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/n… @UUtah #pacificislanders

When should cultural distance between groups correlate – or not correlate – with parochial altruism and warfare? by @babeheim and @Adrian_V_Bell | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core - bit.ly/49QPtPp

Check out our new look CES website! 🎉 It hosts a summary of the topic, information on how to become a member, our upcoming conferences, news, grants, jobs and more: culturalevolutionsociety.org

@DavidWLawson Some of the online resources from CES might supplement topics, here are mine learn.culturalevolutionsociety.org/foundations_mo…

We are still looking for applicants for a phd position in my department working with Dr Elspeth Ready (and our whole department of methods monsters) on a quantiative ethnographic project among Inuit. See link in quote below.

@psmaldino Awesome insights here

Andrew Gelman wrote about my book. Pretty jazzed.

I'm reminded that I need to update my interactive teaching modules on cultural evolution, which may be useful to those wanting to understand some of the basic questions of the field kalia.anthro.utah.edu/module_intro/

@MusclemonkJim @psmaldino Labels used to categorize others or yourself will evolve depending on interaction patterns and signaling trade-offs, leading to a complex topology of identity labels within a heterogenous population. Courtesy of signaling theory, population dynamics, and cultural evolution.

Recruiting a graduate student to work on an ethnographic study of the dynamics of identity group affiliations. Deadline is Dec. 29th. DM me with questions! Also pls pass on if you know of good candidates, or you are one 👇 anthro.utah.edu/graduate/docto…

Studying a population that moves around? No worries, migration is my jam ⤵️ doi.org/10.1002/evan.2…

@psmaldino @UCMCogSci Alongside this postdoc position is a fully-funded PhD graduate student position to empirically study complex social identities and associated signaling strategies. Reach out to me with questions about graduate study at the University of Utah!