Bhavya Chowdhury Number of words: 441 Legend has it that, one day in a pub in Bloomsbury in 1955, a lively conversation with Haldane over a few pints turned to the serious subject of the lengths that one would go to save another’s life. Would, for example, Haldane risk his life to save a drowning man? Haldane, … Read more
Number of words: 284 Natural selection can act on human culture as well as on genes. Some scholars have scoffed that a scientific theory of cultural evolution that aims to ape Darwinian evolution is impossible because human beliefs and behaviors are so unpredictable and subject to historical contingencies as well as sudden breakthroughs, discoveries, and … Read more
Number of words: 222 The very fact that people decide to live in the same patch, rather than dotted around at random, has to do with cooperation. Why? Some believe, for example, that the first communities evolved as a result of success in agriculture: surplus food from farming enabled people to settle down and specialize, … Read more
Number of words: 251 Karl also had plenty of anecdotes to underline why indirect reciprocity is just as relevant to everyday life as the direct version of reciprocity. He pointed out that the Rothschild family had protected the investments of their English clients during the Napoleonic Wars. They were under intense pressure to give them … Read more
Number of words: 625 Exploring the indirect form of reciprocity is important because it is critical for society. Direct reciprocity—“I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine”— operates well within small groups of people, or in villages where there is at ightknit community where it would be hard to get away with cheating one another. … Read more
Number of words: 691 Now Karl and I could sit back and watch the strategies slug it out in our creation over thousands and thousands of generations. Our fervent hope was that one strategy would emerge victorious. Even though no evolutionary trajectory ever quite repeated itself, there were overall patterns and consistency in what we … Read more
Number of words: 324 The bats are one often cited example of direct reciprocity in nature. Another can be found on coral reefs, where fish of all kinds visit “cleaning stations” where they are scrubbed of parasites by smaller varieties of fish and by shrimps: the former get cleaned of pesky parasites and the latter … Read more
Number of words: 151 Another example in humility and reader interaction is a project by Reuters. It now has a blog called “The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly” on its main Web site. This is where editors respond to feedback (usually complaints or requests for correction) from readers. It’s often akin to a friendly … Read more
Number of words: 111 CHECKING IS … sometimes regarded as a dull and tedious occupation, but such a conception of this position is extremely erroneous. Any bright girl who really applies herself to the handling of the checking problem can have a very pleasant time with it and fill the week with happy moments and … Read more
Number of words: 611 Though few ever accused a proofreader of being a glory hound, the job was made famous during its prime in a 1950s NBC television series based on Adventures of Hiram Holliday, a series of stories by author Paul Gallico. A mild-mannered newspaper proofreader, Hiram Holliday, managed to save his newspaper, the … Read more
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