Science & the Big Questions

Strange Evolution: The Weird Future of Life on Earth

From walking trees to floating toads, the far future of nature on our planet could be like nothing we’ve seen before.

BBC Future

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Nature

The Urgency of Agency

Our consciousness gets in the way of thinking about evolution.

Life, Unbounded, Scientific American

Topics: Agency Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory Extraterrestrial Life Origin of Life

Edward O. Wilson on the Evolution of Social Behaviors

Here, he explains the relevance of evolved insect behaviors to human nature.

Quanta Magazine

Topics: Altruism Animal Studies Cooperation Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory Social Behavior

In Ecology Studies and Selfless Ants, He Finds Hope for the Future

For more than six decades, the influential biologist Edward O. Wilson has drawn connections between evolution, ecology, and behavior, often sparking controversies inside and outside of science.

Quanta Magazine

Topics: Altruism Animal Studies Cooperation Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory Social Behavior

Group Selection in Every Way Except Using the Words: A Critique of “The Goodness Paradox” by Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham’s new book on the evolution of cooperation gets many things right. But he errs in thinking that he can develop his thesis without invoking group selection.

This View of Life

Topics: Altruism Cooperation David Sloan Wilson Evolutionary Mechanisms Human Evolution Social Behavior

How Evolutionary Theory Guides Policy

A review of David Sloan Wilson’s new book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution.

Nature

Topics: Cultural Evolution David Sloan Wilson Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory

How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution

The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can’t be explained by natural selection alone — so how did it come to be?

The New York Times Magazine

Topics: Animal Studies Beauty Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory Nature

Proof of Life: How Would We Recognize an Alien If We Saw One?

What exactly is it that astrobiologists are looking for? How will we know when it’s time to pop the champagne?

Aeon

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory Extraterrestrial Life

Evolutionary Math and Just-So Stories

Evolutionary stories like the grandmother hypothesis are easy to construct from mathematical models, but how well do they reflect reality?

Quanta Magazine

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory

A Biologist Explores a Big Question in Evolution: Does It Happen the Same Way Each Time?

Replaying the tape of life.

The Verge

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms

After Last Year’s Hurricanes, Caribbean Lizards Are Better at Holding on for Dear Life

A stunning case of natural selection in action.

The Atlantic

Topics: Animal Studies Evolutionary Mechanisms

The Momentous Transition to Multicellular Life May Not Have Been So Hard After All

It’s a transition as momentous as any in the history of life, and until recently we had no idea how it happened.

Science

Topics: Complexity Evolutionary Mechanisms Genes

Mathematics Shows How to Ensure Evolution

New results emerging from graph theory prove that the way a population is organized can guarantee the eventual triumph of natural selection — or permanently thwart it.

Quanta Magazine

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory Martin Nowak

Discovery of a Surprise Multitasking Gene Helps Explain How New Functions and Features Evolve

A core idea in molecular biology is that one gene codes for one protein. Now biologists have found an example of a gene that yields two forms of a protein — enabling it to evolve new functionality.

The Conversation

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms

Would Standing on the First Butterfly Really Change the History of Evolution?

More and more evidence shows evolution isn't as random as often thought.

The Conversation

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms

Evolution Unleashed

Is evolutionary science due for a major overhaul — or is talk of ‘revolution’ misguided?

Aeon

Topics: Animal Studies Cultural Evolution Epigenetics Evolutionary Mechanisms Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Genes Kevin Laland Social Learning

At an Underground Harvard Lizard Colony, Scientists Study Speciation

Several hundred brown anoles are helping researchers discover how new species come to be.

Atlas Obscura

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms

When Evolution Is Not a Slow Dance But a Fast Race to Survive

On the local level, adaptation and natural selection are always at work, adapting us to combat whatever threats — new diseases, climate change, new social selection processes — are now, often invisibly, at hand.

Aeon

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory

Why Hasn’t Evolution Made Another Platypus?

The debate over whether evolution is predictable or haphazard.

Nautilus

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms

Massive Genetic Study Shows How Humans Are Evolving

Analysis of 215,000 people’s DNA suggests variants that shorten life are being selected against.

Nature

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Longevity

Inevitable or Accident? Tackling the Big Questions of Evolution

Modern evolutionary science has some advantages Darwin didn’t. Here’s what we’re learning from DNA, experimentation, and more.