A conversation with Geoff Mulgan, founder of the think tank Demos and current chief executive of Nesta, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, on his new book "Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World".
Size matters in politics: America hasn’t seen a president shorter than 5’7” since William McKinley. A main culprit, unbeknownst to many, comes from voters’ cognitive biases—the work of evolution. And the conundrum took a theatrical turn early this year when Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential hopeful, was spotted wearing a pair of new boots. #bootgate
While you may have heard of evolutionary psychology, this article is actually about the psychology of evolution itself. That is, the study of how evolutionary thinking develops and thrives across our social species, Charles Darwin being one particularly interesting case study.
This Darwin Day, consider investing in a tree-of-life tee-shirt or a tree-of-life necklace or even a tree-of-life tattoo. You’ll be honoring Darwin’s legacy while also conveying a cognitively apt representation of evolution to the public at large.
If we’re doing psychology, therefore, then we’re also doing evolutionary psychology: we’re trying to understand evolved adaptations—and their mental, behavioral, and cultural products and by-products—and our ability to do so is enhanced through the invocation of evolutionary principles.
Our Stone Age brains never had or needed a way to process written symbolic language.
We are closer to a science of intentional change than one might think.With three members of the EI’s Scientific Advisory Board, Steven C. Hayes, Anthony Biglan, and Dennis D. Embry, we have written a review article titled “Evolving the Future: Toward a Science of Intentional Change”, which will be published in the commentary journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS).
Studies of dolphins, primates and humans show the reason we choose the companions we do is more complex, and perhaps less honorable, than we might think.
Recreation may look like it serves no obvious purpose, but when dogs and other animals are having fun they are learning some valuable lessons.