Category: Sports

May 3, 2020

The Physical Activity Mismatch: Can Evolutionary Perspectives Inform Exercise Recommendations?

It’s highly likely that some degree of mismatch exists between our modern environment and the physical activity levels we have evolved to perform.

January 25, 2019

Fa’asamoa of Tattooing and Football: Conservatism and Adaptation in Samoan Cultural Evolution

Two new books published in 2018 emphasize the role of fa’asamoa in amplifying “sticky” cultural concepts or memes—football and tattooing—in cultural adaptation.

October 28, 2018

Territoriality in Sports

Signaling territoriality of home-playing athletes might contribute to the home advantage.

May 1, 2017

Why Do Men Play and Watch Sports?

Men have evolved mechanisms that motivate them to engage in physical competitions with other men and to watch other men competing.

November 21, 2016

Going For It: When Risk Is Worth It, And When It’s Not

Throughout evolutionary history, humans have had to deal with risk. Risk-sensitivity theory offers an explanation about when some people take excessive risks, and why.

October 12, 2016

Memo To Amazon's Jeff Bezos: The Most Productive Workers Are Team Players, Not Selfish Individualists

‘Ruthless’ and ‘demanding’ are two descriptors of Amazon's working environment, sink or swim. But Amazon is not alone. Can evolutionary biology shed some light on why competition in the workplace does not alway produce the best outcomes?

September 12, 2016

Do NBA Video Games Reflect the Real Game?

August 7, 2016

Why Do We Watch and What Are We Watching? An Evolutionary Perspective on the Olympics

August 2, 2016

Game, Set but no Match: what evolutionary theory reveals about marriage and its effect on sporting performance

From an evolutionary view, Andy Murray's recent Wimbledon win, after a three year slump since his last win in 2013, was surprising for two reasons: his marriage to Kim Sears in 2015 and the birth of his daughter, Sophia, in February this year.

May 6, 2016

Evolutionary Sports Economics

Are sports evolving?

April 8, 2016

Doping to Win? Cheating and the Sporting Mind

Like politicians’ views of the truth, athletes believe that the morality of drug use is a matter of perspective, where ethics bends to pragmatism.

March 17, 2016

Did Darwin Read the Sports Section?

What can sports teach us about evolution?