At a cocktail party last weekend, an Anthropologist was telling me about an experiment/study where people were shown videos of various animals preying on one another, and then measured their reactions. The findings, he contends, were that humans were largely more sympathetic to the deaths of animals more similar to themselves (i.e. sharing a more recent common ancestor). What is this study, what is this area of research called, and where can I read more about it? [more inside]
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - 8 answers

Bernard Williams had a pretty low opinion of evolutionary biology. Are there any essays where he directly or indirectly criticizes the field? What about 'Shame and Necessity'? [more inside]
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - 12 answers

How can it be that there exists not a single example of a working wheel in nature, which after all gave us (among other things) the eyeball?
posted on Sep 23, 2007 - 41 answers

Does anyone know of a resource that provides "reviews" of academic journals - summaries of the kind of articles they accept, biases they are prone to, and their impact rating? Specifically, in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. I'm putting together some papers to publish, but don't know the "optimal" places to send them!
posted on Mar 19, 2004 - 10 answers