Holly Dunsworth
LightNews LightNews
banner
dunsworth.bsky.social
Holly Dunsworth
@dunsworth.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1.5K following 340 posts
Human evolution-obsessed anthropology professor, book coming 2027, southern Rhode Islander; https://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2025/06/fossil-men-indeed-book-review.html
Posts Replies Media Videos
dunsworth.bsky.social
Omg. This is why evolutionary science (including especially in its popular understanding) is so much “hallucination” too!

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...
The OpenAI research identified three mathematical factors that made hallucinations inevitable: epistemic uncertainty when information appeared rarely in training data, model limitations where tasks exceeded current architectures’ representational capacity, and computational intractability where even superintelligent systems could not solve cryptographically hard problems.
September 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Great read at @sapiens.org today that ends on a note I very much disagree with, but is (thankfully) forcing me to figure out exactly why.

www.sapiens.org/archaeology/...
Screen grab of last grad in article that says, “There is danger in fictionalizing the past. The present “post-truth” moment shows how easy it is for misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories to thrive. Yet millions, including myself, learned to think about Neanderthals as living, breathing humans (rather than dry, dusty fossils) in reading books like The Clan of the Cave Bear. There is fiction in archaeology even when we’re not writing novels or playing games. Without imagining the past, we can’t connect to it. And without connecting to the past, we can neither learn about it nor care about it.”
August 29, 2025 at 5:23 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Just astounded by how magnificent (and readable) this book by @philipcball.bsky.social is! It’s the book I’ve always needed but didn’t know it until I saw someone post it here. It will keep me logging in, just in case I hit such a jackpot again.
August 25, 2025 at 11:56 AM
dunsworth.bsky.social
I’m finishing up one with exactly what I wrote. Lots of good books critique the traditional narratives but few of those show a way to think evolutionarily without them. But Feminism in the Wild is great. mitpress.mit.edu/978026204963...
Cover of book FEMINISM IN THE WILD
August 2, 2025 at 12:23 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
No one can look over what remains from the last million years and see sexual assault. You’d have to watch a recording like a film. It’s never going to happen. So what’s he talking about? A mainstream but completely fucked up idea of evolution that he shares w/ the manosphere & influential …
July 25, 2025 at 12:29 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Dog help us.
Screenshot of Washington Post headline: How the Trump shooting supercharged beliefs in a divine right of MAGA
July 13, 2025 at 5:02 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Providence! #NoKings
June 14, 2025 at 7:33 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
So this is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement. Alternatively, you can try to negotiate with a mafia boss who wants to see you grovel. When these negotiations fail, as they inevitably will, it will be too late to ask for the public’s support.
April 26, 2025 at 9:51 AM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Google alerts me to my name appearing in a blog post. The post describes my idea fine, but cites a wholly fake reference attributed to me. I Google that made-up paper. Google’s AI says, in effect, “oh I know that paper! Let me summarize it for you!”

Help us.
April 17, 2025 at 3:15 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Re-reading this by terrific paper by @anthrofuentes.bsky.social because it’s on my syllabus this week: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Email me for pdf if you hit a paywall!
Pic of printout of great last paragraph of this article: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/711582
April 16, 2025 at 2:27 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
April 14, 2025 at 12:10 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
April 14, 2025 at 12:10 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
How to exceed HIGH expectations about your new book? Just be @ambikamath.bsky.social & Melina Packer and make it look so easy. This book speaks to anyone who thinks they know how evolution works or who wants to. SURPRISE! It’s not what any of us thought or were taught. Neither is feminism! #booksky
A pic of the cover of FEMINISM IN THE WILD by Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer. A must-read. A screenshot of page 90 of “Feminism in the Wild” My dog eyeballing me because it’s second breakfast time.
April 1, 2025 at 12:08 AM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Race is something we're born into, not something we're born with. Pass it on...
A too wordy flow chart. Here's the nut: Race is the myth/lie that populations are biologically distinct, which leads us to believe that social, political, and economic inequities that pattern with race are just the natural consequences of differences in biology, which discourages us from changing the social and economic policies that perpetuate racial inequity.
March 28, 2025 at 11:33 AM
dunsworth.bsky.social
How to delete genetic data from 23andMe
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
“The company said there will be “no changes” to the way it protects consumer data while in bankruptcy court. But unless you take action, there is a risk your genetic information could end up in someone else’s hands — and used in ways you had never considered. It took me just a minute to delete my data on the 23andMe website, and I’ve got instructions on how to do it below.”
March 24, 2025 at 6:01 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
—Without imagination, it is easy to believe in things that are simple, and superficial, and wrong.
With it, we can begin to understand the lives of those who are different from ourselves — and respond to their struggles with compassion, and kindness and grace.—
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Without imagination, it is easy to believe in things that are simple, and superficial, and wrong. With it, we can begin to understand the lives of those who are different from ourselves — and respond to their struggles with compassion, and kindness and grace. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/19/misgendering-sarah-mcbride/
March 24, 2025 at 11:22 AM
dunsworth.bsky.social
❤️❤️❤️
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
Screengrab of part of poem by Feranmi. Listen to poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/1639282/gratification-to-the-survivors-of-daily-damnations
February 28, 2025 at 3:28 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Good morning to the 8%ers who’ve got just as much magical meaning in their lives as the 92%.

nyt.et.e.sparkpost.com/f/a/ioaASos2...
A figure by the New York Times conveying some results of today’s pew results linked in skeet. 92% of respondents said yes to one or more of the following: they believe in a soul or spirit in addition to the physical body, they believe in god or universal spirit, there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, there is an afterlife.
February 26, 2025 at 12:14 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
You’re not living until you read this paper. If you don’t have subscription access, look up my email, and I’ll send it to you.
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY POSSIBLE? asks Subrena Smith. And her answer is NO. Even if modularity is true, it’s impossible.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Photo of first page of print out of the article “Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?” with a handwritten summary of the article’s answer: “No”
February 3, 2025 at 11:36 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
This is only a test. The test begins now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now
Screengrab of the first page of this paper: Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis Author(s): Robb Willer, Christabel L. Rogalin, Bridget Conlon and Michael T. Wojnowicz Source: American Journal of Sociology , Vol. 118, No. 4 (January 2013), pp. 980-1022
January 31, 2025 at 4:25 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Thank you @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/...
The poem GOOD BONES by Maggie Smith, available to listen here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/good-bones
January 20, 2025 at 5:13 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
First novel of 2025–Orbital by Samantha Harvey—was lovely. Not pictured: First nonfiction of 2025–The Caveman Mystique by Martha McCaughey—which was also lovely.
Cover of paperback book Orbital by Samantha Harvey
January 17, 2025 at 10:49 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Jordan Peterson relies on the obstetrical dilemma being fact in his latest book which describes separate male and female human natures. I would be a liar if I didn’t admit this makes me feel 😈😈😈about my upcoming book.
Thank you @newscientist.bsky.social !
www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...
Excerpt screenshot from link provided, discussing Jordan Peterson’s new book. Now, you might expect Peterson, a psychologist, to offer psychological evidence for these differences between men and women. You would be wrong. But he does try to link it to the biology of childbirth. Labour, he explains, is painful and dangerous because human babies have evolved bigger brains, which must fit through a narrow birth canal that cannot get any wider or "women would have trouble running".
December 5, 2024 at 2:52 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Here’s how I feel about evolutionary storytelling that puts women on top, brought to you by Pumpking Imperial Pumpkin Ale and truth serum!
A screenshot from Instagram of a comment where I argue that liking bullshit evolutionary stories that make us feel good is not an option when the same stories about evolved patriarchy and race make misogynists and racists feel good. Also, it’s not science.
November 27, 2024 at 11:37 PM
dunsworth.bsky.social
Feeling all the love and happiness for @jasondeleon.bsky.social whose outstanding book SOLDIERS AND KINGS won the National Book Award for non-fiction last night!
Covers of the five winners of the 2024 National Book Award
November 21, 2024 at 3:36 PM