Ed Hagen
@edhagen.net
Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. Faculty page: https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/people/hagen/
Views expressed are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or other organizations I'm affiliated with.
Views expressed are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or other organizations I'm affiliated with.
Perhaps the most influential table in hunter-gatherer studies, published in Lee's chapter in the famous 1968 edited volume by Lee and DeVore titled, ironically, Man the Hunter 🧪 #BioAnth
November 21, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Perhaps the most influential table in hunter-gatherer studies, published in Lee's chapter in the famous 1968 edited volume by Lee and DeVore titled, ironically, Man the Hunter 🧪 #BioAnth
In the long-running Nativism-Empiricism debate, have the impressive successes of AI based on blank slate-ish connectionist architectures dealt a knock-out blow for Empiricism? Is it game over for Nativism? @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social gently pushes back 🧪 philpapers.org/archive/KARA...
November 5, 2025 at 9:18 PM
In the long-running Nativism-Empiricism debate, have the impressive successes of AI based on blank slate-ish connectionist architectures dealt a knock-out blow for Empiricism? Is it game over for Nativism? @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social gently pushes back 🧪 philpapers.org/archive/KARA...
Left: all adult women (18-60) to all adult men (18-60)
Right: all adult women (18-60) to older men (28-60)
Right: all adult women (18-60) to older men (28-60)
October 29, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Left: all adult women (18-60) to all adult men (18-60)
Right: all adult women (18-60) to older men (28-60)
Right: all adult women (18-60) to older men (28-60)
Thanks Hampton. I agree there are strong assumptions. I view this as the boundary if all adult men pursue women capable of producing offspring, regardless of their relative ages. Here's my plot of that model:
October 29, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Thanks Hampton. I agree there are strong assumptions. I view this as the boundary if all adult men pursue women capable of producing offspring, regardless of their relative ages. Here's my plot of that model:
Thanks Hampton. As a first pass toward evolutionary implications, I'm trying to use your code to compute the ratio of fertile women to adult men (and I know nothing about demography). Would this code do the trick for growth rate = 1 (I haven't changed anything else)?
October 26, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Thanks Hampton. As a first pass toward evolutionary implications, I'm trying to use your code to compute the ratio of fertile women to adult men (and I know nothing about demography). Would this code do the trick for growth rate = 1 (I haven't changed anything else)?
The author list for vcd 🙂
cran.r-project.org/web/packages...
cran.r-project.org/web/packages...
![David Meyer ORCID iD [aut, cre], Achim Zeileis ORCID iD [aut], Kurt Hornik ORCID iD [aut], Florian Gerber [ctb], Michael Friendly ORCID iD [aut]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:wadfbchvgyngydxdhms5fvq6/bafkreig7i6ck634wm2si53x3lov56xrh5uzai7eyc32em64n7ug5zgzgwy@jpeg)
October 20, 2025 at 12:17 PM
The author list for vcd 🙂
cran.r-project.org/web/packages...
cran.r-project.org/web/packages...
I and many others have responded to substantive critiques of EP as a discipline, e.g, this chapter. Is this "circling the wagons"? Or just normal and useful academic debate? anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/docume...
October 9, 2025 at 12:03 PM
I and many others have responded to substantive critiques of EP as a discipline, e.g, this chapter. Is this "circling the wagons"? Or just normal and useful academic debate? anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/docume...
Yep, and many women *endorse* husbands beating their wives. Here are results from data I'm working on right now from 2.3 million women in low and middle income countries (TRUE: agree with at least 1 reason; FALSE: do not agree with any of these reasons):
October 7, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Yep, and many women *endorse* husbands beating their wives. Here are results from data I'm working on right now from 2.3 million women in low and middle income countries (TRUE: agree with at least 1 reason; FALSE: do not agree with any of these reasons):
I would bet that in all the cultures that Buckner mentions, men are also very violent towards other men. Hence, is there a sex *difference* in the targets of violence? which is the claim in question:
![I bring all this up because, in a recent preprint titled ‘Why Incels Capture Attention’1, Costello & Acerbi reference what they refer to as the ‘harm hypothesis’ and the ‘greater protectiveness of females theory’, which, they write,
suggest[s] that humans evolved heightened sensitivity to harm directed at women, given their higher reproductive value and centrality to offspring survival (Stewart-Williams et al., 2024). This protective bias is robust across domains (see Graso & Reynolds, 2024 for a review). For example, people are less willing to harm women than men (e.g., FeldmanHall et al., 2016), are more punitive toward people who victimize women than men (e.g., Curry et al., 2004), and are less willing to accept harm befalling women compared to men (e.g., Graso et al., 2023)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:wadfbchvgyngydxdhms5fvq6/bafkreievvikjtwj2nmrwjptevfif6sz5icespkhfqynoke75lhtxaodj7y@jpeg)
October 7, 2025 at 2:14 PM
I would bet that in all the cultures that Buckner mentions, men are also very violent towards other men. Hence, is there a sex *difference* in the targets of violence? which is the claim in question:
Two of the founders of evolutionary psychology, who also basically established Evolution and Human Behavior, the flagship journal in the field, devoted much of their careers to studying men's use of violence to control women.
From the TOC of their classic book (which has >5k citations):
From the TOC of their classic book (which has >5k citations):
October 7, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Two of the founders of evolutionary psychology, who also basically established Evolution and Human Behavior, the flagship journal in the field, devoted much of their careers to studying men's use of violence to control women.
From the TOC of their classic book (which has >5k citations):
From the TOC of their classic book (which has >5k citations):
DIY soda maker. You need to buy 3 things:
1. A 5 lb CO2 tank. Mine cost $100 from a local beer-brewing supply store, which will swap empties for filled units for $20.
5 lb -> 100-150 liters -> $0.13-$0.20/liter vs. $1/liter for store-bought vs. $0.50/liter for sodastream.
1. A 5 lb CO2 tank. Mine cost $100 from a local beer-brewing supply store, which will swap empties for filled units for $20.
5 lb -> 100-150 liters -> $0.13-$0.20/liter vs. $1/liter for store-bought vs. $0.50/liter for sodastream.
October 6, 2025 at 1:35 PM
DIY soda maker. You need to buy 3 things:
1. A 5 lb CO2 tank. Mine cost $100 from a local beer-brewing supply store, which will swap empties for filled units for $20.
5 lb -> 100-150 liters -> $0.13-$0.20/liter vs. $1/liter for store-bought vs. $0.50/liter for sodastream.
1. A 5 lb CO2 tank. Mine cost $100 from a local beer-brewing supply store, which will swap empties for filled units for $20.
5 lb -> 100-150 liters -> $0.13-$0.20/liter vs. $1/liter for store-bought vs. $0.50/liter for sodastream.
Thanks Ed. One clarification: I don't think science is irrelevant to social debates. I'm with Gould that science can illuminate them, but not resolve them. Eg, science can provide facts about climate change, but there will be winners & losers, & the public must decide how to weigh those & what to do
August 24, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Thanks Ed. One clarification: I don't think science is irrelevant to social debates. I'm with Gould that science can illuminate them, but not resolve them. Eg, science can provide facts about climate change, but there will be winners & losers, & the public must decide how to weigh those & what to do
TIL that sequences from XX males and XY females were instrumental in tracking down SRY, the sex-determining region on the Y-chromosome. From the key paper, Sinclair et al. (1990) 🧪 nature.com/articles/346...
August 10, 2025 at 8:09 PM
TIL that sequences from XX males and XY females were instrumental in tracking down SRY, the sex-determining region on the Y-chromosome. From the key paper, Sinclair et al. (1990) 🧪 nature.com/articles/346...
August 7, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I love how easy it is to setup parallel processing on your local machine when using the #rstats {targets} package: books.ropensci.org/targets/crew...
August 5, 2025 at 12:57 AM
I love how easy it is to setup parallel processing on your local machine when using the #rstats {targets} package: books.ropensci.org/targets/crew...
My plot of @thefireorg.bsky.social data. Early on, campus deplatforming was more from the right, then more from the left, & now equalizing at a high level.
Attacks on scholars were rare until 10 years ago, then increased by both sides, w/ a recent steep drop of attacks from the left 🧪 #AcademicSky
Attacks on scholars were rare until 10 years ago, then increased by both sides, w/ a recent steep drop of attacks from the left 🧪 #AcademicSky
July 28, 2025 at 6:31 PM
My plot of @thefireorg.bsky.social data. Early on, campus deplatforming was more from the right, then more from the left, & now equalizing at a high level.
Attacks on scholars were rare until 10 years ago, then increased by both sides, w/ a recent steep drop of attacks from the left 🧪 #AcademicSky
Attacks on scholars were rare until 10 years ago, then increased by both sides, w/ a recent steep drop of attacks from the left 🧪 #AcademicSky
That's how I introduce ggplot:
July 24, 2025 at 6:23 PM
That's how I introduce ggplot:
"I call them Homo sapiens"
There's widespread archaic introgression deserts in the human genome, esp. near functional elements. Ragsdale and Veller & Simons both implicate stabilizing selection as one mechanism: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thoughts on implications for one vs. multiple species?
There's widespread archaic introgression deserts in the human genome, esp. near functional elements. Ragsdale and Veller & Simons both implicate stabilizing selection as one mechanism: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thoughts on implications for one vs. multiple species?
June 24, 2025 at 4:25 PM
"I call them Homo sapiens"
There's widespread archaic introgression deserts in the human genome, esp. near functional elements. Ragsdale and Veller & Simons both implicate stabilizing selection as one mechanism: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thoughts on implications for one vs. multiple species?
There's widespread archaic introgression deserts in the human genome, esp. near functional elements. Ragsdale and Veller & Simons both implicate stabilizing selection as one mechanism: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thoughts on implications for one vs. multiple species?
Apparently, tradeoff does not explain within-species variation (which is instead explained by within-species variation in quality), but might still explain between-species variation. Key figure: iiif.elifesciences.org/lax:87018%2F...
June 15, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Apparently, tradeoff does not explain within-species variation (which is instead explained by within-species variation in quality), but might still explain between-species variation. Key figure: iiif.elifesciences.org/lax:87018%2F...
Jesus was a shaman, and so were John the Baptist, Paul, and other early biblical figures. Or were they? Check out www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730339... 👇 by @manvir.bsky.social #AcademicSky
June 1, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Jesus was a shaman, and so were John the Baptist, Paul, and other early biblical figures. Or were they? Check out www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730339... 👇 by @manvir.bsky.social #AcademicSky
18. Mid-sized carnivores that are also prey have evolved "face badges" to signal their pugnacity to deter predators: nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
May 27, 2025 at 10:29 PM
18. Mid-sized carnivores that are also prey have evolved "face badges" to signal their pugnacity to deter predators: nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
17. Predation has selected for signals in many prey species. These include alarm calls, but (probably) also signals to predators that they've been detected and thus pursuit is less likely to succeed:
May 27, 2025 at 10:29 PM
17. Predation has selected for signals in many prey species. These include alarm calls, but (probably) also signals to predators that they've been detected and thus pursuit is less likely to succeed:
16. As hominins diverged from our last common ancestor with chimps, they increasingly inhabited open terrestrial environments, which likely increased predation pressure. Relative predator sizes (top) and speeds (bottom): link.springer.com/article/10.1...
May 27, 2025 at 10:29 PM
16. As hominins diverged from our last common ancestor with chimps, they increasingly inhabited open terrestrial environments, which likely increased predation pressure. Relative predator sizes (top) and speeds (bottom): link.springer.com/article/10.1...