Evolutionary Roots of Property Rights; The Natural and Cultural Nature of Human Cooperation

Debates about the role of natural and cultural selection in the development of prosocial, antisocial and socially neutral mechanisms and behavior raise questions that touch property rights, cooperation, and conflict. For example, some researchers suggest that cooperation and prosociality evolved by natural selection (Hamilton 1964, Trivers 1971, Axelrod and Hamilton 1981, De Waal 2013, 2014), while others claim that natural selection is insufficient for the evolution of cooperation, which required in addition cultural selection (Sterelny 2013, Bowles and Gintis 2003, Seabright 2013, Norenzayan 2013). Some scholars focus on the complexity and hierarchical nature of the evolution of cooperation as involving different tools associated with lower and the higher levels of competition (Nowak 2006, Okasha 2006); others suggest that humans genetically inherited heuristics that favor prosocial behavior such as generosity, forgiveness or altruistic punishment (Ridley 1996, Bowles and Gintis 2004, Rolls 2005). We argue these mechanisms are not genetically inherited; rather, they are features inherited through cultural selection. To support this view we invoke inclusive fitness theory, which states that individuals tend to maximize their inclusive fitness, rather than maximizing group fitness. We further reject the older notion of natural group selection - as well as more recent versions (West, Mouden, Gardner 2011) – which hold that natural selection favors cooperators within a group (Wynne-Edwards 1962). For Wynne-Edwards, group selection leads to group adaptations; the survival of individuals therefore depends on the survival of the group and a sharing of resources. Individuals who do not cooperate, who are selfish, face extinction due to rapid and over-exploitation of resources

Primordialists and Constructionists: a typology of theories of religion

This article adopts categories from nationalism theory to classify theories of religion. Primordialist explanations are grounded in evolutionary psychology and emphasize the innate human demand for religion. Primordialists predict that religion does not decline in the modern era but will endure in perpetuity. Constructionist theories argue that religious demand is a human construct. Modernity initially energizes religion, but subsequently undermines it. Unpacking these ideal types is necessary in order to describe actual theorists of religion. Three distinctions within primordialism and constructionism are relevant. Namely those distinguishing: a) materialist from symbolist forms of constructionism; b) theories of origins from those pertaining to the reproduction of religion; and c) within reproduction, between theories of religious persistence and secularization. This typology helps to make sense of theories of religion by classifying them on the basis of their causal mechanisms, chronology and effects. In so doing, it opens up new sightlines for theory and research

Class Position of Immigrant Workers in a Post-Industrial Economy: The Dutch Case

In this paper, the issue of changing labour-market opportunities and the position of members of minority groups in advanced service economies is addressed, focusing on the Dutch case. We distinguish between two social hierarchies, one of traditional ‘fordist’ occupations and one of post-fordist occupations. Compared to the native Dutch, all immigrant groups are over-represented at the bottom of the labour market, both in the fordist and in the postindustrial hierarchy. Increased immigrant labour-market participation in the 1990s was accompanied by a strong rise in the number of flexible labour contracts. Native Dutch also work more frequently on flexible labour contracts, but not to the same extent as immigrants. The lower occupational level of the Surinamese, Antilleans and other non-Western immigrants employed in post-industrial occupations can be attributed to their low educational level. This is not true, however, for Turks, Moroccans and other non-Western immigrants employed in fordist occupations. Their low occupational level can not be completely explained by their low educational level. The effects of changes in the economic structure differ for ethnic groups, depending on their past employment, their cultural capital and the institutional framework in which they have to operate

Colonialism, postcolonialism and the liberal welfare state

This article addresses the colonial and racial origins of the welfare state with a particular emphasis on the liberal welfare state of the USA and UK. Both are understood in terms of the centrality of the commodified status of labour power expressing a logic of market relations. In contrast, we argue that with a proper understanding of the relations of capitalism and colonialism, the sale of labour power as a commodity already represents a movement away from the commodified form of labour represented by enslavement. European colonialism is integral to the development of welfare states and their forms of inclusion and exclusion which remain racialised through into the twenty-first century

Assembling a species–area curve through colonization, speciation and human‐mediated introduction

AimThe fundamental biogeographical processes of colonization, speciation and extinction shape island biotas in space–time. On oceanic islands, area and isolation affect these processes and resulting biodiversity patterns. In the Anthropocene, a new human‐mediated colonization dynamic is altering insular ecosystems world‐wide. Here, we test predictions about the roles of archipelago area and isolation in structuring ant diversity patterns through effects on both natural and anthropogenic biogeographical processes.LocationTropical Pacific islands.MethodsWe compiled a comprehensive data set of ant faunal compositions across tropical Pacific archipelagos. Using regression analysis we evaluated the bivariate and interactive effects of area and isolation on the number of colonizing lineages, native species, endemic species, exotic species and total richness in the archipelago.ResultsThere is a strong species–area effect and a much more modest isolation effect on total ant species richness across the Pacific archipelagos. The number of colonizing lineages of each archipelago is strongly driven by the isolation of the archipelago. Endemic species are present in large archipelagos of low and intermediate isolation. The most remote archipelagos are nearly devoid of endemic lineages and their ant faunas are largely composed of Pacific Tramp species and exotics brought from outside the Pacific region.Main conclusionsThe prominent species–area curve in Pacific ants emerged over time through multiple processes. The colonization of lineages is determined primarily by isolation, with few or no lineages reaching remote archipelagos. Cladogenesis mediates the isolation effect and increases the area effect through the differential radiation of lineages in large archipelagos. In the Anthropocene, the assembly of the species–area relationship has accelerated dramatically through human‐mediated colonization. Overall, our results support a view that species–area curves reflect regulating limits on species richness that scale with area, but that multiple biogeographical processes can occur to achieve these limits.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136723/1/jbi12884.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136723/2/jbi12884_am.pd

Measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper reports a measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a data sample recorded with the ATLAS detector with an integrated luminosity of 0.30 pb^-1 for jets with transverse momentum between 25 and 70 GeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta| < 2.5. D*+/- mesons found in jets are fully reconstructed in the decay chain: D*+ -> D0pi+, D0 -> K-pi+, and its charge conjugate. The production rate is found to be N(D*+/-)/N(jet) = 0.025 +/- 0.001(stat.) +/- 0.004(syst.) for D*+/- mesons that carry a fraction z of the jet momentum in the range 0.3 < z < 1. Monte Carlo predictions fail to describe the data at small values of z, and this is most marked at low jet transverse momentum.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (22 pages total), 5 figures, 1 table, matches published version in Physical Review

Beliefs, taboos and minor crop value chains: the case of Bambara Groundnut in Malawi

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranean) is a source of food for smallholder farmers that is increasingly promoted for its drought tolerance, soil enhancing qualities and nutritious properties. Being an accessible crop to smallholders, it has also recently been the focus of support to develop its value chain in Malawi. However, bambara groundnut is featured in the belief systems of rural people in Malawi, and may effect and be effected by market development. Beliefs and taboos reflect the life/death meanings symbolically represented in bambara groundnut, which influences how and by whom the crop is produced and consumed. These practices lend significant control over the crop to women. These findings have important implications for development and market related interventions that work with food crops, which need to be taken into account during the design phase

The ‘mosaic habitat’ concept in human evolution: past and present

The habitats preferred by hominins and other species are an important theme in palaeoanthropology, and the ‘mosaic habitat’ (also referred to as habitat heterogeneity) has been a central concept in this regard for the last four decades. Here we explore the development of this concept – loosely defined as a range of different habitat types, such as woodlands, riverine forest and savannah within a limited spatial area– in studies of human evolution in the last sixty years or so. We outline the key developments that took place before and around the time when the term ‘mosaic’ came to wider palaeoanthropological attention. To achieve this we used an analysis of the published literature, a study of illustrations of hominin evolution from 1925 onwards and an email survey of senior researchers in palaeoanthropology and related fields. We found that the term mosaic starts to be applied in palaeoanthropological thinking during the 1970’s due to the work of a number of researchers, including Karl Butzer and Glynn Isaac , with the earliest usage we have found of ‘mosaic’ in specific reference to hominin habitats being by Adriaan Kortlandt (1972). While we observe a steady increase in the numbers of publications reporting mosaic palaeohabitats, in keeping with the growing interest and specialisation in various methods of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, we also note that there is a lack of critical studies that define this habitat, or examine the temporal and spatial scales associated with it. The general consensus within the field is that the concept now requires more detailed definition and study to evaluate its role in human evolution

A New Ant Colony Algorithm Using the Heterarchical Concept Aimed at Optimization of Multiminima Continuous Functions

Ant colony algorithms are a class of metaheuristics which are inspired from the behaviour of real ants. The original idea consisted in simulating the stigmergic communication, therefore these algorithms are considered as a form of adaptive memory programming. A new formalization is proposed for the design of ant colony algorithms, introducing the biological notions of heterarchy and communication channels. We are interested in the way ant colonies handle the information. According to these issues, an heterarchical algorithm called &quot;Continuous Interacting Ant Colony&quot; (CIAC) is designed for the optimization of multiminima continuous functions. CIAC uses two communication channels showing the properties of stigmergic and direct communications. CIAC presents interesting emergent properties as it was shown through some analytical test functions