More from that interview, which was like a terrifying public exam I think I passed:

I don't say "hate" often but I hated Andy Rooney, or at least I hated his bit. But I think AI might have turned me into Andy Rooney. (No human evolution today, just disdain for AI from another heartbroken college professor just trying to paint her mudroom.) ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/07/you-...

You can't spell paint without AI

I'm finally getting around to a home improvement project I've been planning for close to forever. I'm painting our entire mudroom, which we ...

ecodevoevo.blogspot.com

One of the main ways (colorblind) racism works is just straight up denial. Alito wants folks to not believe what they’ve heard Trump said about Haitians and other migrants of color.

Jameel Jaffer@jameeljaffer.bsky.social · last mo.

Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.

Lots of surprises, given the picture so far painted of Neanderthals in the public square based on earlier studies of different individuals.

Mateja Hajdinjak@matejahajdi.bsky.social · last mo.

Our late Neandertal paper is officially out! 💀❤️🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41... It was years in the making, a tremendous feat spearheaded by our PhD student Alba Bossoms Mesa and co-led by @janetk.bsky.social and @benmpeter.bsky.social

“The thing is, just because we have fossils and archaeological evidence, that shouldn't give us license to do creationism... making up a story about the beginning of something amazing simply because we can…or simply to bring gravitas to our perspective on humanity,” — @dunsworth.bsky.social

Holly Dunsworth@dunsworth.bsky.social · last mo.

--Harari is arguing that because of fictions/myths, humans can cooperate unlike any other species. There's nothing wrong with that argument except for the fact that you can't actually know if it's actually true, like, with science.-- ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/06/sapi...

--Harari is arguing that because of fictions/myths, humans can cooperate unlike any other species. There's nothing wrong with that argument except for the fact that you can't actually know if it's actually true, like, with science.-- ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/06/sapi...

Sapiens, pages 32-39: "Revolution" or Creation? "Mutation" or Ignorance? And... How About We Pass on the Pope Passing on Sex? This is the End of Chapter 2.

This is the last post covering Chapter 2, as part of my endeavor to review Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari one pa...

ecodevoevo.blogspot.com

The Summer of Ludd! I ludd it.

Brian Merchant@bcmerchant.bsky.social · 2mo ago

NPR has a 'Word of the Week' series, and this week it's LUDDITE I spoke with Emma Bowman about who they really were and about the new luddites organizing against big tech + AI A fun one and, since it's airing on All Things Considered, maybe the biggest-audience luddite rehabilitation effort yet

again, @dunsworth.bsky.social knocks it out of the park. this series is terrific...

Holly Dunsworth@dunsworth.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What do corporations, denying yourself your favorite food, denying babies their foreskins, and pretending you can know "human nature" through science (and that it's basically what the Bible tells us) have in common? ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/06/sapi...

!! There is also a path from germs' devastation via dirty tools and hands to people (including academics!), now, believing death in childbirth has been from women's inadequate bodies, which allowed those tools and hands even more control over birth, with all the violence that has entailed.

Rebecca Solnit@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Mary Shelley's mother, the great Mary Wollstonecraft, died of puerperal fever, probably from the doctor's dirty hands, leaving her to a cruel stepmother; there's a path from that to Frankenstein....

I just learned that the term "carbon footprint" was developed by BP to offload responsibility for climate change onto individuals. Something like that's happening in higher ed with AI. Institutions capitulate or dodge; students are submitting; & they believe it's their individual failing. 7/

For spotting student AI use, I’ve seen too much and yet I’m batting a thousand. They all admit it. All it takes is my gooey brains! They can develop goo like mine, if we protect them from AI.

Iris van Rooij 💭@irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Something that may be difficult for non-experts to grasp is that experts can recognise when a student’s text is not meaningfully connected to cited literature in the expert’s area of expertise.

Setting the Record Straight on Anthropology @americananthro.bsky.social on the Vanderbilt Report...Yes. And still more to come... americananthro.org/advocacy-sta...

Setting the Record Straight on Anthropology - American Anthropological Association

The Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences identifies anthropology as the single most extreme case of scholarly deterioration in the humanities and soc...

americananthro.org

A traveler asked: “How could ancient people possibly understand mathematics?” Excellent question. We accidentally invented geometry while trying to avoid carrying rocks incorrectly.

Notes from a Tired Egyptian Guy Whose Job Is Explaining That Humans Built the Pyramids

A traveler asked: “How could ancient people possibly understand mathematics?” Excellent question. We accidentally invented geometry while trying to avoid car...

buff.ly

On the Mermaid's Tale, @annevbuchanan.bsky.social peers with her puckered macula into Ken's mind and shows us what few have seen before. ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-... #anosognosia #dementia

On the Mermaid's Tale, @annevbuchanan.bsky.social peers with her puckered macula into Ken's mind and shows us what few have seen before. ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-... #anosognosia #dementia

okay. but like. it is a jersey

Doug Mack@douglasmack.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The jerseys also say "Ceci n'est pas un maillot" ("This is not a jersey") on the back. Perfect detail.

I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses

Narratives of human evolution matter a great deal.

Rebecca Sear@rebeccasear.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“We conclude that evolutionary psychology can increase victim-blaming attitudes through an increase in the belief that gender roles are natural and immutable, and that this can be understood through the theoretical framework ‘the cultural scaffolding of rape’”

I see a lot of charts everyday. Few make me go: THIS IS CRAZY. www.carbonbrief.org/ai-boom-mean...

Clarifying Mendelian vs non-Mendelian inheritance academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

Clarifying Mendelian vs non-Mendelian inheritance

Abstract. Gregor Mendel developed the principles of segregation and independent assortment in the mid-1800s based on his detailed analysis of several trait

academic.oup.com

—As far as the “paradox of the organism” goes, I think there is perhaps a “paradox of the selfish gene”, according to which Dawkins’ metaphor seems invulnerable to falsification even while many people regard it as the “science” of evolutionary genetics— Great read!

Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I have read and enjoyed The Paradox of the Organism by @arvidagren.bsky.social and Manus Patten. I had a lot of thoughts about it, and about selfish genes. Here they are, in a long blog post. homunculusmusic.wordpress.com/2026/05/30/i...

“Scientists alone can not defeat an anti-science machinery they did not create. What we can do is ask for help. Give guidance. Start acting and hope others will join” open.substack.com/pub/protagon...

We need to talk about the anti-science movement

6 lessons scientists under siege learned the hard way, and how we all can fight back

open.substack.com

If reading through the list gives you the reaction it gave me, pick the three things that scare you the most and specifically mention them in a call to your reps tomorrow

Tessa Hill@tessahill.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Important explanation of a myriad of different ways that the act of doing science will be prohibited by this administration. Topics of study, attending conferences, public communications, open access journals, and so much more.

2/2

President of MIT not mincing words today in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2026/05/27/s...

New by Orli Dahan: "“Bleeding” is not the word: Autoethnographic insights into abortion and the female body’s adaptive ejections" journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

As an anthropologist, I endorse this message!

Chapter 2 starts now! This week, Harari is in @nytimes.com talking to Ezra Klein about studying how stories shape society. In Sapiens, he never once considers how his tall human evolutionary tale, complete with Genesis metaphors, is doing just that. ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/05/sapi...

Sapiens, pages 20-21: "The Tree of Knowledge mutation" (You CAN make this stuff up.)

I'm reviewing Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari one page at a time. Chapter 1 felt like an eternity. Given all the ...

ecodevoevo.blogspot.com

Basically, you're asking me to uphold the integrity and dignity of the school and its grading program at a personal cost to me and a potentially outsized cost to my students at the same time that the university is making clear it doesn't care that much about professors

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