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Michael E.
Price |
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News |
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July 2019: New funding
programme announced. I’m co-leading (with Dominic Johnson, U.
Oxford) an approximately $3 million funding programme for research on
the evolution of science and religion as meaning-making systems. Funding and support are provided by the Templeton Religion
Trust and the Issachar Fund. This programme seeks to utilize the
tools and insights of evolutionary and behavioural science to
explore conflict and complementarity in the science-religion relationship,
and to better understand and inform narratives about this relationship.
We will explore the deep origins, universal dispositions, and
cross-cultural variations of these meaning-making systems, to build a
big-picture view of the evolution of science and religion across
human cultures. A variety of awards are available,
from doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships to early/mid/senior career
research grants. Deadlines are 05 September
2019 for expressions of interest, and 15 November 2019 for invited full applications. For
more information in the full RFP document, please visit http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~systmep/rfp.pdf. ·
July 2019: Happy to announce
publication of a book I co-edited: Evolution, Development,
and Complexity: Multiscale Models of Complex Adaptive Systems (Springer
Proceedings in Complexity) ·
Sept. 2018: Just spent almost a week in Sydney, visiting the UNSW Evolution & Ecology Research Centre
and delivering two talks: ‘Evolutionary psychology: Challenges and
controversies’ and ‘A purpose-saturated-universe? The mental simulation of
design, in biology and beyond’ ·
Aug. 2018: Our paper 'Increased
wellbeing from social interaction in a secular congregation' has been
published in Secularism and Nonreligion. We found that participation in a
secular community (the Sunday Assembly), like participation in religious
communities, is associated with enhanced wellbeing. ·
July 2018: I was a guest on the 2nd
July edition of The Why Factor (BBC World Service), discussing the
origins and nature of human status striving (listen here) ·
Feb. 2018: Very
excited about my forthcoming chapter with John Campbell, ‘Universal
Darwinism and the Origins of Order’ (you can download a draft version
here). We propose that the observable universe results from two types of
processes: (1) disorder’s tendency to increase in isolated systems (the
second law of thermodynamics), and (2) Darwinian selection, which produces
orderly entities that can withstand the second law. Darwinian processes
generate complex order not just in the biological domain but in all five
domains of nature, which exist in a nested hierarchy as follows (in order of
decreasing fundamentalness): cosmological, quantum,
biological, neural, and cultural. ·
Jan. 2018: I’m co-editing Evolution,
Development, and Complexity: Multiscale Models of Complex Adaptive Systems (Springer
Proceedings in Complexity); this book will include my chapter ‘Cosmological Natural
Selection and the Function of Life’ as well as one I co-authored with John O.
Campbell, ‘Universal Darwinism and the Origins of Order’ ·
Nov. 2017: My
interview with John O. Campbell, brilliant theorist of ‘universal Darwinism’,
is now
online at This View of Life ·
Sept. 2017: I’ll be
contributing a keynote talk, ‘Entropy and selection: Life as an adaptation
for universe replication’, at this month’s Evolution, Development and Complexity
satellite meeting in Cancun, Mexico ·
July 2017: I co-wrote
a piece for The Conversation, ‘Life
may be a guide to the evolution of the cosmos – here’s how’, which describes my recent Complexity paper for a general
audience ·
June 2017: My paper ‘Entropy and
selection: Life as an adaptation for universe replication’ has been
published at Complexity. I propose:
(1) contrary to Smolin’s theory of cosmological
natural selection, intelligent life is more likely than black holes (or
anything else) to be a mechanism of universe replication; (2) at both the
biological and cosmological levels, the entropic and selective processes
essentially operate as opposites of one another; (3) biological and
cosmological natural selection may be the primary ultimate causes of complex
order in the universe. ·
May 2017: Links to
recent TV appearances: Daily Politics (BBC Two, 31st May): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p054j9q0 The Big Questions (BBC One, 28th May): http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08swxkp/the-big-questions- ·
May 2017: Our Evolution and Human Behavior paper (‘Is sociopolitical
egalitarianism related to bodily and facial formidability in men?’) has received wide media coverage (e.g. The Times, The Independent, BBC News, The
Atlantic, Vice). I was interviewed
about this paper on the 31st May edition of the BBC TV show Daily Politics (link above), and the 25th
May edition of The Moncrieff Show (Newstalk National Radio, Ireland). ·
May 2017: I was a guest on the 28th May
edition of the BBC TV show The Big
Questions; the topic was ‘Does morality come from religion or evolution’?
(link above). ·
April 2017: Our paper ‘Is
sociopolitical egalitarianism related to bodily and facial formidability in
men?’ has been accepted at Evolution
and Human Behavior. Results
suggest that relatively muscular men are less in favour
of political, social, and economic equality. But in contrast with some
existing models, we argue that the causal direction here is somewhat
ambiguous: does being muscular cause men to be less
egalitarian, or are less-egalitarian men just more likely to lift weights? ·
Jan. 2017: A talk I gave recently to the Dorset Humanists
on the evolution of religion has been uploaded here. ·
Nov. 2016: I’ve organised a Centre for Culture and
Evolution seminar series for 2016-17: ‘Building a More Functional Society:
Evolution, Culture and Wellbeing’. Speakers are Anu
Realo (Warwick), Oliver Curry (Oxford), Robert Frank
(Cornell), Robin Dunbar (Oxford), and Jonathan Jong (Coventry). View the full
schedule here. ·
June 2016: My research is becoming increasingly focused
on religion and secular community. This month I’ll give a public presentation
on this topic at the Bath Royal
Literary and Scientific Institution (7th June), and an
academic one to the Social
and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group at Oxford University (9th
June). ·
Feb. 2016: I extol the virtues of Brunel Psychology in
our division’s new marketing video, you can watch it here. ·
August 2015: I had a great conversation with Greg
Epstein, Harvard's humanist chaplain, about the future of humanism and
secular communities. Click here
to view a video of the interview at MeaningofLife.tv. ·
July 2015: I appeared on the 5th July edition
of BBC One’s ‘Sunday Morning Live’. The topic was whether future genocide is
inevitable. I said that it wasn’t, especially if we utilize knowledge about
human nature. You can watch it here, and read my blog
post about the debate here. ·
July 2015: I’ve just published a piece at This View of Life titled ‘The
World Needs a Secular Community Revolution’. It’s about why evolution
built people to need communities, and how quasi-religious secular groups
could meet this need. ·
Feb. 2015: Our Evolutionary Psychology article (‘Bodily attractiveness and egalitarianism
are negatively related in males’) has received
international coverage e.g. the Independent,
Daily Beast, New York Daily News, Elle,
other media sites in Netherlands, Mexico, Switzerland, Hungary, Honduras,
Germany, Italy, Norway, Belgium, Bangladesh, etc. Please see my
post at Psychology Today for
commentary on this coverage and for a summary of the study itself. ·
July 2014: My new paper with Stuart Brown,
Amber Dukes, and Jinsheng
Kang, ‘Bodily attractiveness and
egalitarianism are negatively related in males’, has been accepted at Evolutionary Psychology. We used a 3D
body scanner to show that male bodily attractiveness is negatively related to
egalitarianism (composite of generosity in an economic game, preference for
socialism over capitalism, and concern for welfare of group versus self). We
also showed that women whose bodies are more attractive, and men whose bodies
are more attractive and more formidable, are perceived by others to be less
egalitarian. Results were broadly consistent with the theory that egalitarian
attitudes are calibrated to physical condition. ·
July
2014: Our Archives of Sexual Behavior paper, ‘Female
economic dependence and the morality of promiscuity’, has received significant recent media
coverage (e.g. The Times, Telegraph, Slate, The Atlantic, NY Magazine). Some of these accounts have been
reliable, but others have distorted our findings. For some relatively
accurate and thorough accounts of this research please see this post
by Rob Brooks at the Conversation
or my
own post at Psychology Today. ·
May
2014: Congratulations to Dr
Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington, who will be joining the Brunel Psychology
Department in January 2015 as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow. Jennifer
was awarded this highly competitive three-year fellowship for her groundbreaking research project ‘Having
little, having less: Toward a psychology of low socioeconomic status.’ Her
collaborators at Brunel will include members of the Centre
for Culture and Evolutionary Psychology. ·
May
2014: My new paper with
Nick Pound and Isabel Scott, ‘Female
economic dependence and the morality of promiscuity’, has been accepted at Archives
of Sexual Behavior.
This paper suggests that in cultural environments in which women depend less
economically on men, people tend to be less opposed morally to promiscuity.
This result makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, because when
mothers have more financial independence, fatherly investment in children—and
the paternity certainty that motivates such investment—become less crucial.
Promiscuity undermines paternity certainty, but this is less of a problem
when paternal investment is less important, and relaxed moral beliefs about
promiscuity seem to reflect this reduced importance. ·
May 2014: My new paper with Mark Van
Vugt, ‘The evolution of leader-follower reciprocity: The theory
of service-for-prestige', has been accepted at Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. This
paper represents the most extensive effort to date to reconcile
leader-follower relations with standard biological approaches to cooperation.
We suggest that leader-follower relations evolved in humans as an elaborated
form of reciprocal altruism, in which leaders produce public goods for followers, and followers collectively generate
fitness-enhancing prestige for leaders. ·
Oct. 2013: I’m organizing an interview
series at Evolution: This View of Life
magazine, ‘Profiles in Evolutionary Moral Psychology’. The first interview is
with Jonathan Haidt and can be viewed here. |
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July 2013: I'm now editor of the new morality section at Evolution:
This View of Life magazine. My first post is titled ‘Why
evolutionary science is the key to moral progress’. |
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Jan. 2013: I've joined the editorial board of the Journal
of Evolutionary Psychology. |
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Nov. 2012: Our paper, ‘Body
shape preferences: Associations with rater body shape and sociosexuality’
has been accepted at PLOS ONE. We
examined relationships between rater body shape preferences and
characteristics (bodily attractiveness and sociosexuality) of the raters
themselves. Our main findings were that men who are higher in sociosexuality
and self-perceived attractiveness exhibit stronger preferences for females
who are more attractive in terms of waist-hip ratio and thinness
(volume-height index). |
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Sept. 2012: Steven Pinker, one of the world’s leading
thinkers on psychology and human nature, will speak at Brunel on 17 October
2012, as the first speaker in the 'The Evolution of Moral Cultures' seminar
series at the Centre for
Culture and Evolutionary Psychology. More information is here. |
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Nov. 2011: Over the next few weeks, I'll be giving two talks at business
schools on evolutionary psychology and organizational behaviour: first at London Business School on 18th
November (abstract here),
then at Oxford's Said
Business School on 5th December. |
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Oct. 2011: I've recently co-authored two book
chapters on evolutionary psychology and organizational behaviour. In ‘The adaptationist theory of cooperation
in groups’, Dominic Johnson and I show how organizations can benefit by
applying an individual-level selectionist perspective on group cooperation.
And in ‘The
service-for-prestige theory of leader-follower relations’, Mark Van Vugt
and I suggest that good leadership involves a voluntary exchange whereby the
leader provides followers with expertise and social coordination services,
and followers provide leaders with social prestige and the access to
resources that prestige entails. |
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August 2011:
Our paper, ‘Anthropometric
correlates of human anger’, has been accepted at Evolution and Human Behavior. We
found that young men who are more muscular, and women who perceive themselves
as more attractive, experience more personal and political anger; these
results essentially replicate a previous study (Sell, Tooby & Cosmides
2009). However we also found that muscularity-anger correlations are absent
in men older than undergraduate age, and that in contrast to self-perceived
attractiveness, physical measures of female attractiveness are unrelated to female
anger. |
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June 2011: I'm now writing a blog for
Psychology Today, 'From Darwin to
Eternity' |
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March 2011: Our
paper, ‘Muscularity and attractiveness as
predictors of human egalitarianism’, has been published in Personality and Individual
Differences. Results suggest that men with more muscular upper
bodies and lower waist-chest ratios, and men and women who perceive
themselves as more attractive, tend to be less in favour of social equality.
One implication: people's views on equality are based on Stone Age criteria.
We evolved in environments in which access to resources depended largely on
fighting ability, but this is much less true in modern states. |
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March 2011: We're hosting a seminar by
evolutionary anthropologist Richard Wrangham on
24 March 2011 on "Evolutionary effects of cooking: The impact of fire in
human evolution" (abstract), as
part of the Centre for Culture and Evolutionary Psychology's 2010-2011
International Seminar Series |
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August 2010: I'm
working with the
Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network to organise a seminar, "What
Evolutionary Psychology Can Teach Us About Human Behaviour in Financial
Markets", to be held at the London Linnean
Society on 21 Sept. 2010; click here
for a description of talks and here for
registration information |
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July 2010: I'm now writing a regular column,
'Natural Law', for the banking magazine Global Custodian. My first
column, ‘Why people hate bankers’,
was published in the summer 2010 issue, and my second, ‘Don't blame Darwin’, is in press |
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· Jan. 2010: Our paper on the evolution of continuous reciprocity in groups has been accepted at Journal of Theoretical Biology (pdf here) |
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Jan. 2010: We're hosting a talk by evolutionary
psychologist Martin Daly on 29 March 2010, as part of the Centre for Culture
and Evolutionary Psychology's 2010-2011
International Seminar Series |
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Nov. 2009: I'm organizing a conference, 'Evolutionary Approaches to Disease and Health', to
be held at Brunel on 19 March 2010, as part of the 'Darwin's
Medicine' ESRC Research Seminar Series |
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Oct. 2009: Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom, my
postdoctoral advisor from 2003-05 at Indiana University, for winning the 2009
Nobel Prize in Economics |
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Oct. 2008: I was a guest on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, discussing human
nature and the financial crisis; listen here
(my segment begins about 2/3 through) |
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Sept. 2008: Our paper on fluctuating asymmetry and body
shape has been published in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (pdf here) |
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Sept. 2008: We have a new Evolutionary
Psychology MSc programme |
