Monthly Archives: May 2012

Access in Paleoanthropology

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kate Wong, writing for Scientific American, gives proper journalistic treatment to the issue of access in paleoanthropology, something I was musing on back in March (here and here). That situation is apparently changing. According to Johanson, this past January Yonas … Continue reading →

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What personal genomics does and does not mean, part 1

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

There have been a whole series of interesting blog posts, news stories, and research articles associated with personal genomics lately that I have been meaning to write about but simply have not had the chance. So instead I am going … Continue reading →

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Quotes for the day – Expansion and speciation

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Continuous expansion to new environments is the most general overriding feature of all adaptive radiation. The pattern of this divergence between populations and species is partly predictable from principles of quantitative genetic covariation. The initials stages of divergence between populations … Continue reading →

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The virtues of academic blogging

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Martin Weller, writing in the Chronicle on, “The Virtues of Blogging as Scholarly Activity”: In terms of intellectual fulfillment, creativity, networking, impact, productivity, and overall benefit to my scholarly life, blogging wins hands down. I have written books, produced online … Continue reading →

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Linearity and simplicity in the fossil record

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Spend time reading about human evolution and it will not be long until you come across a discussion of “bushy” vs. “linear” evolutionary scenarios or arguments between taxonomic “splitters” (favoring more species) and “lumpers” (favoring fewer species). I will, up … Continue reading →

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More on biocultural anthropology

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kate Clancy’s post that I linked to the other day continues to generate wonderful conversation. I would first recommend re-visiting her original post and checking out the comments, which include very thoughtful replies from a number of people, including Greg … Continue reading →

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Biocultural anthropology and interdisciplinary work

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kate Clancy has a wonderful post up on her Scientific American blog about the nature of interdisciplinary work and what it means for biocultural Anthropology/anthropologists. The whole piece is worth a read and she asks a few questions looking for … Continue reading →

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