Natural History of the Present
Rob Brooks – Evolutionary Biologist & Author
“Pro-lifers” consider the termination of a pregnancy the moral equivalent of taking a newborn life. Their strategies seek to blur distinctions between aborting a fetus and killing a newborn. I argue that an understanding of that relationship—drawing on evidence from centuries of history and millennia of evolution—leads to the conclusion that abortion is the most humane alternative to infanticide, adding to the case for safe, legal, accessible abortion for women who need it.
Of the 50 plus shades of online anger, one fascinates me more than the rest: the anger of the Incel. Beneath the euphemistic portmanteau of “involuntary” and “celibate” lurks a sinister mass of self-loathing men. They know they are unattractive,…
Few subjects more predictably animate furious disagreement and cross-purposes discussion than the origins of human warfare. Are people “naturally” belligerent? And what does that even mean? The question taps a deep old well of ideological intuition. Were the lives of…
You’ve no doubt heard that girls are entering puberty earlier than they ever have before. It’s one of those science-lite stories beloved of tabloid papers and current affairs programs. One recent article had 10 to 15 percent of American 7…