A number of us, in Vancouver, created and have been participating in an Evolution and Behavioral Sciences reading group for years now.
For quite a while there was no Internet presence to this group.
We coordinated in-person and over e-mail, read books and papers on evolution and behavioral sciences, and met every 2 to 4 weeks in a coffee shop to discuss what we read.
Eventually, many many years after this reading group was created, a meetup group had been created: https://www.meetup.com/EvolutionAndBehavior/
This document lists out the material we have covered.
Broadly speaking, (almost) all the topics have been on Evolution and Behavioral Sciences.
However, a specialist may use some of the following labels to describe some of topics we covered over the years: archaeology, behavioral ecology, behavioral economics, cultural evolution, genetics, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, moral psychology, neuroscience, psychometics.
Originally, there was just one track that meet every 2 weeks on Saturdays. For a while this Saturday track slowed down to meeting every 4 weeks. But later returned to its every 2 weeks cadence.
Later, a Monday track was created that (usually) met every 4 weeks.
The cadence was sometimes adjusted as core individuals in the group had scheduling conflicts.
When books were read, we wouldn't read the whole book for one meeting. But instead we would divide the book between many meetings.
At least one person would provide an overview of the reading, that would help facilitate the discussion. (Usually there would be 1, 2, or 3 people providing overviews.)
Often others would jump in with comments or questions, while the overviews were being given.
(Not so much in the beginning, but after this had been going on for a number of years, we started often going to a restaurant afterwards to eat, drink, hang out, and socialize. Often related discussions took place in this social setting.)
| Date Started | Title | URL | Selected By |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 22nd, 2013 | "Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology", by John Tooby, Leda Cosmides | https://www.cep.ucsb.edu/papers/bussconceptual05.pdf | ORGANIZER |
| September 14th, 2013 | "The Deep Structure of Human Society: Primate Origins and Evolution", by Bernard Chapais | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7461471-mind-the-gap | ORGANIZER |
| September 28th, 2013 | "Natural Language and Natural Selection", by Steven Pinker, Paul Bloom | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.231.4056&rep=rep1&type=pdf | ORGANIZER |
| October 12th, 2013 | "The Secret Powers of Time", by Philip Zimbardo | https://youtu.be/A3oIiH7BLmg | VOTE |
| October 12th, 2013 | "Life History Theory" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_history_theory | VOTE |
| November 9th, 2013 | "The 10,000 Year Explosion", by Gregory Cochran, Henry Harpending | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6033964-the-10-000-year-explosion | VOTE |
| March 1st, 2014 | "The Blank Slate", by Steven Pinker | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5752.The_Blank_Slate | VOTE |
| June 14th, 2014 | "The Righteous Mind", by Jonathan Haidt | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11324722-the-righteous-mind | VOTE |
| September 20th, 2014 | "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel", by Margo Wilson, Martin Daly | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1056451.The_Adapted_Mind | VOTE |
| September 20th, 2014 | "Impact of the Uncertainty of Paternity on Family Law", by Margo Wilson | http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/utflr45§ion=16 | VOTE |
| September 20th, 2014 | "Is Parent-Offspring Conflict Sex-Linked?", by Martin Daly, Margo Wilson | https://www.martindaly.ca/uploads/2/3/7/0/23707972/daly___wilson_1990_freud_vs_darwin.pdf | VOTE |
| October 18th, 2014 | "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind", by Robert Kurzban | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8733371-why-everyone-else-is-a-hypocrite | VOTE |
| April 18th, 2015 | "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human", by Richard W. Wrangham | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11148989-catching-fire | VOTE |
| May 2nd, 2015 | "Signal Detection and Animal Communication", by R. Haven Wiley | http://www.unc.edu/home/rhwiley/pdfs/AdvStudyBehav_060915.pdf | VOTE |
| June 27th, 2015 | "The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle", by Amotz Zahavi, Avishag Zahavi | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11148989-catching-fire | VOTE |
| September 19th, 2015 | "The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature", by Geoffrey Miller | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27486.The_Mating_Mind | VOTE |
| January 23rd, 2016 | "The hominid entry into the cognitive niche", by H. Clark Barrett, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/919616.The_Evolution_of_Mind | VOTE |
| January 23rd, 2016 | "The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve", by H. Clark Barrett | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23027581-the-shape-of-thought | VOTE |
| October 8th, 2016 | "Parental investment and reproductive success", by Robert Trivers | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/885753.Natural_Selection_and_Social_Theory | VOTE |
| October 8th, 2016 | "Patterns of Sexuality", by George Christopher Williams | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2704892-sex-and-evolution-mpb-8-volume-8 | VOTE |
| October 8th, 2016 | "Why are Males Masculine and Females Feminine and, Occasionally, Vice Versa", by George Christopher Williams | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2704892-sex-and-evolution-mpb-8-volume-8 | VOTE |
| November 5th, 2016 | "People are Animals", by Laura Betzig | http://www.laurabetzig.org/pdf/betzig-people%20are%20animals.pdf | VOTE |
| November 5th, 2016 | "Despotism and differential reproduction: A cross-cultural correlation of conflict asymmetry, hierarchy, and degree of polygyny", by Laura Betzig | https://doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(82)90050-4 | VOTE |
| January 7th, 2017 | "Roman Polygyny", by Laura Betzig | http://www.laurabetzig.org/pdf/RomanPolygyny.pdf | VOTE |
| January 7th, 2017 | "Roman Monogamy", by Laura Betzig | http://www.laurabetzig.org/pdf/RomanMonogamy.pdf | VOTE |
| January 7th, 2017 | "Medieval Monogamy", by Laura Betzig | http://www.laurabetzig.org/pdf/JFH95.pdf | VOTE |
| January 7th, 2017 | "Polygyny in American Politics", by Laura Betzig, Samantha Weber | http://www.jstor.org/stable/4235905 | VOTE |
| February 11th, 2017 | "Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior", by Christopher Boehm | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2131522.Hierarchy_in_the_Forest | VOTE |
| July 22nd, 2017 | "The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind", by Jason Weeden, Robert Kurzban | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21981657-the-hidden-agenda-of-the-political-mind | VOTE |
| January 13th, 2018 | "The Biology of Moral Systems", by Richard D. Alexander | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1446851.The_Biology_of_Moral_Systems | VOTE |
| May 19th, 2018 | "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past", by David Reich | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35749414-who-we-are-and-how-we-got-here | VOTE |
| October 17th, 2018 | "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion", by Scott Atran | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45747.In_Gods_We_Trust | VOTE |
| December 15th, 2018 | "Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are", by Robert Plomin | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39074555-blueprint | VOTE |
| Date Started | Title | URL | Selected By |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 23rd, 2015 | "The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61535.The_Selfish_Gene | ORGANIZER |
| September 21st, 2015 | "How the Mind Works", by Steven Pinker | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/835623.How_the_Mind_Works | VOTE |
| January 11th, 2016 | "The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life", by Robert Trivers | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13033022-the-folly-of-fools | VOTE |
| June 20th, 2016 | "The Evolution of Everything", by Matt Ridley | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25816925-the-evolution-of-everything | VOTE |
| October 31st, 2016 | "The Secret of Our Success", by Joseph Henrich | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25761655-the-secret-of-our-success | VOTE |
| April 17th, 2017 | "The Extended Phenotype", by Richard Dawkins | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61538.The_Extended_Phenotype | ORGANIZER |
| November 27th, 2017 | "The Gene", by Siddhartha Mukherjee | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276428-the-gene | VOTE |
| May 18, 2018 | "Who We Are & How We Got Here", by David Reich | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35749414-who-we-are-and-how-we-got-here | VOTE |
| November 9, 2018 | "Cognitive Gadgets", by Cecilia Heyes | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36700770-cognitive-gadgets | VOTE |
| January 7, 2019 | "Behave", by Robert Sapolsky | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave | VOTE |
| February 4, 2020 | "Mama's Last Hug", by Frans de Waal | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894068-mama-s-last-hug | VOTE |
| April 21, 2020 | "Origins", by Lewis Dartnell | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42118857-origins | VOTE |
| September 9, 2020 | "How Emotions are Made", by Lisa Feldman Barrett | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23719305-how-emotions-are-made | VOTE |
| December 4, 2020 | "Human Diversity", by Charles Murray | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202799-human-diversity | VOTE |