The economics of hunter-gatherers...

Today, a presentation by Dr. Kim Hill, a rather prolific contributor to the evolutionary behavioral ecology end of anthropology, covered some basic concepts behind the resource sharing in hunter-gatherer tribes.  The crib notes of which can be summed as such:

Applied for yet another Epidemiology job...

It's funny, in a way, but I wouldn't have thought about applying for that field of work until recently.  Two things changed though, okay three things.

(A work in progress) My 10 tenets to handling overpopulation.

In response to a question on Yahoo! Answers, I've decided on some basic, first blush concepts to handle human overpopulation.  Obviously, there is a lot of cultural inertia and baggage to overcome before any of these could even remotely be feasible.

1) Dump the nuclear family ideal and force matrilinial, matrilocal extended families.

The nuclear family ideal pushed two things: spacial expansion and population expansion.  Additionally, an extended family with extensive familial support reduces familial competition and increases competition for women as mates providing a more stable society.

Quick thought on social and neuroscience...

Some of the recent studies showing continued brain growth in teenage brains (a "lite" report here) are being used as to push for an "extended childhood" for teens.  During the teenage years, the prefrontal cortex--the area of the brain concerned with "rational" decision making and courses of action--first grows and then prunes connections and myelinates particular areas.  (Myelination increases the speed a message can travel along a nerve, essentially "locking in" a particular message by reducing time to "consider" alternatives.)

In  several anthropology papers and courses, I've been shown patterns where young men (at least) may have greater strength and aptitude, but the peak age for production by hunting is upwards of 35.  This implies there is a context-specific experiential process at work for this socially important activity.  The fact it's a relatively smooth curve from onset of puberty to adulthood and a relatively monolithic (excuse the pun) adult culture in most cases says something as well. 

In some of the behavioral genetics heritability studies on certain traits like the heritability of religiosity, the heritability of the trait is seriously affected by age.  Those that are older often show an increase of heritability which wouldn't make sense if it was a basic additive genetic trait.  If it requires a (social) context-specific "burn-in" period, however, and is tied into a set of working behavior-governing institutions, that would make sense.

So...

My hypothesis is that the "developmental" period during puberty isn't part of an extended childhood, it's the intended developmental period for adulthood.  Essentially, the apprenticeship period for learning the rules and institutions in their social context in order to successfully function as an adult.  By removing the opportunity to develop in the adult society they will later be a part of, teens are rendered less prepared or with substitute, created variants of the "adult world" they have adapted to.

This would explain a number of things, least of all is the divorce rate and the periodic creation of sub-cultures based around teenagers.  Essentially, by "protecting" teens from the adult world, they learn and lock in (that's where the myelination comes in) rules that are appropriate for the limited situation they live through as teens and have difficulty adapting to the "responsible" adult world, a lot like Peter Pan.

How could you prove such a hypothesis?

The ideal situation would be somewhat ethically challenging in most places because it would require treating any subject post-puberty as an adult.  Alternatively, one could consider a cross-cultural study where adulthood is conferred at puberty, but the confounds would be ridiculous because most of these cultures also have a more simple overall culture.  If there were reason to believe different parts of this development process weren't very tightly integrated, one could use activities that are less regulated in this culture and create two experimental groups where "childhood" is enforced in one and adult activities are permitted/encouraged in the other.   Maybe something like hunting or finances may be of interest.

Just an idea.

I love when people on Yahoo! Answers totally get the wrong area to post:

Found in the Anthropology section:

Question: What's the difference in Black Ops and Modern warfare 2?

I'm not talking about the missions! I'm talking about weapons!

---

Answer:

Regional variation in culture often result in differences in material culture including weapon design.  One example of this is the adoption of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) in US forces during World War II and the adoption of the Bren Light Machine gun by the British.  The BAR was selected because if fit the US tactics of the time was one of small, similar units that swapped roles as maneuver, support, and assault repeatedly.  As such, the appropriate weapon design required the ability to provide supporting (automatic) fire and be easily maneuverable under fire.  Additionally, the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine--useful for both short range and volume fire compared to the bolt-action rifles of other nations--support this premise.

By contrast, the more hierarchical culture of the British created the organizational solution of specialized teams for maneuver/assault (riflemen) and support (light machine gun/PIAT).  This adoption of specialized solutions resulted in the adoption of specialized weapons for both types of teams.  As such, the Bren was heavier, less portable, and primarily intended for fire from the bipod with a dedicated person or persons to provide ammunition.  This allowed the British riflemen to employ "lighter" in terms of either volume of fire (SMLE rifles) or power (STEN submachine guns) successfully.

The follow-on developments tied to culture and tactics resulted in a number of different, more modern weapon designs including the American M60 machine gun series (intended to replace both the BAR in maneuver and the heavier medium machine guns), the M240/L7 series of GPMG's intended to supplant Bren's in a similar role), as well as the various assault rifle concepts including the bullpup designs and the AR15/M16.

Bullpup designs are a compromise between length of barrel, overall length, and possible length of sight radius.  Barrel length can be longer in these designs because the action is shifted into what was previously "unemployed" volume of the stock.  This results in a shorter overall design with a typically longer or similar length barrel providing good potential accuracy and power compared to similar length, short-barrel conventional designs.  The sacrifice comes primarily in the form of sight radius--which usually necessitates an expensive optical sight system--and the ability in most designs to fire off of the other shoulder to take advantage of tactical cover.

These designs are usually adopted by cultures with a long distinction between riflemen and other types of troops because--with the optical sights--they perform admirably in the rifleman role but less well--even in modified variants--in more general roles for the assault, support fire, and others.  The implication is again one of hierarchical, specialized solutions to tactical problems and over one of common, more generalist roles.

The competing paradigm--primarily demonstrated by the adoption of the AR15/M16-series--is one of modular flexibility.  These weapons are often selected by groups/military units with a high investment in individual skill and overall egalitarianism.  The design follows this trend by being easily modified and/or accessorized to allow the firer to perform most functions well in a variety of situations.  In this case, the focus of the weapon/user construct can change quickly and the design supports it. 

A third paradigm is one of the simple, primarily seen in the adoption of the AK47 and its descendants.  In most of these cases, the investment in training of weapon carriers is minimal and the design reflects this in being only moderately accurate but highly resistant to abuse.  Culturally, these groups often see the weapon as a symbol of power and or a means of inducing terror instead of a precision tool. 

In many cases, even those countries/cultures that employ a dedicated system at the basic troop level will use a different design where the subcultures exist--such as special operations or paramilitary troops.  The weapons employed and their design  or adoption in a competitive market is a reflection of cultural ideals mitigated by tactical necessity.

Now that you've read that, how about next time posting in a more appropriate forum, eh?

The Utility of Religion...

Note: I have no intention to debate the existence or lack of existence of supernatural beings.  I acknowledge there are elements of existence that are not explained or even explainable as there is without debating the supernatural.

Many confuse the ideas of organizations and institutions.  Simply put, institutions are the sets of rules and norms that govern the behaviors of agents or people in a particular context.  These can be formal laws or merely suggestive norms.  Organizations, by comparison, are a combination of these institutions and a group of people.  

Have been busy...

Slamming an ethnography, trying to figure out how to run a Mac or Linux program using Xming on a Windows machine.

I'm decent with computers, but...

The discussion about last week's Science paper...

Led to a short discussion about the potentially massive data likely hid within the histories of massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG's) and the issues of getting access to such a date mine.

My suggestion was to consider creating a new one in the name of science...

Essentially start from zero with an MMORPG run non-profit with permissions from the beginning to use non-personal data for research.  Sell it as fun to players, and create within it virtual research labs.  You could explore ecological and socio-ecological behaviors as well as simple social interaction.  If you could create a dynamic system in the game that--instead of a regular time-based "ecology" you get in many MMORPG's--current conditions could influence later conditions.

Another idea I would suggest incorporating would be the ability to create once-off or temporary "worlds" for use in specific, short term research projects.  Essentially, farm out some of the virtual "landscape" for use for student researchers.  It would require some level of modularity to ease the learning curve of academics and there would probably need to be dedicated programming staff as well as marketing...

...but I think it could be both fun and a useful tool to connect participants and academics in many of the up-and-coming interdisciplinary arenas.

Just an idea, eh?

Chaos...

The Complex Adaptive Systems seminar was today and--in the spirit of interdisciplinarity--today was a presentation by a mathematical modeler on chaos and complexity.  I think I had just enough math to get what he talked about, but--unlike most other presentations so far--today was really quiet on the question side of things.

For anyone who doesn't know, the idea of chaos isn't one of randomness (stochasticity), it's essentially one where you can predict an outcome with the probability of a specific outcome being greater closer to the origin and the probability of a general outcome (or distribution) being greater farther from the origin.  In other words, the closer to home you look at, say, a route taken bicycling, the more predictable you'll find the exact path the bike takes.  However, over time, you lose that ability but pick up the ability to predict a general group of paths usually taken.

It's interesting in an esoteric sort of way.  Ironically, my introduction to chaos as an idea came with discussions of mathematics in field artillery.  My first adult "job" was as a field artillery weather observer and--as part of the initial training--we were introduced to the artillery round-off rule that used the oddness or evenness of a the terminal digit to determine which direction to round an otherwise terminal 5.  This somewhat stochastic method was intended to avoid a directional tendency in the the rounding of the myriad of mathematical calculations required when artillery was targeted.  Because of the number of calculations, the number of times numbers are rounded, and the potential hazard of an incorrectly placed artillery round (typically, more than one), the concept was to try to make any error more uniformly distributed around the actual values being estimated.

(I think this connection between math and large things dropping out of the blue and going boom! is one reason I take mathematics a little more seriously than many of my friends.)

My second interaction with the idea was courtesy of Michael Crighton and--yes--Jeff Goldblum's voice creeps into the shadowy periphery of my mind every time I hear the word "chaos".  Given I read the book prior to the movie, I did get the more detailed if still fiction-driven conceptual explanation...

...but--as one of my oldest son's favorite movies as a kid was Jurassic Park--I can not begin to count the number of times I've seen the scene with the water off the hand explanation of initial conditions influencing outcomes.

Got to love popular culture.