Prof. Gillian Brown

Prof. Gillian Brown

@gillianrbrown1.bsky.social

101

Posts

Professor of psychology; University of St Andrews, UK; behaviour, sex/gender, evolution, culture; EDI advocate. Gardening. 🌼

'Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour' (3rd edition, 2024)

https://gillianbrown.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk

Posts Replies Media

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Prof. Gillian Brown

New: A registered report survey of open research practices in psychology departments in the UK and Ireland, with my excellent colleagues @priyasilverstein.com @drcpennington.bsky.social Peter Branney, Daryl O'Connor, Emer O'Brien and Emma Lawlor #openScience #psychSciSky #academicSky #openAccess

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Applications now open for the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social Advancing Cultural Evolution Early Career Research Grants, deadline 27 Sep 2024, award of up to $3000 culturalevolutionsociety.org/news-and-eve...

ACE Early Career Research Grants now open - Cultural Evolution Societyculturalevolutionsociety.org

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Time is running short to register for #CES2024 Conference! Register here pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham... by 20th July at 4pm UTC/GMT to ensure you don't miss out! See our programme below and visit our website for a refresher on our 5 awesome keynotes here! ces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk/programme/

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Attention animal behaviour researchers! Sally Street (Durham University) is running a study of perceptions of other species and would love to hear from you 🐸🦉🐯🐵🐍🐙 See link for more info or to take part: durhamuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Animal Perceptionsdurhamuniversity.qualtrics.com Short experiment & survey: perceptions of animal behaviour

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Prof. Gillian Brown

“we resolve the question of whether there is a trend for brain mass to increase through time. We find a trend in only 3 mammalian orders, which is strongest in primates, setting the stage for the uniquely rapid directional increase ultimately producing the computational powers of the human brain”

Co-evolutionary dynamics of mammalian brain and body size - Nature Ecology & Evolutionwww.nature.com Analysis of mammalian brain and body mass reveals a curvilinear relationship contrary to assumptions of log-linear power laws. As mammals grow larger, increases in brain mass compared to body mass dim...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Some quantitative psychology (longitudinal emphasis) positions available with me at Uni Zurich from September on, rebleets appreciated! Postdoc: jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stell... PhD: jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stell...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Work with us @Sussex_Psych ! Two fixed term, part-time lectureships to provide teaching cover. Clinical psych lecturer: universityofsussex.livevacancies.co.uk#/job/details... Biological psych lecturer universityofsussex.livevacancies.co.uk#/job/details... Please share.

hireful.universityofsussex.livevacancies.co.uk

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Prof. Gillian Brown

In "Niche Construction. How Life Contributes to its own Evolution" (@MITPress) Odling-Smee argues that the purposeful agency of organisms plays a key role in evolution. This week only: pre-order Odling-Smee's new book and get a 10-25% discount shorturl.at/deIl9 Use code PREORDER25 at checkout.

Niche Construction: How Life Contributes to Its Own Evolution|Paperbackshorturl.at How niche construction theory extends evolutionary theory beyond natural selection to a more general theory about the coevolution of organisms with their environments.In Niche Construction, John Odlin...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

I’ve got a book out soon, grandiosely entitled “Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species.” What’s my book all about, you ask? A thread 🧵👇 www.amazon.com/Disbelief-Or...

Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species: Gervais Ph.D, Will M.: 9781633889248: Amazon.com: Bookswww.amazon.com Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species [Gervais Ph.D, Will M.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Our new paper in Communications Psychology with Aife Hopkins-Doyle, Jocely Chalmers and Daniel Toribio-Florez examines #gender disparities in social and personality psychology awards from 1968 to 2021. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

'[M]en were more likely to be recognized with awards than women, but the proportion of awards won by women has increased over time. Despite this increased share of awards, women were more likely to win awards for service and teaching... rather than research contributions.' - Hopkins-Doyle et al 2024

Our new paper in Communications Psychology with Aife Hopkins-Doyle, Jocely Chalmers and Daniel Toribio-Florez examines #gender disparities in social and personality psychology awards from 1968 to 2021. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Evolution is a network not a tree. It is much more haphazard and interconnected through mimcry, coevolution and sharing than previously believed. In my view, this supports the idea of a new polygenic human evolution, that genomics is suggesting. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

The Network of Lifepress.princeton.edu Why evolution is like a network, not a family tree—and why it matters for understanding the health of all living things

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Prof. Gillian Brown

"Evolution's new narrative is..." not so much a branching tree but "a more decentralized network, where branches can both split and join". Interesting new book by David Mindell "The Network of Life" places emphasis on hybridization, merging and horizontal gene transfer in evolution. #evolution

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Aaaaaaand it is officially out! Rage against the what? The machine metaphor in biology (Ann-Sophie Barwich & Matthew James Rodriguez; Biology & Philosophy) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Rage against the what? The machine metaphor in biology - Biology & Philosophylink.springer.com Machine metaphors abound in life sciences: animals as automata, mitochondria as engines, brains as computers. Philosophers have criticized machine metaphors for implying that life functions mechanical...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

New paper from the lab! w/@davidschultner.bsky.social @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social & Mina Cikara We show that merely viewing a prejudiced person’s intergroup behavior induces bias in observers—a novel learning mechanism for prejudice formation and propagation science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

something to crow about: interdisciplinary workshop on corvid vocal communication (12th and 13th Sept 2024) covco2024.github.io

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Some thoughts on how we can navigate questions of universality central to infant research with Dean D'Souza and @mcxfrank.bsky.social infantstudies.org/towards-a-sc...

Towards a science of both variability and consistency in infant development - The International Congress of Infant Studiesinfantstudies.org

'[H]umans show the highest evolutionary rate to become more altricial (measured as proportion of adult brain size at birth) across all placental mammals, but this results primarily from the pronounced postnatal enlargement of brain size rather than neonatal changes.' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The evolution of human altriciality and brain development in comparative context - Nature Ecology & Evolutionwww.nature.com Humans have the highest evolutionary rate towards becoming more altricial across all placental mammals, but this results primarily from postnatal enlargement of brain size rather than neonatal changes...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Remarkable South Africa termite landscape is tens of thousands of years old: “Namaqualand’s heuweltjies, it turns out, are the world’s oldest inhabited termite mounds. Some date as far back as between 34,000 and 13,000 years.” @TC_Africa theconversation.com/worlds-oldes...

World’s oldest termite mounds discovered in South Africa – and they’ve been storing precious carbon for thousands of yearstheconversation.com There is growing evidence that termites have a substantial, but still poorly understood, role in the carbon cycle.

A belated #sixonsaturday from my Scottish garden. 🌱 #gardening

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Prof. Gillian Brown

“we review how the mental load [of motherhood] may impact the maternal brain & how it may be especially pronounced in the modern day, as mothers deal with additional pressures such as poverty, single parenthood, lack of institutional policies for parents & rise of intensive mothering ideologies”

Understanding the maternal brain in the context of the mental load of motherhood - Nature Mental Healthwww.nature.com This Review discusses the key factors that comprise the mental load of motherhood and the need to provide support for a healthy transition to motherhood.

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Prof. Gillian Brown

This looks great (if pricey): 'Sex, Gender, Ethics and the Darwinian Evolution of Mankind: 150 Years of Darwin's 'Descent of Man'.' Top-notch cast including Claudine Cohen, Jonathan Hodge, Greg Radick, & Michael Ruse. 📚🐵🗃️ #histsci #philsci #hpbio www.routledge.com/Sex-Gender-E...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

REMINDER to register - Under a month to go until registration for #CES2024Durham closes on July 20th 4pm GMT/UTC @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social ces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk/registration...

Registration Information - CES 2024 Conferenceces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk Register for the CES 24 Conference and/or Capstone Conference here. The deadline for registration is 20th July 2024 at 4pm GMT. The registration fee for the Capstone Conference is £65 (or £32.50/day) ...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Better late than never: We have a new paper with Charles Mullon and Laurent Lehmann. We study the evolution of social (and possibly posthumous) behaviors mediated by environmental factors in spatially structured populations. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

The evolution of environmentally mediated social interactions and posthumous spite under isolation by distancejournals.plos.org Author summary Organisms continually modify their environment by extracting resources, releasing toxins, or engineering habitats. These environmental modifications can have significant fitness consequ...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Kevin Lala et al's new book ‘Evolution Evolving’ is now available to pre-order! For a 30% discount visit the book’s fantastic new website at www.evolutionevolving.org to get the discount code. Published in Sept by @princetonupress.bsky.social #evolution #biology #inheritance

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Prof. Gillian Brown

CCE member @michelleakline.bsky.social had just published the chapter “Teaching: what, when, where and why” academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

academic.oup.com

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Prof. Gillian Brown

I wrote a blog post about the rather niche enterprise of setting up a consultancy side business. Hopefully useful to some gavinbuckingham.wordpress.com/2024/06/24/s...

Spinning out (developing your side business)gavinbuckingham.wordpress.com Bit of a niche post here - one for people interested in my recent experience of building a consultancy 'business' to earn a bit of extra income. As you might be aware (because I never shut up about it...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Call for collaboration📢 Do you have primate face images? We are starting a project exploring the form and function of 'babyness' in primate faces. Contact me if you can help! yurikawaguchi.weebly.com/baby-face-pr... Our relevant review is just published! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Baby face projectyurikawaguchi.weebly.com Why are infants cute? A classic theory suggests that specific facial features in infants (e.g., bigger forehead and eyes, protruding cheeks) create impressions of cuteness and motivate adults to...

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Prof. Gillian Brown

Lynn's "national IQ" dataset is egregiously flawed; he never described methods for its construction & there is evidence the dataset is systematically biased. Journals should retract papers which have used the data, yet are reluctant to do so, as our @statnews.bsky.social piece describes👇

Richard Lynn’s racist national IQ data sets and papers that use them should be retracted. New piece in Stat News from @dsamorod.bsky.social, @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social, @jedidiahcarlson.com, James Lingford, @rebeccasear.bsky.social, Cathryn Townsend, and me

Journals that published Richard Lynn's racist 'research' articles should retract themwww.statnews.com Richard Lynn's work has been repeatedly condemned for using flawed methodology and deceptively collated data to support racism. It's past time to retract the studies.

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Prof. Gillian Brown

We're SEEKING TO APPOINT a senior lecturer or reader in mental health! This is a research and teaching position. Closing date is August 16th. jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/seni...

Jobs - The University of Yorkjobs.york.ac.uk