Dating human cultural capacity using phylogenetic principles

Dating human cultural capacity using phylogenetic principles

Humans have genetically based unique abilities making complex culture possible; an assemblage of traits which we term "cultural capacity". The age of this capacity has for long been subject to controversy. We apply phylogenetic principles to date this capacity, integrating evidence from archaeology, genetics, paleoanthropology, and linguistics. We show that cultural capacity is older than the f...

Cross Cultural Principles for Bioethics

Ethics in relation to the practice of medicine had continuity from the time of Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 BC) to the 1970s focusing on the physician-patient relationship and moral obligations of beneficence and nonmaleficence. In the 1970s developments such as the gene splicing method and in vitro fertilization (IVF) created concerns about the adequacy of these long-established moral obligations ...

A comparative phylogenetic approach for dating whole genome duplication events

MOTIVATION Whole genome duplications have played a major role in determining the structure of eukaryotic genomes. Current evidence revealing large blocks of duplicated chromatin yields new insights into the evolutionary history of species, but also presents a major challenge for researchers attempting to utilize comparative genomics techniques. Understanding the timing of duplication events rel...

PhyloBayes 3.3 a Bayesian software for phylogenetic reconstruction and molecular dating using mixture models

Adaptive Capacity as Cultural Practice

Maru et al. (2012) provide an insightful synthesis about the poverty and rigidity traps. They note how these states can be quite resilient and undesirable for indigenous cultures. We support their approach and add three additional considerations. (1) Maru et al. (2012) tend to interchange adaptive capacity and resilience as concepts. Adaptive capacity and resilience have two different purposes....