iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

🚨 Applied Cultural Evolution Brownbag Series 🚨 Two inaugural discussions: Oct 7 What is (uniquely) applied cultural evolution? Caroline Graf, U. Zurich Dec 9 What can cultural evolution offer climate adaptation practitioners? Christine Lindell, World Vision Australia tinyurl.com/3st6zy79

A black and white image of a tattoo design featuring a human brain with wings pierced by two diagonal arrows over a flying banner that reads "Applied Cultural Evolutionists"

11315

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 16/09/2026

Let me know if you want to chat further! Haven't read the paper yet (sorry, beginning of term) but I'm sure there are many links to be made. E.g. also with Joe Henrich's idea that WEIRDness was caused by the church disrupting close kin relationships

110

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 16/09/2026

'responsibilism' not 'relationalism'

010

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 16/09/2026

I've always felt collectivism needs better theoretical grounding. This seems to fit evolutionary theories of cooperation better: kin selection / direct reciprocity (relationalism) vs indirect/generalised reciprocity, reputation, norms (the 'fuzzy' bit)

2102

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Autumn 2026 Cooperation Colloquia We have an exciting interdisciplinary series of speakers with Kasper Otten, @patkanngiesser.bsky.social, @charlesefferson.bsky.social @nikoletaglyn.bsky.social, Cameron Curtin, & Devesh Rustagi Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...

List of speakers:
2026-09-18 | Kasper Otten (WODC / Erasmus University Rotterdam) | The co-occurrence of ingroup and outgroup prosociality across 121 societies
2026-10-02 | Patricia Kanngiesser (University of Plymouth)
2026-10-16 | Charles Efferson (Université de Lausanne)
2026-10-30 | Nikoleta Glynatsi (RIKEN Center for Computational Science)
2026-11-13 | Cameron Curtin (IAST)
2026-12-11 | Devesh Rustagi (University of Warwick)

1610

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

ACE Research Grant Alert 🚨! CES will give out two awards of up to $3000 each to support early career research projects in cultural evolution. The award is open to applicants worldwide, with an application deadline of October 9th 2026, 9:00 AM AoE. Applications: forms.gle/dsLdKQuNBH4W...

forms.gle

ACE Early Career Research Grants

CES will give out two awards of up to $3000 each to support research projects in cultural evolution. To learn more about the Advancing Cultural Evolution (ACE) initiative, see here. Deadline: Appli...

02935

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 11/09/2026

Very sorry to have to miss this, it's a great lineup of speakers

031

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

One reason England does so well is our second generation immigrants outperform their peers which is not true in most OECD countries. We are also very good at integration. And it's v sad that this is never acknowledge in debates on immigration.

592405851

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Alexey Koshevoy @alexeykoshevoy.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Are you interested in lexical competition, agent-based modelling, strong inference and Ukrainian? Then this paper, just published in @pnasnexus.org, is for you. With @oliviermorin.bsky.social and @sobchuk.bsky.social, we asked a simple question: why do some words become more common than others?

24317

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

New tutorial preprint about simulation-based inference! Shows how to fit a cultural evo model to baby name data using approx Bayesian computation, random forests, and deep learning. Wrote for @eslr.bsky.social but wanted to share with others in @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social! :) osf.io/preprints/so...

osf.io

OSF

14023

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 01/09/2026

Oh and the Richard Lee one too I think

010

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 01/09/2026

Currently have Chris Stringer and Johannes Krause on human evolution, and Douglas Fry vs Luke Glowacki on hunter gatherer warfare.

210

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 01/09/2026

Including podcast episodes in my Evolution & Human Behaviour module for the first time this year. I have episodes from @manymindspod.bsky.social , @epthepod.bsky.social , @ilarimakela.bsky.social & @thedissenteryt.bsky.social . Any others I've missed?

4213

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 01/09/2026

I don't believe so, not for CES at least. Maybe for HBES. You could check with the organisers

100

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 01/09/2026

Fascinating for anyone interested in evolutionary approaches to human behaviour

160

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Gerry Carter @gerrycarter.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Job posting: Associate Professor in behavioral ecology and cultural evolution within the Department of Ecology and Evolution (DEE) at the University of Lausanne. Deadline for applications is 30.09.2026: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli... (there is a button to switch to English at the top right)

wwwfbm.unil.ch

03047

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

ArXiv Paper Poster (cs.SI & ph-soc) @soc-net-bot.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Cultural Evolution of Perfumes since 1900 arxiv.org/abs/2607.19520 Perfumes are cultural artifacts and works of sensory art, composed from a finite, recombinable palette of notes that together evoke a distinctive scent impression. Here, we assemble the largest perfume corpus compiled ...📈🤖

024

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 23/07/2026

Feels like GenAI still has some ways to go

Screenshot of an AI interface that was asked for a Premier League footballer whose surname rhymes with rainbows. It gives the answer 'Liam Delap'.

170

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 23/07/2026

Yes good point, I get APCs waived because Exeter has some arrangement with Cambridge, but this won't apply to everyone

010

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 23/07/2026

I've had good experiences with Evolutionary Human Sciences, mainly due to Charles Efferson being an excellent editor

130

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 22/07/2026

Deadline for these funded MbyRes ecosystem resilience positions is in a week and a half!

011

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I really like this paper I did with @nathan-gabriel.bsky.social and @avbell.bsky.social, now out in EHS. It's an unusual paper because we tried to model the emergence of complex, multidimensional and intersectional identity structures from a signaling perspective. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The evolution of identity signals for co-ordination in diverse societies
Individual social identities indicate group affiliations and are typically associated with group-typical preferences, signals that indicate group membership, and the propensity to condition actions on the social signals of others, resulting in group-differentiated interaction norms. Past work modelling identity signalling and co-ordination has typically assumed that individuals belong to one of a discrete set of groups. Yet individuals can simultaneously belong to multiple groups, which may be nested within larger groupings. Here, we introduce the generalized Bach or Stravinsky game, a co-ordination game with ordered preferences, which allows us to construct a model that captures the overlapping and hierarchical nature of social identity. Our model unifies several prior results into a single framework, including results related to co-ordination, minority disadvantage, and cross-cultural competence. Our model also allows agents to express complex social identities through multidimensional signalling, which we use to explore a variety of complex group structures. Our consideration of intersectional identities exposes flaws in naive measures of group structure, illustrating how empirical studies may overlook some social identities if they do not consider the behaviours that those identities function to afford.

Figure 1.
(a) Ancient Sumerian cities used throughout the paper as a motivating example. (b) Diagram of relationships between the different Mesopotamian identities along with shapes used to represent each of them throughout the paper.

Figure 11.
Proportion of simulations that resulted in (a) the intersectional structure, optimal when 𝛼 =2, or (b) either of the two mere conjunction structures, optimal when 𝛼 =0. The trio of stick figures at the top represent the optimal strategy profiles used by non-Kishus in all cases.

Acknowledgements
We thank the members of the MODSOC lab at UC Merced for helpful comments. We are grateful to the NSF for funding foundational research on social identity, inequality, and intersectionality.

0134

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Claudio Tennie @ctennie.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Trial and error only gets you so far in Klondike search spaces. To frog leap in these, it's much much better to go the collective intelligence route. And teaching is the fastest elevator for such leaps. @johanlind.bsky.social

0125

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

primatesocietygb.bsky.social @primatesocietygb.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Save the date! 📅 PSGB is hosting an online workshop on the topic “Cognition for Conservation and Captive Care” (2nd September 2026). Check out the first look for our speakers working across primate behaviour and cognition & register your interest to receive the workshop link! 🐒 shorturl.at/HDvXA

159

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Kenji Itao @kenjiitao.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Are there typical patterns in global fertility decline? In my new paper, I show that it can be largely described by just two pathways. This paper also proposes a mechanism behind two pathways, and a possible policy for fertility recovery: lowering education costs. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Two universal pathways in demographic transition | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core

Two universal pathways in demographic transition - Volume 8

2165

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!

cambridge.org

Children as agents of cultural adaptation | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Children as agents of cultural adaptation - Volume 49

411840

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

📣 I'm hiring! Two positions (PhD student & Postdoc) in my ERC project Macroevolution of European Literature. Let's study the cultural evolution of literature using massive data 📚📈 📍Frankfurt | Apply by August 15 Details: www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/career/jo... Please repost to help spread the word!

Job announcement of two positions at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt: postdoc (Macroevolution of European Literature) and PhD student (Computational Literary Studies). Successful candidates will be affiliated with the research group Cultural Evolution of the Arts.

08082

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 24/06/2026

Indeed! @dstibbardhawkes.bsky.social gave me some good sources on this, e.g. Jerome Lewis' "Where goods are free but knowledge costs". Currently working on a review integrating different research on information sharing in humans, from ethnography to WEIRD experiments

160

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 24/06/2026

This is a follow-up to a previous paper where we modelled information sharing as a cooperative dilemma, with partner choice one of the mechanisms that we thought people might use to maintain costly information sharing. It turns out actual people disagreed. royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

royalsocietypublishing.org

From information free-riding to information sharing: how have humans solved the cooperative dilemma at the heart of cumulative cultural evolution?

Abstract. Cumulative cultural evolution, where populations accumulate ever-improving knowledge, technologies and social customs, is arguably a unique featu

030

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 24/06/2026

We find in a series of online experiments that most participants indiscriminately share costly information with others, rather than use the reputation-based partner choice system that we painstakingly set up for them.

140

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 22/06/2026

My department has funding for 2-year MByRes studentships (full tuition fees and research allowance) on ecosystem resilience, broadly defined. Apply to do a project with me modelling social-ecological networks. #culturalevolution #socialnetworks ecologyconservation.exeter.ac.uk/masteer-coho...

01021

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 22/06/2026

01021

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Ralf Kurvers @ralfkurvers.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

New preprint led by @lucasmolleman.bsky.social investigates social information use across the human lifespan. Testing >40,000 participants aged 6-80 in museums in Berlin and Japan. psyarxiv.com/hec96

13921

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Kenji Itao @kenjiitao.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

🚨 ACE Seminar We’re excited to host Dr. Patrick Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social in our upcoming ACE Seminar! 🗓 Tuesday, Jun 16, 2026 🕖 2:00 PM JST (UTC+9) 💻 Online via Zoom 🔗 To receive the Zoom link, please send a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com

085

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

New episode!! 🎙️🎉 A conversation w/ @vivek123.bsky.social about Man the Hunter. The idea that male hunting propelled our evolution is old and contested. Yet it endures, especially in the popular imagination. Is it merely a "paleofantasy," or is there more to it? Listen: disi.org/is-man-the-h...

1197

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Our latest episode of Transmissions is out! This one features Prof. Dr. Lucy Aplin, a leading cognitive ecologist from the University of Zurich and Australian National University. This marks our very first episode dedicated entirely to understanding animal culture! youtu.be/M7qCTKRNVuA?...

youtu.be

Transmissions Episode 6 with Dr Lucy Aplin

YouTube video by Cultural Evolution Society

13212

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 11/06/2026

I wonder if you could make more links between the 'ecological' approach and old EP Tooby/Cosmides ideas about evoked culture. They seem very similar to me. I think Monique BM and @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social make similar points in their comments on the Andre & Baumard paper.

130

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 06/06/2026

Here's a proper mathematical model of the interaction between conformity and migration www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... mostly coming to the same conclusions as the simulations I did here journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Interaction of migration and frequency dependence in cultural populations

Migration has shaped cultural and genetic diversity. Population genetics shows that low migration rates between populations can homogenise them. Howev…

0115

Reposted by Alex Mesoudi

Cristina Moya @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Great opportunity for anyone wanting to get involved in the direction Cultural Evolution institutions go. You get to work with lovely people and help guide this nascent organization.

065

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 21/05/2026

Here's @ruthmace.bsky.social giving the inaugural Tinbergen lecture @uniexecec.bsky.social today, asking why there are so many celibate monks in Tibet