iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sven Kasser

@svenkasser.bsky.social

222 followers 286 following 15 posts

Genes & culture & coevolution, oh my! Bio PhD @ St Andrews (w/ Kevin Lala) | Oxford | Stanford Now a postdoc with Brenna Henn (UC Davis) and Caitlin Uren (Stellenbosch) Opinions are my mom’s due to vertical cultural transmission - he/him.

Posts Replies Media

Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Not sure about this, both Claude and my mother seem to agree that I'm a very special boy.

science.org

Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence

Despite rising concerns about sycophancy—excessive agreement or flattery from artificial intelligence (AI) systems—little is known about its prevalence or consequences. We show that sycophancy is wide...

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Belated career update: after 4 years of reasonably productive PhDing with @kevinlala.bsky.social, I have now started a postdoc at UC Davis with Brenna Henn, working on KhoeSan popgen, historical subsistence transitions, and - of course - potential gene-culture coevolutionary relationships.

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

I wrote a thing! Credit where credit is due - the impetus for this paper came from many conversations I had as a baby first year grad student at CES 2022 (@culturalevolsoc.bsky.social). I hope it might serve as a useful way of thinking about the many modes of interaction in dual inheritance theory.

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Reposted by Sven Kasser

Sandra Oliveira @sandra-oliveira.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Happy to share a PhD opportunity in my new lab at the University of Zurich! Application deadline: June 30. Do not hesitate to contact me for any questions!

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Happy to announce that my temporary thesis-writing mania has sprung the long awaited sequel to my conference presentation "Of Rice and Men":

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

I’ve always thought EvoBio has this strange, bordering on unhealthy obsession with / cult of personality around Charles Darwin. Anyway, on an unrelated note, I tufted his tree of life drawing today because I didn’t know what else to make

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Lynda Delph @ldelph.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Here's my favorite from this semester - a meme about why we grow old and die.

A cartoon of a Trojan horse at the gates, with the horse appearing to be "advantages effects early in life", while hiding "deleterious effects late in life in its belly". Selection and antagonistic pleiotropy are also listed.

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

A lovely preprint, that really resonates with some of my own thoughts on how we use/have adapted the “coevolution” concept in the gene-culture interaction literature

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Reposted by Sven Kasser

Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 09/12/2024

NEW in preprint form: Don't ask "when is it coevolution?" — ask "how?" In which I pick apart the way I've understood the very definition of my field of study, and try to come up with something better.

buff.ly

Don’t ask “when is it coevolution?” — ask “how?”

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 2 of this Preprint.

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Prof. Gillian Brown @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

🚨 PhD project: 4-year PhD project on human reproduction, mating strategies and gender roles. Funding is via BBSRC EastBio (i.e. funding not attached to specific project). Please get in touch with me (UK/international). Deadline for nominated applicant: 17 Jan 2025 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

findaphd.com

EASTBIO: Bateman’s principles and human reproductive strategies: a biosocial approach at University of St Andrews on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - EASTBIO: Bateman’s principles and human reproductive strategies: a biosocial approach at University of St Andrews, listed on FindAPhD.com

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I should maybe (re-)introduce myself: Hi! My name is Sven, a PhD student at St Andrews w/ Kevin Lala, exploring empirically how being a cultural species shapes the genetic (and cultural!) evolution of human populations - by profoundly affecting not only selection, but migration, demography, etc.

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Sven Kasser @svenkasser.bsky.social · 10/04/2024

One of my principal joys and frustrations as a disciplinary tweener is that I will spend one day regaling my office mates with unsolicited fun facts about the anthropology of cheese making, only to spend 10 hours the next day spiralling as I try and fail to merge two vcf files.

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