Kalyani Twyman
@kztwyman.bsky.social
260 followers 240 following 20 posts
PhD student at the University of St Andrews with Prof. Andy Gardner Evolution, theory, social behaviour, antiracism, trail running, climbing She/her
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Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
rebeccasear.bsky.social
Race Isn’t Biological — So Why Do So Many Still Think It Is?

@kevinlala.bsky.social and @kztwyman.bsky.social blog about their recent paper in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences

www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...
Image from the blog showing 5 solutions to countering scientific racism

1. Introduce students to the complexities of developmental processes
2. Introduce students to the complexities of inheritance processes
3. Explain that variation between racialised groups in behavioural and cultural traits is not caused by genetic differences
4. Debunk scientific racism in school and university level science curricula
5. Acknowledge and contextualised the racist histories of academic fields
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
kevinlala.bsky.social
Our article "Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience" (with @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social, @kztwyman.bsky.social & Marc Feldman) is now published online.

We describe five factors that contribute to the spread of racism and suggest strategies for countering them.

doi.org/10.1017/ehs....
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
andygardner.bsky.social
And Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn, whose poster "The consequences of constrained sex allocation under local mate competition" (P02.036) is in Tuesday's session.

This is based on his recent paper in Journal of Evolutionary Biology:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

@jevbio.bsky.social @eseb2025.bsky.social
Photo of Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
andygardner.bsky.social
Two other members of the research group have successfully made it to @eseb2025.bsky.social ahead of me.

Look out for @kztwyman.bsky.social, whose poster "A formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligate eusociality" (P01.068) is in this evening's session.
Photo of Kalyani Twyman.
kztwyman.bsky.social
Really great to hear that these topics are being brought up and spoken about in class. Would love to hear their (and your) thoughts!
kztwyman.bsky.social
Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#ScientificRacism #Antiracism
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
gillianrbrown1.bsky.social
In this new article on scientific racism (coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @kztwyman.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman), we present five impediments to countering racist pseudoscience and suggest strategies for containing its spread.

#ehbea #philsci #histsci #ishpssb2025 🧪

tinyurl.com/4ptyt6w2
Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core
Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience
tinyurl.com
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
kevinlala.bsky.social
I'm happy to share our latest manuscript "Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience", coauthored with @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social @kztwyman.bsky.social & Marcus Feldman.
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
andygardner.bsky.social
New paper: "The consequences of constrained sex allocation in diploids and haplodiploids under local mate competition", with Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

@jevbio.bsky.social
Figure 1. Unbeatable sex allocation strategy of unconstrained females (r*) as a function of proportion of constrained females (p) under local mate competition with two foundresses colonising the patch. Shown are the result for Godfray’s (1990) erroneous diploidy solution (dashed grey line), our corrected diploidy solution (solid grey line), and our haplodiploidy solution (solid black line). Overlaid are results from individual-based simulations (discs).
kztwyman.bsky.social
Thank you to all who provided helpful discussion or suggestions: @alecburslem.bsky.social, Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn, @bingdongevo.bsky.social, Steve Frank, @georgeshillcock.bsky.social, @zerenvc.bsky.social, & two anonymous reviewers. And of course, thanks to my supervisor @andygardner.bsky.social
kztwyman.bsky.social
Lastly, we find that sharing is required for division of labor to be favoured by natural selection, meaning that the “clonality window” for sharing is also a prerequisite for division of labor in this scenario, aligning with empirical evidence on the evolution of obligate multicellularity!
kztwyman.bsky.social
We also show that the covariance effect imparts an inclusive-fitness benefit for cells that share, but that natural selection favours sharing only when group-mates are clonal, yielding what we call a “clonality window” for evolution of viability sharing in this context.
kztwyman.bsky.social
We recover the group covariance effect, revealing that it is a consequence of cells sharing the products of their labours (e.g., as a public good). In doing so, we also clarify that the group’s fitness remains equal to the aggregate of the fitnesses of its constituent cells - yay!
kztwyman.bsky.social
However, it is difficult to see how a group’s fitness could be different from the aggregate of its constituents, so in the paper, we investigate the same fitness trade-off and its potential consequences for division of labor.
kztwyman.bsky.social
It has been suggested that a trade-off between viability and fecundity may lead to a group’s fitness being augmented above the average of its constituents’ fitnesses via a ‘group covariance effect’, offering a first step toward division of labor and obligate multicellularity.
kztwyman.bsky.social
Cellular division of labor—e.g., germ-soma specialisation—is closely associated with the emergence of organismality in the evolution of obligate multicellularity, an important major transition in evolution.
Reposted by Kalyani Twyman
andygardner.bsky.social
New paper: “The clonality window: relatedness and the group covariance effect in the evolution of division of labour”, with @kztwyman.bsky.social #OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

@journal-evo.bsky.social #Image: #ChatGPT #Evolution #OA
AI-generated image using the paper's title and abstract as input.