Tim Waring
@twaring.bsky.social
1.4K followers 390 following 160 posts
I study the evolution of human culture with a focus on environmental behaviors and institutions and an eye toward helping these become more sustainable on a single, limited planet. https://timwaring.info/
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twaring.bsky.social
🚨 Excited to share a new paper 📃, years in the making, with Zach Wood.

We propose that human evolution is characterized as an Evolutionary Transition in Inheritance and Individuality (ETII).

Explainer and OA paper below:
Reposted by Tim Waring
malcolmnance.bsky.social
TERRORISM EXPERT HERE:

This statement is a clear example of what is known as “State Terrorism”: When the dictatorship will order all instruments of its state security & intelligence apparatus against its own citizens to terrorize the population.
twaring.bsky.social
Oh my god yes.
gracekind.net
Grace @gracekind.net · Mar 20
Horrible chart for your perusal
Reposted by Tim Waring
dieworkwear.bsky.social
Jane Goodall was my first childhood hero, as I loved animals as a kid and was inspired by her story. I still remember the National Geographic specials about her. RIP.
Jane Goodall reaches out and touches a small monkey.
Reposted by Tim Waring
jacquelyngill.bsky.social
The federal government has censored the work of dozens of scientists, including work by my lab, on the impacts of climate change on Acadia National Park. Signs have been removed from Cadillac and Great Meadow. They’re also removing signs about the Wabanaki’s sacred connections to Cadillac.
Signs Referencing Climate Change Along with Web Pages Removed from Acadia National Park
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.
barharborstory.substack.com
twaring.bsky.social
This is precisely what is needed! I would be interested to learn more. I’m planning a project for which I have funding secured, and this could be a part of it. I’ll send an email.
Reposted by Tim Waring
twaring.bsky.social
We stress the ethics of studying human evolution, past, present and future. Some societies are not morally ‘better’ than others. Evolution is not perfection or destiny. It creates both good solutions and brutal outcomes.

But we hope our theory can help our whole species avoid the worst parts.
Reposted by Tim Waring
twaring.bsky.social
🚨 Excited to share a new paper 📃, years in the making, with Zach Wood.

We propose that human evolution is characterized as an Evolutionary Transition in Inheritance and Individuality (ETII).

Explainer and OA paper below:
twaring.bsky.social
Explainer thread:
bsky.app/profile/twar...
twaring.bsky.social
🚨 Excited to share a new paper 📃, years in the making, with Zach Wood.

We propose that human evolution is characterized as an Evolutionary Transition in Inheritance and Individuality (ETII).

Explainer and OA paper below:
twaring.bsky.social
Folks who study group-level cultural evolution, or compare cultural and genetic evolution. What do you make of our estimate:

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

Human culture is:
1 - more adaptive than genes
2 - driving gene-culture co-evolution
3 - majorly group structured
4 - causing a human ETI
Cultural inheritance is driving a transition in human evolution
Abstract. Previous research on a transition in human evolution has been befuddled by the complexity of adaptive culture and made little effort toward empir
academic.oup.com
Reposted by Tim Waring
carlbergstrom.com
All hype about the power of facilitating "human-AI collaboration" aside, we don't quickly implement extremely strong norms of disclosure around AI use, science is cooked.

From arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12282, one of many many efforts in this direction.
Fig. 1: AIssistant processes an AI-human generated research
idea along with supporting notes, routes them through a
pipeline of specialized LLM agents, and outputs both a per-
spective paper and a review paper.
Reposted by Tim Waring
Reposted by Tim Waring
theduncanmackay.bsky.social
#OTD 19 September 1991, walkers in the high Ötztal alps on the Italian border, found a body melting out of the ice. It turned out to be the remains of a c.5200 year old man preserved with all his kit.
Of course, it was essential to replicate him in Playmobil.
1🧵
#PlaymobilÖtzi
#PlaymobilInfestation
Playmobil figure kitted out as prehistoric iceman Ötzi.
twaring.bsky.social
✨ cultural group selection ✨
twaring.bsky.social
The most fundamental aspect of that cooperation is what counts as fact. How the collective story gets told. When that starts to wander, all bets are off.

In this way, it seems that blue sky has evolved from the failures of the previous ones and we are punishing our non-cooperators.
twaring.bsky.social
Communes often collapse because they failed to develop norms of punishing non-cooperators. This is, of course, essential to maintaining a cooperative environment.
twaring.bsky.social
This is really insightful. I don’t spend time on other parts of the Internet or any of the other “communes” , like Facebook, Twitter (it’s fun to call them communes), but if you are right, this is exciting.
Reposted by Tim Waring
Reposted by Tim Waring
carlbergstrom.com
I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition.

www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...
In her recommendation, Bagdasarian stated,
"Any person over the age of six months without contraindication who has not received a dose of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved or-authorized 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine may be considered to have an underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 and is thus eligible to receive an age-appropriate dose."
Reposted by Tim Waring
roopekaaronen.net
Received my copy of this formidable doorstopper.

A thousand pages on how cultures change.

In Chapter 66, with @twaring.bsky.social and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, we consider how the science of cultural change can be applied to...

...change culture more, and climate less. Or so we hope.
A copy of The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution by a windowsill. Chapter 66 of the book, on applying cultural evolution research to climate and environmental change.