Ed Hagen
@edhagen.net
Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. Faculty page: https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/people/hagen/
Views expressed are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or other organizations I'm affiliated with.
Views expressed are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or other organizations I'm affiliated with.
This diagram, a model of costly signaling from Michael Spence's 1972 dissertation, pretty much won him the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. 🧪
![Education as a peacock's tail
Spence's seminal model of education as a credible signal of productivity [13] is little known in biology. Although our teachers try to convince us that education gives us the skills that we need tc succeed in life, Spence argued that higher levels of education can lead to higher wages even if education fails to improve a person's productivity; education is like a peacock's tail [16].
Assume two types of workers in the population, type I with productivity 1, and type II with productivity 2, productivity being private information. Education has no impact on productivity, but the costs of education are negatively correlated with productivity, so the cost of achieving a level y of education for type I is y, and for type Il it is y/2. Assume also an employer who believes that there is a level of education y*, such that if y< y* then a worker's productivity is 1, and if y≥y* then it is 2. The employer correspondingly offers the wage schedule in Figure I.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:wadfbchvgyngydxdhms5fvq6/bafkreihdugqsngog5yk3gje5gpsakbv7u46lrkv5osr3mxdwffqllqf4la@jpeg)
December 7, 2025 at 12:06 PM
But many of the links are to books on bookdown.org, right?
bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown
The platform bookdown.org is provided by RStudio for authors to publish books online for free. The bookdown package is an open-source R package that facilitates writing books and long-form articles/re...
bookdown.org
December 6, 2025 at 6:11 PM
But many of the links are to books on bookdown.org, right?
Ed, yes, this paper makes that same point: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
Honest Signalling Made Simple
ecoevorxiv.org
December 5, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Ed, yes, this paper makes that same point: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
The key sentence:
"These models contrary to common interpretations, show that signals are honest, not because they are costly (handicaps), but because cheating (deception) is costly."
"These models contrary to common interpretations, show that signals are honest, not because they are costly (handicaps), but because cheating (deception) is costly."
December 5, 2025 at 7:37 PM
The key sentence:
"These models contrary to common interpretations, show that signals are honest, not because they are costly (handicaps), but because cheating (deception) is costly."
"These models contrary to common interpretations, show that signals are honest, not because they are costly (handicaps), but because cheating (deception) is costly."
I posted that vice article myself years ago: x.com/ed_hagen/sta...
x.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:56 PM
I posted that vice article myself years ago: x.com/ed_hagen/sta...
FWIW, here is Pinker's statement about his relationship with Epstein: whyevolutionistrue.com/2019/07/12/t...
Tarring Steve Pinker and others with Jeffrey Epstein
Several times this week I’ve seen people of low character go after Steve Pinker because of his supposed association with accused sexual predator and child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (Not…
whyevolutionistrue.com
December 4, 2025 at 4:12 PM
FWIW, here is Pinker's statement about his relationship with Epstein: whyevolutionistrue.com/2019/07/12/t...
Agree. But guilt by association isn't a great argument. Here are all the academics and other folks associated with Edge.org, and thus have at most one degree of separation from Epstein. Who are the bad ones? www.edge.org/people
People Contributing to Edge.org | Edge.org
www.edge.org
December 4, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Agree. But guilt by association isn't a great argument. Here are all the academics and other folks associated with Edge.org, and thus have at most one degree of separation from Epstein. Who are the bad ones? www.edge.org/people
From the linked article: "Pinker was not mentioned in the recent tranche of emails"
December 4, 2025 at 2:00 PM
From the linked article: "Pinker was not mentioned in the recent tranche of emails"
Better, I give you George Orwell: orwell.ru/library/arti...
George Orwell: What is Science?
What is Science?, the article of George Orwell. First published: October 26, 1945 by/in Tribune, GB, London
orwell.ru
December 4, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Better, I give you George Orwell: orwell.ru/library/arti...
I disagree that it excludes anisogamous species. I argue, further, that the power of the binary sex concept to explain biological diversity is immense and there is no competitor on the horizon.
But I welcome attempts to overthrow it.
But I welcome attempts to overthrow it.
December 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
I disagree that it excludes anisogamous species. I argue, further, that the power of the binary sex concept to explain biological diversity is immense and there is no competitor on the horizon.
But I welcome attempts to overthrow it.
But I welcome attempts to overthrow it.
"To say Anisogamy is a binary is incorrect."
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. No one's rights hinge on the outcome of that debate. Implying that they do, even implicitly, takes us down a very dark road. We scientists have been on the wrong side of history at least as often as the right (e.g., Watson).
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. No one's rights hinge on the outcome of that debate. Implying that they do, even implicitly, takes us down a very dark road. We scientists have been on the wrong side of history at least as often as the right (e.g., Watson).
December 4, 2025 at 2:42 AM
"To say Anisogamy is a binary is incorrect."
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. No one's rights hinge on the outcome of that debate. Implying that they do, even implicitly, takes us down a very dark road. We scientists have been on the wrong side of history at least as often as the right (e.g., Watson).
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. No one's rights hinge on the outcome of that debate. Implying that they do, even implicitly, takes us down a very dark road. We scientists have been on the wrong side of history at least as often as the right (e.g., Watson).
When it comes to human rights, it might behoove us to become familiar with some of the concepts in that literature, like human dignity, that have nothing to do with anisogamy or other concepts from evolutionary biology: plato.stanford.edu/entries/righ...
Human Rights (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
plato.stanford.edu
December 4, 2025 at 2:36 AM
When it comes to human rights, it might behoove us to become familiar with some of the concepts in that literature, like human dignity, that have nothing to do with anisogamy or other concepts from evolutionary biology: plato.stanford.edu/entries/righ...
After all, distributional concepts are as much a map -- a reductive simplification -- as are binary concepts. To say anything at all, science can't escape simplifying assumptions.
December 4, 2025 at 2:30 AM
After all, distributional concepts are as much a map -- a reductive simplification -- as are binary concepts. To say anything at all, science can't escape simplifying assumptions.
The map is not the territory. Yes, exactly why trying to ground human rights in biology is a blunder of epic proportions. I might be wrong scientifically, or you might be (likely, both of us are), but neither my rights, nor your rights, nor anyone else's rights hinge on that outcome.
December 4, 2025 at 2:30 AM
The map is not the territory. Yes, exactly why trying to ground human rights in biology is a blunder of epic proportions. I might be wrong scientifically, or you might be (likely, both of us are), but neither my rights, nor your rights, nor anyone else's rights hinge on that outcome.
I explain in this blog post that "binary" refers to the options in a gamete production game, and does not refer to the players in the game (e.g., individuals in simultaneous hermaphroditic species don't have a sex, although they still have two gamete options): blog.edhagen.net/posts/2025-0...
Review of Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary by Agustín Fuentes – Grasshoppermouse
Does Sex is a Spectrum offer a bold new paradigm for understanding the biology of sex?
blog.edhagen.net
December 4, 2025 at 2:15 AM
I explain in this blog post that "binary" refers to the options in a gamete production game, and does not refer to the players in the game (e.g., individuals in simultaneous hermaphroditic species don't have a sex, although they still have two gamete options): blog.edhagen.net/posts/2025-0...
Presumably disassortative fusion evolved very early on. For example, the sperm protein complexes discussed in that article and this one are conserved across vertebrates: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
A conserved fertilization complex bridges sperm and egg in vertebrates
AlphaFold-Multimer predicts complex formation by three sperm proteins conserved in
vertebrates. Their interaction is experimentally confirmed and shown to bridge sperm
and egg during fertilization by ...
www.cell.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Presumably disassortative fusion evolved very early on. For example, the sperm protein complexes discussed in that article and this one are conserved across vertebrates: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
But it's a great one to describe systems with two mating types (e.g., sperm only fuse with eggs, and not with other cells, and there are evolved mechanisms to ensure this). Here's a recent paper on binary fusion mechanisms (but there's a lot we still don't know): elifesciences.org/articles/93131
December 4, 2025 at 1:41 AM
But it's a great one to describe systems with two mating types (e.g., sperm only fuse with eggs, and not with other cells, and there are evolved mechanisms to ensure this). Here's a recent paper on binary fusion mechanisms (but there's a lot we still don't know): elifesciences.org/articles/93131
In many traditional cultures, this is a time when many women *step into* leadership positions. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...
Cross-cultural Perspectives on Middle-aged Women [and Comments and Replies] | Current Anthropology: Vol 23, No 2
Several exploratory cross-cultural studies have suggested that positive changes take place in the lives of women in non-Western societies as they age beyond the childbearing years. They are freed from...
www.journals.uchicago.edu
December 3, 2025 at 11:04 PM
In many traditional cultures, this is a time when many women *step into* leadership positions. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...
Different game animals have different calories per kilogram of meat. The Edible dormouse has the most by far.
December 1, 2025 at 5:24 AM
Different game animals have different calories per kilogram of meat. The Edible dormouse has the most by far.
Also, judicious use of other emojis and hashtags will get your post included in other academic feeds: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
BlueSky Science-Related Feeds
docs.google.com
November 27, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Also, judicious use of other emojis and hashtags will get your post included in other academic feeds: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...