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Brian Wood

@woodbrian

Professor of anthropology at UCLA. Interested in evolutionary anthropology research, science, travel, music, the world out there. Director of the Hadza Fund.

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16.11.2024
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Latest posts by Brian Wood @woodbrian

This means more curve-based grading. I’ve had students complain when grades are curved about “being forced to compete”, at which point the etymology of the word “excellent” (to rise above) is relevant. And of course, the ubiquity of competition.

08.02.2026 16:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Yeah, even with a healthy background in computer science, reading Stan code makes me angry. AI is really changing things for the better in niches like this (and of course posing other risks).

05.02.2026 19:43 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Feeling blue? Here are the named ggplot2 colors in the blue part of the spectrum.

04.02.2026 00:34 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Have you yet seen the emails Trivers sent thanking him for tens of thousands of dollars? That is how.

03.02.2026 23:18 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

… or 3) step away from the lever and take pictures of the oncoming trolley while chaos unfolds?

03.02.2026 15:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Noam Chomsky telling a billionaire to do his homework

Noam Chomsky telling a billionaire to do his homework

2/2 randomly searching "bees" I discover Noam Chomsky putting Epstein's pseudo-profound bullshit in check

31.01.2026 02:17 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
 

1/2 My lord, the new searchable Jeffrey Epstein library is a voyeuristic treasure trove for historians, cultural critiques, psychologists, and sociologists of science. Search your keyword of choice here and behold www.justice.gov/epstein.

31.01.2026 02:14 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Interesting topic, and publication, but the title of this post needs work. Parenting skills are a stand-alone question of phenotype, and do not entail any particular model of inheritance.

30.01.2026 00:54 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Native stingless honey bees have reportedly been given legal rights in parts of Peru. bit.ly/3Yur3Hs. Important "legal first" or a performative fools errand? How will they be legally represented? What level of bee-harming honey-harvesting by people is considered just? Who decides, who enforces?

06.01.2026 06:19 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you! I've sadly dropped long form writing at the moment, and moved to in-class writing (paper response essays) and in class exams. I don't want the college essay to die, however, so I have mixed feelings about only assigning short-form writing in class. I haven't tried oral exams yet.

18.12.2025 21:50 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Curious what instructions regarding AI use you give to students writing papers.

17.12.2025 16:47 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

The criteria for accommodations should be narrowed, ADHD and anxiety and depression should be the first to be reviewed. What else could be done?

10.12.2025 05:02 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Dear Professor, Can I please look at my midterm one more time?

10.12.2025 01:06 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Robot behaviorism. H1: "teleoperator taking off VR goggles" gesture. Makes hilarious sense. But the shaking head of the robot as it falls? H2: A (failed) "double fisting beverages" gesture, without teleoperation.

09.12.2025 13:57 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The "constitute" part would be, let's just say, a challenge.

05.12.2025 19:15 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Your question assumes a false dichotomy. Tests are usually designed both to assess learning, and the ability of a student to focus and finish a task within a certain amount of time.

02.12.2025 20:40 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Accommodation Nation America’s colleges have an extra-time-on-tests problem.

"At Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are registered as disabled. At Amherst, that figure is 34 percent." Accommodation Nation:
America’s colleges have an extra-time-on-tests problem. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

02.12.2025 15:55 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0

Great bit of historical context.

25.11.2025 18:06 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Sex differences in health burdens across the lifespan in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) AbstractBackground and Objectives. Understanding health and aging in one of our closest relatives, wild chimpanzees, provides key insights into the evoluti

This study provides fundamental insights into aging, health burdens and sex differences of such in chimpanzees. Invaluable for understanding how humans evolved such long lives. health burdens across the lifespan in wild chimpanzees @apesemory.bsky.social academic.oup.com/emph/article...

24.11.2025 03:25 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Jolie, an adult female chimpanzee of the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, with sleeping infant son, Zawinul. 
CREDIT: Kevin Langergraber

Jolie, an adult female chimpanzee of the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, with sleeping infant son, Zawinul. CREDIT: Kevin Langergraber

After the Ngogo chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female birth rates more than doubled and infant survival increased sharply—showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/TKmf50XuPjY

22.11.2025 00:00 👍 39 🔁 29 💬 0 📌 1

Going straight into my in-development “Cannibalism” lecture, warfare lectures, thank you

21.11.2025 16:55 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Yes. A split by half is a great idea. I've taught three seminars based on your book and for a variety of reasons, it was necessary to scale back approximately like this.

18.11.2025 04:29 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Female fertility and infant survivorship increase following lethal intergroup aggression and territorial expansion in wild chimpanzees | PNAS Lethal coalitionary intergroup aggression is a conspicuous aspect of wild chimpanzee behavior. Evidence indicates that such violence can lead to te...

In 2008, after killing many of their neighbors, Ngogo chimpanzees expanded their territory. Female fertility then doubled, and infant mortality plummeted. Adaptive violence in our ape cousins, documented in this new paper. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

18.11.2025 04:20 👍 22 🔁 11 💬 0 📌 0

Nice post, uncle!

30.10.2025 03:08 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

AI broke the college essay, and in-class writing is the new (old) way to go. Thus, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is key for grading student writing. I just compared the OCR output of the venerable Adobe Acrobat product to that of Gemini. Adobe is AWFUL. LLM problem, LLM solution.

22.10.2025 03:35 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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RIP Jane Goodall. Two of the most inspirational books I've ever read are her works: "In the Shadow of Man" and "Chimpanzees of Gombe". Now teaching at UCLA, I honor her, her work, and what she stood for. Thank you Jane for a life so well lived, and for your example.

02.10.2025 19:55 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Maybe just maybe consider controlling for age? There are a host of other potential confounders and unmeasured factors to consider, in keeping with good scientific practice in #Sociology and the study of #Population

22.09.2025 23:58 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

What an interesting study! Can’t wait to read it.

18.06.2025 21:07 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Well done Luke!

16.06.2025 18:58 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Cool article, written with a bit of attitude. If there is an upper limit, it must be higher than 150, but the loosey goosey way that “groups” are defined has always undercut this model for me.

14.06.2025 18:04 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0