Natural History of the Present
Rob Brooks – Evolutionary Biologist & Author
“Pro-lifers” consider the termination of a pregnancy the moral equivalent of taking a newborn life. Their strategies seek to blur distinctions between aborting a fetus and killing a newborn. I argue that an understanding of that relationship—drawing on evidence from centuries of history and millennia of evolution—leads to the conclusion that abortion is the most humane alternative to infanticide, adding to the case for safe, legal, accessible abortion for women who need it.
by Rob Brooks, UNSW and Khandis R Blake, The University of Melbourne The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex on…
Australia is gearing up for what looks to be a mighty battle over freedom of speech. Recent commentary about what a sports star can and cannot post on social media platforms has reignited the controversy. Many people and organisations are…
Move over Nate Silver! The statistician and author of The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t may have called 49 out of 50 states right in the 2012 US Presidential election. But today…
Today, millions of very nervous adults are furtively checking sites like “Have I been Pwned” to check if their account details at Ashley Madison have been leaked. Others are checking if their partners or acquaintances had accounts. The hacking and…
Many scholars of Renaissance art tell us that Botticelli’s Birth of Venus captures the tension between the celestial perfection of divine beauty and its flawed earthly manifestation. As classical ideas blossomed anew in 15th-century Florence, Botticelli could not have missed…
Marriage, according to those who habitually preface the word with “traditional”, is a collaboration. With complementary roles, filled as predictably by one woman and one man as peanut butter fills the gap between two slices of white bread. If you…
What separates humans from other animals, including our closest relatives? It’s one of those big questions perennially posed by the evo-curious public. But until recently I seldom gave it much thought. Mostly because the answers tend to get hung up…
When Jack was young, he began inflicting harm on animals. It started with just pulling the wings off flies, but eventually progressed to torturing squirrels and stray cats in his neighbourhood. As an adult, Jack found that he did not…
Workers of the world can have their International Labour Day, or Workers Day or whatever. But the month of May belongs to an equally fundamental dignity: masturbation. The fact that a whole month is devoted to self-pleasure raises two important…