Links and News – 8 to 21 June – Natural History of the Present

Melinda Gates wrote a powerful piece for CNN on the occasion of the Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur. Empowered women make nations strong.
The usually spot-on Hugo Schwyzer gets it dead wrong in the Atlantic: “What if Men Stopped Chasing Much Younger Women?” I’m looking to post a piece soon, maybe in The Conversation about where Hugo goes wrong.
I’m afraid Linda Peach is not even wrong with this piece in the Conversation about the way young women are swooning over Boston bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev: One day my prince will bomb: why teenage girls love a killer. Reverting to Social Role Theory and Ambivalent Sexism theory, she falls for the temptation to blame “media”, “society” and “romantic fantasies of heroes”, throwing biology out the window just when it could have been really useful.
On a more positive note, I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into a contribution that seriously consideres how environment and biology interact: Differential susceptibility to the environment: An evolutionary neurodevelopmental theory. H/T Evolution & Medicine Review.
Adrian Raine gave a wonderful interview to Radio National’s Lynne Malcolm about his new book The Anatomy of Violence. He advocates neurocriminology, a mix of social and biological (especially neurobiological) approaches to understanding criminal behaviour. And his explanations of how biology and environment interact are as good as any I have heard.

Links and News – 8 to 21 June