arteteco @arteteco@qoto.org

One of the best #book I read in a long time: The Mating Mind, by Geoffrey Miller

George Miller is a professor of Evolutionary Psychology, and the main thesis in this book is that our astonishing mental capacities come (mostly) from sexual selection.

In order to prove that, Miller takes the reader in a trip around the history of the theory of evolution, especially of sexual selection of course, and I tell you: I've done multiple exams on Evolution, Miller is the one who really gave me a good idea of how, how much, when and what sexual selection is all about.

It's packed with juicy, easy to chew paragraphs like how we think the courting worked in the paleolithic, what are the current hypothesis about the origin of the mind, why Wallace was after all a creationist (he denied sexual selection and thought the soul was given to us by a god), and so on. And in some moments I laughed hard, the guy has a razor-sharp humor.

The case he makes lacks evidence here and there, by his own admission, but frankly I'm sold on this hypothesis now.

I totally recommend it, a beautiful read

#psychology #evolution #biology

By now I have read enough articles to say that: the most attractive #bmi
in males goes from 23 to 26 (which is technically even overweight), and it's not a normal distribution at all.

We also have difficulties understanding our own mating value, which is absurd from an evolutionary standpoint. Especially since we humans have more mutual choice than many other animals, one should have kind quite an accurate estimate of its own attractiveness to attract the best it can. Looks like it's not the case.

One thing I wonder without having an answer though si whether IQ is correlated to an error in the self-estimate of the mating value, and if so how much and in what direction.

I'm kinda screwed anyway (no pun intended), I may as well explore all the areas I'm failing in this sense

#beauty #evolution #psychology

@freemo @design_RG

Finally, we had to wait for @miguel31416 to get that raise!

@freemo @design_RG @miguel31416 Approving applications is really a very quick matter, no problem

@ujcmtgs4n4jqza thank you!

@nicknicely I'm from the south of Italy, also here the lockdown has been softened up, and the situation seems safe enough to go out... post some picture of your walk when you go!

@GwenfarsGarden
I also had the same moment of confusion, until I realized they are the same thing 😀

@sexybiggetje@mastodon.social

Today was the first walk in the nature with friends after the long lockdown. I felt quite depressed lately, I was psychologically proved, but a single day around made my mood so much better!

I'll post some pictures to make you part of it, #plants #animals and #ecology

The habitat was either #mediterranean forest, dominated by Quercus ilex with some human planted pines, or sand dune #habitat, which is a beautiful and fragile ecosystem that I think should deserve more attention.
More details in the caption of every pic.

If you feel down, go for a walk in a park, take pictures of weird plants and animals, open a bit to how marvellous this living things are and feel free to tag me

@freemo Let's get this peertube rolling!

It's been a while since I listened to a really entertaining and educational #podcast , but I stumbled upon this show 2 days ago and it's awesome!

History On Fire is an history podcast, by Daniele Bolelli who taught History for many years in California.
He really manages to take some interesting happenings in human history and make them even more intriguing. I am just coming out of 3+ hours of story about the slave rebellions in ancient Rome, with direct historians quotes and curiosities here and there.

You just have to get past his very thick Italian accent (his English is very good, it's really just the accent) it's a really nice podcast.

http://historyonfirepodcast.com

@freemo I would surely enjoy that, even though I don't smoke or even like THC. Plant chemistry is fun

@freemo I must imagine they became really good at rationalizing their grieving after a while!

@freemo

You are right, I misread it.

If I can rephrase it, I would have thought the perceived ability to go lower and lower as the actual ability increases
@cowanon

@cowanon do you have a source for this?@freemo

@cowanon
weird, I would have imagined the perceived ability to go down with time (not just down in proporrtion to the actual test score)

@freemo

@Maximordrg Sorry my Spanish is not good enough for writing, you can write in Spanish though, I can kind of understand it.

What does "the example country of the world and world power" mean?

@Maximordrg
Hi, what are this numbers you are posting?

Tomorrow I'll do a full day without internet. May seem like a silly simple thing, but I haven't done it in months and with the lockdown I went way too much into it... I need a break.

I'll let you know how that goes =D

@thomas I had to return the mouse because of this. Every click was a pain, I had to contract the whole hand to keep the mouse in place... never again!

@freemo I thin yourtext is alright. The other one was this, which is a bit shorter but the content is basically the same:

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