Category: Social-Technical
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The coevolution of cognition and sociality
“The coevolution of cognition and sociality“ Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing the need for cognition.Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures but rather arise from the decisions individuals make…
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Homo sapiens, industrialisation and the environmental mismatch hypothesis
“Homo sapiens, industrialisation and the environmental mismatch hypothesis”. For the vast majority of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, a range of natural environments defined the parameters within which selection shaped human biology. Although human-induced alterations to the terrestrial biosphere have been evident for over 10,000 years, the pace and scale of change has accelerated dramatically since…
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Complex Systems Frameworks Collection
Complex Systems Frameworks Collection The Complex Systems Frameworks Collection is a gerat resource for navigating an increasingly complex world. Over time, people have developed many excellent frameworks, analogies and models for understanding complexity. This collection brings them together in an illustrated collection to help you: Because complex isn’t the same as complicated. Each framework has its…
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Something Disturbing Happens … With ChatGPT
“Something Disturbing Happens When You “Learn” Something With ChatGPT” (Text and image are from the original article) ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are replacing the search engine. Instead of letting you suffer the laborious task of looking up sources of information, these powerful large language models will simply concoct an answer for you, with the…
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Keep the hands in mind
Keep the hands in mind: A meta-analysis of correlations between fine motor skills and reading, writing, mathematics, and cognitive development in children and adolescents” Evidence suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) relate to academic and cognitive development; however, findings are unclear, strewn across multiple disciplines, and lack adequate synthesis. We conducted the first comprehensive meta-analysis…
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Collective predictive coding
“Collective predictive coding as model of science: formalizing scientific activities towards generative science” This article proposes a new conceptual framework called collective predictive coding as a model of science (CPC‑MS) to formalize and understand scientific activities. Building on the idea of CPC originally developed to explain symbol emergence, CPC‑MS models science as a decentralized Bayesian…
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Cultural Evolution of the Arts: arcade games
“The cultural macroevolution of arcade video games: innovation, collaboration, and collapse” Arcade video games evolved in a constrained design space, following patterns of diversification, stabilisation, and collapse that mirror macroevolutionary processes. Despite their historical significance and detailed digital records, arcade games remain underexplored in cultural evolution research. Drawing on a dataset of 7,205 machines spanning…
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A Relational View of Uncertainty
“A Relational View of Uncertainty” There is significant confusion and debate in entrepreneurship and strategy research about the nature and locus of uncertainty. Does uncertainty reside internally in the agent or externally in the environment? This article introduces a relational view of uncertainty (RVU) to help reframe this issue. In this framework, uncertainty is understood…
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Our food system: Power and Profit
“Power and profit drive what we eat: here’s why the food system needs a revolution” Decades of corporate control have shaped diets, harmed farmers and strained the planet — transforming the system will take collective action. Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet Stuart Gillespie Canongate Books (2025) Stuart Gillespie’s book Food Fight offers a…
walterstiers
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“Play should always be led by the child and what the child wants to do”
“Why kids need to take more risks: science reveals the benefits of wild, free play” Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents. Over the past two decades, research has emerged showing that opportunities for risky play are crucial for healthy physical, mental and emotional development.…
