HBES 2011
The annual conference of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society took place in Montpellier, France, from the 29th of June to the 3rd of July. I had some vague intention of posting my experiences during the conference, and the fact that I’m only getting around to getting something up now probably gives you a sense of just how absurdly optimistic that was. Anyway, some retrospective remarks…
First, thanks to everyone who sought me out at the conference to talk to me about this blog. I was especially gratified to get a sense of the international consumption of the blog, and more generally gratified to know that it wasn’t the case, as I sometimes fear, that everyone who shares my affection for this blog also shares my last name. Anyway, thanks for the kind remarks about the blog, and, as an unofficial matter, it seems to me that the pop anti-EP Game struck some chord among readers. Interesting. (It also turns out that the Dr. Seuss riff was lost on non-Americans. Forgive my ethnocentrism…)
Second, in the spirit of just skipping to dessert, every year the conference awards prizes in three categories, one for best poster, one “New Investigator” award, and one Post-Doctoral award, and the winners of the competitions were as follows:
Poster competition: Jeanne Bovet (“Female attractiveness and paternity confidence”)
New investigator award: Noémie Becker (“Mate choice and stature in African Pygmies”)
Post-Doctoral award: Sandeep Mishra (“Mind the gap: Evidence that inequality causes risk-taking.”)
Bill Irons was added to the distinguished list of Lifetime Career Award winners. (I didn’t catch the winner of the Early Career Award, but if someone did, please let me know, and I’ll insert it here.)
Third, this conference was the first time I met Kyrre Wathne, who is the technical mind behind this blog. So, let me take this opportunity to thank him for his work. And mention that Kyrre says that the blog will get a bit of a makeover soon. Some people have asked me for a button that allows them to be notified when people make comments to posts. I don’t know if that function will be implemented in the new version or not… stay tuned…
For those of you who haven’t been to an HBES conference, there are four days of conference events, including half a dozen plenary addresses and one keynote address. This year’s keynote address was delivered by Randy Nesse, “Maladaptation and natural selection.” Nesse began with a very interesting account of the early days of the discipline and of the conference, and ended with an exhortation that we all leave the room to enjoy the festival that was taking place outside the conference venue in Montpellier. Both were very much appreciated.
I attended all but one of the six plenary addresses – with apologies to Frank Marlowe, whose Plenary was on Sunday, when I was headed out of town. Here is my not terribly serious summary of these plenary addresses, in the order they were delivered.
Hrdy: Humans help one another raise offspring, and this trait goes back a long way. This pattern of behavior, also called “alloparenting,” explains why humans cooperate in large, non-kin based groups.
Clutton-Brock: Alloparenting does not explain why humans cooperate in large, non-kin based groups.
Bowles: There are many explanations for why humans cooperate in large, non-kin based groups. The best such explanations are to be found in my book. (Also, it’s because our ancestors engaged in intergroup conflict. Forget that alloparenting stuff.)
Whiten: Humans over-imitate, such as the propensity to give a plenary address on the evolution of cooperation in non-kin based groups after the previous two plenary speakers gave talks on the evolution of cooperation in non-kin based groups.
Hombert: You can’t make a boat that can get you to Australia unless you have the power of natural language so that you can say, “Why should I get on that boat when there’s still plenty to eat here in Borneo?” (It is just possible that there was a deeper point in this plenary address that I missed…)
Marlowe’s plenary was entitled, “Adaptively relevant environments,” which was a term that Bill Irons used in a paper entitled, “Adaptively relevant environments versus the environment of evolutionary adaptedness.” As I say, I don’t know what Marlow said because I was on my way to another delightful experience with Air France when he was giving his address.
A few other more or less random observations…
It seemed to me that the conference had a slightly higher fraction of students, graduate or otherwise, than in the past. Also, the student talks, at least the ones that I attended, seemed particularly good. I think this bodes well for the discipline.
Brazilians. There were a lot. And there is some chance that the conference will be held in Brazil in 2014. This is convenient for me, since I had to be in Brazil anyway that year because I plan to make the U.S. World Cup squad.
Synchrony. You know what’s tough on speakers? When their session starts a little late, and people from a different session come in half way through the talk, disrupting things… Hey, that reminds me… anyone out there remember that unbelievably simple yet effective mechanism those clever people used at HBES 2006 to synchronize the sessions, so that the different talks would all start and end at the same time? That was such a good idea… doesn’t it seem like they should use that at all the HBES conferences?
THANK YOU. Organizers of conferences do a boat-load of work for which they receive no monetary compensation, and precious little compensation in any other form. (One’s name in the program goes only so far.) So, my heartfelt thanks to Michel Raymond and Charlotte Faurie – and all the people who worked with them – for all their efforts, most of which will go unnoticed and unappreciated by people like me, who tend to find the time only to find fault, such as the issue of synchrony between sessions. The fact is that they did a terrific job, and I for one am grateful.
Next year in Albuquerque…
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