philosophy

I value quantitative, multidisciplinary approaches in the human sciences, built on sound theoretical foundations. I’m a proponent of open science, and of coupling confirmatory and exploratory analyses.

Cross-cultural and evolutionary perspectives offer real insight into leadership, cooperation, and social organization. They generate hypotheses about the causal mechanisms underlying human behavior, and the findings can inform applied domains, from organizational practice to public policy and health.

The opportunity to collect observational, empirical, and ethnographic data from culturally diverse, subsistence-based populations is closing fast. It should be a priority for the social sciences. Anthropologists can be meaningful allies to rural, minority ethnic populations as they navigate their changing worlds. The work itself is one form of advocacy.

Field methods can be informed by comparative results. Evolutionary scientists should draw on broad phylogenetic perspectives across cultures and species. The ethnographic record is the central instrument for testing predictions and generating theory about the diversity and universality of human life. The evolutionary human sciences will be stronger when adaptationist, behavioral-ecological, and cultural-evolutionary frameworks are integrated rather than siloed.