Tim Lewens

What do we learn about the human mind from evolutionary theorising? One might think that evolutionary psychology is predominantly a backward-looking science that sketches the historical processes that led to specific aspects of the way we reason. But most evolutionists think their investigations have a forward-looking dimension too: they argue that pinning down the social and ecological...

The world is a complex place. That is a truism, but perhaps complexity can be investigated rather than taken for granted. Think of the sorts of causal interaction one might regard as ‘complex’. In 2002, Avshalom Caspi and collaborators published a widely reported study in which they concluded that the degree to which abuse in childhood increases the likelihood that men will...

Who was Max Perutz? There are plenty of good answers. He was an X-ray crystallographer, someone who uses X-rays as a tool to discover the three-dimensional structure of molecules. He was an accomplished skier and climber, with a sideline research interest in glaciology. He was a scientific manager, who founded and presided over Cambridge’s spectacularly successful Laboratory of...