Becoming Involved
EvoS began with a core of approximately 15 faculty who were already employing the evolutionary perspective in their teaching and research. Within a few years it grew to over 50 faculty, representing virtually every department on campus. The new faculty participants were curious and open-minded about evolution but had not received evolutionary training during their own graduate and post-graduate education.
This is a common pattern in many human-related subject areas, as I have shown in an analysis of the premier journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences. The analysis makes two important points:
- Over 30% of the articles are written from an evolutionary perspective, demonstrating that Darwinism has become an important theoretical framework in the human behavioral sciences.
- Most of the authors of the articles did not receive formal evolutionary training and acquired their expertise on their own.
Thanks to EvoS, it is easier for faculty at BU to acquire evolutionary expertise than at virtually any other university. EvoS faculty participants receive e-mail notices, can apply for small grants, host EvoS seminar speakers, and have light duties mentoring students and making consensus decisions. Most important, they join an interdisciplinary community with numerous opportunities for teaching and research collaborations. Please contact David Sloan Wilson if you wish to join EvoS.
