Evolution And Behavior Club

⸺ by Charles Iliya Krempeaux

The Evolution And Behavior Club was a club that existed from the year 2013 to the year 2020. The Evolution And Behavior Club focused on evolution and behavior (and in particular human behavior).

The main formats of the Evolution And Behavior Club were the reading-groups and social-events.

The Evolution And Behavior Club had (a small number of) reading-groups that focused on reading and discussing books and scholarly papers on evolution and behavior (and in particular human behavior).

Most of the discussions were in person, with most meetings happening in person mostly in downtown Vancouver. Although when the started happening, and our usual meeting locations were forced to shut-down, the meetings temporarily moved online, over the Internet, using video chat.

Core Members

The core members of the Evolution And Behavior Club (in alphabetical order) were:

Charles Iliya Krempeaux,
• Michael McConkey,
• Patricia Veinott (who goes by “Trish”).

Members

Other people came and went over the years. Some of these members of the Evolution And Behavior Club (in alphabetical order) include:

Ali Piran (who goes by “Al”),
• Dan Kim (who is Patricia Veinott's husband),
• David Edward Clark,
• Frank Kassanits,
• Hirad Motamed,
• Hyerim Kang (who goes by “Bella”, and who eventually became Charles Iliya Krempeaux's wife),
• Jerram Ritchie,
• Kalim Kassam,
• Matt Emery,
• Oliver Hung,
• Sigal Blay,
• and many others.

Reading Group Format

The format of the Evolution And Behavior Club reading groups was —

a new book or scholarly paper (almost always on the topic of evolution and behavior) was nominated by members of the reading-group who regularly attended,
• the nominaion inluded a pitch (by the nominator) for why others should vote for the book or scholarly paper they nominated,
• regular members of the reading-group then voted for nominationed books or scholarly papers — each person usually was allowed to vote for 2 or 3 nominations (depending on how many nominations there were),
• an organizer (who was managing the vote) counted the votes, and sent the results to everyone (usually via an e-mail mailing list) — including which nomination was the winner,
• the members of the reading-ground then usually spend a number of months reading and discussing book or scholarly paper than won the nomination — the reading-groups strived for deep understandings (rather than breadth with shallow understandings),
• the members of the reading list would meet once every 1 week, or once every 2 weeks, or once every month — it varied from reading-group to reading-group, and over the years,
• everyone was expected to do the reading themselves, but — one person (who changed each meet-up) was assigned the task of summarizing the readings, giving a presentation on it, and facilitating the discuss,
• also, after a reading-group meet-up, many (if not most) of the attendees spend the next few hours, if the most of the rest of the day, socializing a near by coffee-shops and restaurants.

Readings

"Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology", by John Tooby, Leda Cosmides
• "The Deep Structure of Human Society: Primate Origins and Evolution", by Bernard Chapais
• "Natural Language and Natural Selection", by Steven Pinker, Paul Bloom
• "The Secret Powers of Time", by Philip Zimbardo
• "Life History Theory"
• "The 10,000 Year Explosion", by Gregory Cochran, Henry Harpending
• "The Blank Slate", by Steven Pinker
• "The Righteous Mind", by Jonathan Haidt
• "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel", by Margo Wilson, Martin Daly
• "Impact of the Uncertainty of Paternity on Family Law", by Margo Wilson
• "Is Parent-Offspring Conflict Sex-Linked?", by Martin Daly, Margo Wilson
• "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind", by Robert Kurzban
• "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human", by Richard W. Wrangham
• "Signal Detection and Animal Communication", by R. Haven Wiley
• "The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle", by Amotz Zahavi, Avishag Zahavi
• "The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature", by Geoffrey Miller
• "The hominid entry into the cognitive niche", by H. Clark Barrett, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby
• "The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve", by H. Clark Barrett
• "Parental investment and reproductive success", by Robert Trivers
• "Patterns of Sexuality", by George Christopher Williams
• "Why are Males Masculine and Females Feminine and, Occasionally, Vice Versa", by George Christopher Williams
• "People are Animals", by Laura Betzig
• "Despotism and differential reproduction: A cross-cultural correlation of conflict asymmetry, hierarchy, and degree of polygyny", by Laura Betzig
• "Roman Polygyny", by Laura Betzig
• "Roman Monogamy", by Laura Betzig
• "Medieval Monogamy", by Laura Betzig
• "Polygyny in American Politics", by Laura Betzig, Samantha Weber
• "Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior", by Christopher Boehm
• "The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind", by Jason Weeden, Robert Kurzban
• "The Biology of Moral Systems", by Richard D. Alexander
• "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past", by David Reich
• "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion", by Scott Atran
• "Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are", by Robert Plomin

"The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins
• "How the Mind Works", by Steven Pinker
• "The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life", by Robert Trivers
• "The Evolution of Everything", by Matt Ridley
• "The Secret of Our Success", by Joseph Henrich
• "The Extended Phenotype", by Richard Dawkins
• "The Gene", by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• "Who We Are & How We Got Here", by David Reich
• "Cognitive Gadgets", by Cecilia Heyes
• "Behave", by Robert Sapolsky
• "Mama's Last Hug", by Frans de Waal
• "Origins", by Lewis Dartnell
• "How Emotions are Made", by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Other Readings

A number of us also did a lot of readings on evolution and behavior outside the Evolution And Behavior Club. So the readings list represents things we read and discussed together — as a group.

But our collective knowledge went much beyond those readings. And many of our discussions brought in that outside knowledge.

Locations

At the beginning of the Evolution And Behavior Club and for many years, the main reading-group meet-ups were held at a location that was both an art gallery and a coffee shop in downtown Vancouver called The Buzz Cafe & Espresso Bar that was housed inside of Harrison Galleries. It was at 901 Homer Street, Vancouver — at the intersection of Homer Street and Smithe Street. The Buzz eventually closed down, and we later had a find a new location.

After the The Buzz closed, one of the places the main reading-group ended up at was Lost + Found Cafe. It was at 33 West Hastings Street, Vancouver — on West Hastings Street between Abbott Street and Carall Street. The Lost + Found (pronounced “lost and found”) closed, assumingly, as a result of the reaction to the .

One of the non-main reading-groups that was part of the Evolution And Behavior Club was held at the Waves Coffee House at #100 - 900 Howe Street, Vancouver — the Waves Coffee on Howe Street between Smithe Street and Nelson Street. I.e., the Waves Coffee that had inside of it the world's first ATM.

Another of the non-main reading-groups that was part of the Evolution And Behavior Club was held at or just outside one of the coffee-shops at the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) at 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver — i.e., the large very distictive looking building between Robson Street and West Georgia Street, as well as between Homer Street and Hamilton Street.

Christmas Parties

Christmas parties for the Evolution And Behavior Club often took place at the home of Patricia Veinott and Dan Kim (who are wife and husband).

Friendships

All of the core members and some of the regular members became friends. And maintained friendships outside of the Evolution And Behavior Club.