The amount of suffering and pain caused by the tyranny of human beings over other animals (particularly in food production) far exceeds that caused b… - Steve Stewart-Williams

The distinction between central and peripheral claims is applicable to many aspects of human sexuality. Consider, for instance, the emotion of jealousy. Evolutionary psychologists place a strong emphasis on sex differences in this domain. The standard claim is that men are more worried by a partner’s sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity, whereas women are more worried by a partner’s emotional infidelity... [However] the overwhelming trend is that most men and most women are extremely upset by both sexual and emotional infidelity. This suggests that the central EP claim regarding jealousy should be “Human beings evolved to experience jealousy in romantic relationships” rather than “Men and women evolved different patterns of jealousy.” The latter statement is true but should be considered a qualification to the former: a peripheral rather than a central claim. To stress the sex difference alone would be like observing that male elephants are bigger than females while steadfastly neglecting to mention that all adult elephants are large compared to most terrestrial animals. It would almost certainly foster an inaccurate view.

Sex differences in occupational preferences and priorities suggest one possible reason that more men than women go into maths-intensive STEM fields. The reason, put simply, is that more men than women want to go into these fields.

The year 1838 represents an important milestone for the planet Earth. For this was the year in which a tiny fragment of the Earth – a fragment known as Charles Darwin – answered an ancient and bewildering question: Why are we here?