David C. Geary

2 months ago | quillette.com | Joan Smith |Jonathan Kay |John Aziz |David C. Geary

The world’s earliest named author, we’re told, was a Sumerian high priestess called Enheduanna, who lived during the 23rd century BC, writing hymns and poems in praise of a warlike female deity called Inanna. In her newly published book, The Missing Thread: A Women’s History of the Ancient World, British classicist Daisy Dunn tells us that Enheduanna even “had the forethought to sign [her compositions] with her name,” and sometimes included disturbing biographical details.

2 months ago | quillette.com | Jonathan Kay |John Aziz |David C. Geary |Lewis Halsey

When Donald Trump was first elected US President in 2016, the share of Canadians expressing “confidence” in him polled at just 22 percent. (For Barack Obama, by contrast, the corresponding figure had been 83 percent.) Four years later, perceptions were similar: In advance of the 2020 election, only 15 percent of surveyed Canadians expressed support for Trump. Even among supporters of Canada’s right-of-centre Conservative Party, Joe Biden was more popular than Trump by a 47–33 percent margin.

Feb 11, 2024 | quillette.com | Steven Cerier |Jon Entine |Andrew White |David C. Geary

Europe has just taken a halting step forward in its effort to modernize its increasingly outdated farming practices. While every major industrialized country in the world has been liberalizing its policies restricting new crop biotechnology, most notably CRISPR and other forms of gene editing, the 27 member states of the European Union have remained a scientific backwater in agricultural innovation for decades.

Feb 7, 2024 | quillette.com | Andrew White |David C. Geary |Robert Morris

The use of the word “coach” as a synonym for tutor emerged from Oxford University during the 1830s to convey the idea of someone carrying a student through their exams. Initially associated with sports and organisational efficiency, today the realm of the coach has expanded to include everything falling under the banner of life.

Mar 7, 2023 | quillette.com | David C. Geary |Joseph Grosso |Frank Celia

Men’s investment in their children is one of the most remarkable features of the human family. Such investment might not seem unusual to readers with engaged fathers, and it might seem wanting in comparison to mothers’ investment, but it is an evolutionary riddle, nonetheless. This is because male parenting is uncommon in mammals, and doesn’t occur at all in our two closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos.