Evolutionary Theory & Genetics

We declare no conflicts of interest—just an interest in conflicts. Genetic conflicts, specifically. These arise whenever natural selection on one population (or subpopulation) moves another population (or subpopulation) further from its evolutionary optimum, and vice versa. These conflicts arise between the sexes, between parents and offspring, between genomes or cell lineages within a body, and between genes within a genome to name just a few. We take a theoretical approach to our work and aim to reveal which aspects of biology might be shaped by conflicts and how. 

(So why is Darwin wearing a tinfoil hat in the photo? Richard Francis described the habit of relying on agency in evolutionary reasoning as "Darwinian paranoia". This was meant as a criticism, but I've always liked the label. I take a paranoid approach to evolutionary theory and have a fondness for any aspect of organismal design that results from sub-organismal machinators—e.g. selfish genes and selfish cell lineages.)