Oliver Curry

Oliver Curry is a research associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science in the London School of Economics. He is an evolutionary theorist. His Ph.D., on the topic of morality as natural history, was awarded by the Government Department of the London School of Economics, where he now teaches Political Theory.

As an evolutionary psychologist, Curry also contributed to the segments of the television documentary, The Root of All Evil?, in which Richard Dawkins argues that the world would be better off without religion.

The Bravo Evolution Report
In October of 2006, a press release by the British satelite television network Bravo featured human evolution predictions by Oliver Curry; it was picked up by the BBC, and the story was repeated again in October of 2007, in other popular outlets such as the Daily Mail. The release contained predictions that the human species would become taller, more youthful in appearance, and a single "coffee-coloured" race by the year 3000; and within 10,000 years would split into two separate species, one tall and handsome and the other ugly and short, due to selective breeding within social classes. Some internet writers criticised the piece for its outlandish claims and lack of evidence, denouncing the popular press's acceptance of pseudo-science .

Dr. Curry explained in October of 2007 that he had not intended to present these predictions as a scientific theory. Bravo had comissioned him to write an essay about the future of human evolution, which they then took out of context by summarizing it into a news release to make it look as though it were factual science.

Publications
Journal Articles
* Curry, O. S., Price, M. E., & Price, J. G. (in press). Patience is a virtue: cooperative people have lower discount rates. Personality and Individual Differences.
* Curry, O. (2006). Who's afraid of the naturalistic fallacy? Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 234-247.
* Curry, O. (2003). Evolutionary psychology: "fashionable ideology" or "new foundation"? Human Nature Review, 3, 81-92.
* Curry, O. (2003). Get real: Evolution as metaphor and mechanism. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 5(1), 112-117.
* Price, M. E., Brown, W. M., & Curry, O. S. (forthcoming). The integrative framework for the behavioural sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
* Curry, O. (under review). Rational choice theory in biology and economics. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Book Chapters
* Curry, O. (forthcoming). The conflict-resolution theory of virtue. In W. P. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral Psychology (Vol. I). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
* Curry, O. (forthcoming). Selfish gene theory. In T. Benton (Ed.), The Seventy Great Mysteries of Nature: Thames & Hudson.

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