I make time outside of work immediately available for very few things in life, but discussing topics I love in science with people who feel genuine curiosity towards them seems always like the best way one could spend a given second. Please do reach out if any of the below trigger your curiosity or joy - I’d love to dive into/pick apart/build mental models of these subjects with an eclectic group of fellow study travelers!

I’m at ldeming.www@gmail.com, or DM on Twitter at @laurademing - feel free to include a quick summary of the questions you’d most love to discuss.

Questions I’m interested in:

• What is evolution?

  • I really struggle to understand what evolution is, what exactly evolution by natural selection implies, and what the most modern synthesis of this field looks like. If you are well read in this field and feel like chatting, boy would I ever love to talk.

  • I’m confused about basic things, like what would it mean to show that a given mechanism (be it natural selection, neutral molecular evolution, or something else) explains evolution? I really just don’t understand how to think about this question.

• What is life? Along a variety of different axes -

  • What are the most beautiful mental models we can usefully manipulate of living things (book.bionumbers.org thought experiments are the main place I play here)

  • Physics has Newton’s Laws, what are these for life (I’m interested in how we can really use evolution by natural (or other) forms of selection as naturally as possible, and what other laws of this generality there are to be discovered - I want to find them!)

    • Relatedly, I’m inspired by Schrodinger’s “What is Life” and the specific prediction around aperiodic crystals containing information influencing both Crick and Watson, although I understand there is some debate around the originality and causality here

  • Related to the second point (although not obviously so) - group behaviors in lots of different contexts (the evolution of cooperation is a question that would be explained by the laws I’m interested in finding, what’s up with language, collective computation - something I don’t understand but which sounds related to my interests).

  • I’m interested in non-equilibrium stat mech in this context, but don’t understand that body of work well enough to think about it usefully or critically - I’d love to talk to you if you have strong opinions though.

Curricula I’m actively studying:

Math:

Linear Algebra Done Right - Axler (Section 3D as of 07/30/2023) - Section 5A as of 2024-03-05

Calculus - Spivak (~Chapter 5 as of 07/30/2023)

Biology:

Population Genetics - Graham Coop (Chapter 3 as of 07/30/2023)

Evolutionary Dynamics - Martin Nowak - done as of 2024-02-28, in a journal club with a friend. This was my second time going through the book, and I think I absorbed ~half of it? I’d be open to reviewing or teaching this material again.

Books I’m moving through, but would love support on as they are more ad-hoc

All of Statistics - Wasserman (Chapter 2 as of 07/30/2023)

Mathematical Models of Social Evolution for the Perplexed - Richard McElreath and Robert Boyd (similarly to the above, except I’m still trying to understand the concepts in the first chapter to my satisfaction!)

book.bionumbers.org (I’ve read an Anki’d at different points many of the numbers in this book - I’ve spent months studying it, but currently don’t have a good daily thought experiment practice which forces me to use concepts from all different dimensions, which frustrates me. If you’d like to go through it together, I’d be very happy to tutor you on different concepts as it reinforces the material)

Historical texts that I’ve tried to work through but would always be down to discuss in specific detail:

Origin of the Species - Darwin (I’ve read this multiple times and used to carry it around and still barely understand many of the data-driven points, while I do think I’ve internalized the basic axioms Darwin proposed for natural selection)

Genetical Theory of Natural Selection - Fisher (I might just be masochist in lugging this one around, as I don’t think it’s likely to be the best explanation, but I like original texts and would love to discuss it with you if you have takes)

Equations:

The Price Equation - I hate that I still don’t understand this (like I get the form, I just don’t get it!) and would love to talk about / form mental models of it

Bodies of work:

I’m currently very interested in understanding

• Martin Nowak’s work and work in this general field (in particular, what beautiful ideas or strong theories are around games on structured populations)

Concepts:

These ones seem generically quite confusing/hard to understand:

• Inclusive fitness

• Group selection

• Level of selection

If you have clear understandings of the above, I would love to talk to you!

Papers:

This paper (Martin Nowak, EO Wilson and Corina Tarnita from 2010) - I’d really like to understand what this paper says, particularly the mathematical appendix! Relatedly, I’d really like to understand the concept of inclusive fitness.