Mark Pagel

I am an evolutionary biologist working in England, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. I use statistical and mathematical methods to study the general evolutionary processes responsible for the diverse array of species we see around us. My interest in human evolution focuses on the social and cognitive differences between our species and all others, and which have allowed us to spread out around the world. Humans are unique among the large animals in having adapted their lifestyles to be able to live in habitats as diverse as deserts, tropical forests, savannahs, marshes and polar ice -- almost as if we are so many distinct biological species.