What does a mathematician studying bacteria have to do with queerness, spirituality, and the more-than-human world? In this episode, Sara sits down with her old college friend Ben Allen, a mathematician whose work models how cooperation evolves — from iron-sharing bacteria to communal-nesting birds to human communities. The conversation moves from the mathematics of cooperation into Ben's current research on the evolution of same-sex sexual behavior, which has now been documented in more than 1,500 species.

Key Topics & Timestamps

• 00:00 — Intro: welcome to ReMembering and ReEnchanting
• 01:05 — Meet Ben Allen: mathematician, old friend, and researcher on evolution and queerness
• 02:56 — From pure math to evolutionary biology: how Ben's path shifted
• 04:26 — Why organisms cooperate — and why "survival of the fittest" is an incomplete story
• 06:27 — The bacteria that share iron with their neighbors
• 08:18 — Modeling evolution mathematically: networks, neighbors, and cooperation
• 09:13 — From microbes to mammals: what changes (and what doesn't) when culture enters the picture
• 11:03 — Local connection as a strategy for large-scale activism
• 12:52 — Other paths to cooperation: kin selection, reciprocity, and reputation
• 14:26 — What evolution actually means: reproduction, inheritance, and mutation
• 16:53 — A parallel to religious tradition: continuity and change in tension
• 17:42 — What "reproduction" really means across the tree of life (sexual, asexual, horizontal gene transfer)
• 19:37 — What biologists actually mean by "male" and "female" — and why the definition breaks down
• 23:04 — Evolution "finds a way": clonal fish, sex-changing anglerfish, and the limits of a human template
• 25:45 — Sex beyond reproduction: play, pleasure, and social bonding across species
• 26:43 — The 2019 paper reframing same-sex behavior in animals
• 31:28 — Ben's current research: could early marine life not even "see" sex at all?
• 33:15 — Deep-sea squid, imperfect filtering, and why indiscriminate mating can be an advantage
• 36:37 — Two evolutionary strategies: cost of mating vs. population density
• 38:36 — Connection, yearning, and sociability across species
• 41:10 — Individual variation: why generalizing about any species misses the truth
• 42:16 — "A very queer evolutionary story"
• 43:20 — Darwin's Victorian assumptions — and what we're still unlearning
• 44:40 — Why queer scientists ask different questions — and why that matters
• 45:31 — Situated knowledge, Donna Haraway, and the case for many vantage points
• 46:23 — Closing reflections and thanks

Ben Allen is a Professor of Mathematics at Emmanuel College, Boston, MA. Their research focuses on mathematical modeling of evolution—in particular the evolution of social (other-directed) behavior. Their work has appeared in Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and The Atlantic. 

Send us a message

Support the show

Learn more about Sara Jolena Wolcott and Sequoia Samanvaya

Music Title: Both of Us

Music by: madiRFAN 

Don't forget to "like" and share this episode!