Richard Dawkins - known for his ”brilliance and wit” (New Yorker) - is one of the most influential scientists of our time and holds a chair at Oxford University. His highly acclaimed books include The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene and A Devil’s Chaplain; the New York Times has called him ”one of the most incisive science writers alive.” The Ancestor’s Tale, loosely based in form on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, offers a comprehensive look at 4 billion years of evolution.
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Tagged with “homo sapiens”
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Richard Dawkins | The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
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What Makes Us Human: Part 1 - Others
Are humans unique or do we just do some things a little better than other species? In the first of our two-part series on the nature of humanity: how the influence of others has shaped our evolution.
Find out how baby talk gave root to human language and why social isolation can make us sick. Plus, the joke’s on us – new research says we’re not the only laughing species: meet your giggling gorilla cousins.
And, what a writer’s visit to a chimp retirement center revealed about human discomfort with our animal ancestry.
Dean Falk – Anthropologist at Florida State University and author of Finding Our Tongues: Mothers, Infants, and the Origins of Language John Cacioppo – Director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago and co-author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection Lori Marino – Biologist at Emory University Kathryn Denning – Anthropologist at York University Charles Siebert – Author of The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals Marina Davila-Ross – Psychologist at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K.
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On Point: How Cooking Made Us Human
We were apes before we were humans. But humans were the onetime apes who ultimately mastered fire and cooked.
Primatologist and anthropologist Richard Wrangham says that in evolutionary terms, that made all the difference. And not just because it put flambé on the menu.
Fire meant proto-humans could cook. Cooking, he says, meant they could get dense, empowering nourishment. Then came bigger brains, a different body and — voila! — homo sapiens. Complete, he says, with a social structure built around that fire.
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/09/how-cooking-made-us-human