On Humans

Modern cities are unique. Never before have so many people lived so close to each other. But just how unique is our modern cosmopolitanism? Completely unique, says a traditional theory. Humans evolved to live in groups. These groups were not only smaller than modern cities. They were smaller th...

Infinity is a puzzling idea. Even young children are fascinated by its various manifestations: What is the biggest number? Does the universe have an edge? Does time have a beginning? Philosophers have tried to answer these questions since time immemorial. More recently, they have been joined by s...

Why are we furless? Why do we cook our food and use spoken language? And how does climate change, sashimi, or the banks of Central America relate to human origins?  Human evolution is a deeply puzzling topic. But behind this dense mist lies many keys to our self-understanding. To guide us through...

We are conscious creatures. But why? Why did consciousness evolve? Can we use biology to explain the origins of feeling and meaning? Or will consciousness forever escape the grip of the scientific method?  Eva Jablonka has thought hard about these issues. An eminent evolutionary biologist, she be...

Why do we love? What brings us together? How to heal ethnic hatred? According to my guest, the answer to all these questions lies in the human desire to grow ourselves through connecting with others. Arthur Aron is a psychologist who studies human bonding in all its forms. A pioneer in the fiel...

Can evolution shed light on our mental health? Nikhil Chaudhary thinks so. He is an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge who specialises in the links between evolution and psychiatry. In this clip, Dr Chaudhary explores the evolutionary origins of ADHD, depression, and anxiety. For our...

We expect a lot from parents, especially from mothers. “Maternal instincts” are such, we are told, that mothers should gain almost literal superpowers from the joy of parenting.  Unfortunately, many parents face a different reality. Having children can be one of the most stressful times of life, ...

Happy New Year 2024! To celebrate the new year, Spotify sent me a bunch of data points about 2023. I was particularly interested in one question: which conversation moved people the most? I already knew which episode people played the most. (That's episode 17 with Bernardo Kastrup.) But to li...

This is the final episode of 2023. And it is an odd episode. My guest is Gregory Forth. He is an anthropologist who specializes in the biological theories of indigenous peoples. Forth was doing this work on the Flores Island, Indonesia, during the 2003 discovery of a new hominin species: Homo f...

Capitalism can cause massive economic inequalities. Indeed, a century after Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations , the richest 1% owned a record-breaking 70% of England’s wealth. Not surprisingly, this era saw the rise of a very different economic theorist: Karl Marx. [You can see this and many o...