the evolution of human nature

We are socially embedded beings, and we wouldn't have evolved into what we are without being such. Below, journalist Natasha Mitchell talks with Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis - about the evolution of human relationships, sexuality and character. Hrdy argues it's our capacity to imagine that allows us to create our complicated social systems.

'It takes a village': the evolution of human nature

Listen Now - 03102009 Download Audio - 03102009 [Play]

What most distinguishes us from other apes? Our naked flesh? Language? Our empathic ways? Acclaimed anthropologist and sociobiologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has spent her long research career upending assumptions about sex, reproduction and the evolution of human nature. She joins Natasha Mitchell to discuss her new book Mothers and Others, and why it took a village to generate a big brained human child.

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Transcripts are published Wednesdays. Audio is published directly after broadcast on Saturdays.

Guests

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Professor Emerita
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Davis
http://www.citrona.com/hrdy/index.html

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE PODCAST: HERE