The Powerful and Dangerous Capacity for Belief

The question, what does it mean to be human, demands answers from many fields of study. Agustín Fuentes has looked to anthropology for answers to this question but the answers he has found speak to something that is bigger than science. He proposes that one of the things that make us human is our ability to believe. 

Fuentes teaches anthropology and primatology at Princeton University. His studies have brought him around the world, to cities and to remote jungles. He’s written several books, including his most recent, Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being, a book that came out of his Gifford Lectures. 

This episode was originally aired on December 17th, 2020. 

Theme song and credits music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Other music in this episode by Northern Lights, courtesy of Shutterstock, Inc. 

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